_{All photos by Justin Renney}

Ouch. Bumbershoot is now officially kicking my ass. Bumbershoot and booze. Kicking. Ouch.

Hey! Have I told you about Art Brut? Are you sick of me talking about them yet? Too bad, because unless the Wu Tang Clan just kill it tonight, I’m gonna call Art Brut as the best thing going all weekend. Better than the bike-powered rides. Better than shortcake. I saw a lot of stuff yesterday, and I guess I should still do the run down, but everything just pales totally in comparison to them. I’ll only talk about them twice more in this post, promise.

The Watson Twins played a breezy afternoon set of upbeat, golden AM country (“Two Timing”) and mellow, yearning ballads (“Fade Out,” “Old Ways”). Their four-piece backing band smiled and played like session musicians enjoying the hell out of themselves. A ukulele lent some songs a flamenco flavor, occasional “oohs” evoked Spector R&B or doowop, but slide guitar kept things grounded in country. The Twins traded duties on acoustic guitar and tambourine, breaking out a harmonica for “Old Ways,” and always singing in easy harmony.

From one pair of traditionalist siblings to another. The Holmes Brothers kicked off their set with some pat banter that made me think the old dudes might not know what time it was (“How you doing this evening?” “Feels good tonight”). Keeping track of time was not their concern, though, as evidenced by their first song, a wailing but one-million year long electrified blues jam on “Amazing Grace.”

Hey! It’s time to talk about Art Brut again! I caught the band’s afternoon set for KEXP at the “Secret Location.” I didn’t think I could get any more excited about seeing this band, but I was wrong. As they launched into “Pump Up the Volume” and tore through “Bad Weekend,” I squirmed in my seat and tapped my feet, growing only more eager to see them that evening and do some proper dancing and jumping around. From yesterday’s comments: “Can someone explain to me why they like them so much???” I’ll try. Art Brut are amazing live. The band is tight enough to pull little musical jokes, for the Swedish-looking guitarist to pull faces and work the crowd, and mainly to back up Eddie Argos’ brilliant but not terribly tuneful lyrics and spoken digressions. And Argos is simply the greatest frontman this side of Tim Harrington. He looked like a dapper yet messy kid in slacks, dress shirt, and socks but not shoes. He ranted about the tragic deterioration of record shops (“They sell DVDs and video games! We want records!”) and told the crowd to stop listening to the advice of pop singers and to start their own bands. He jumped rope with the mic chord. He sang about the “secret location” on the chorus of the goosebump-inducing “Emily Kane.” They played: “Pump Up the Volume,” “Bad Weekend,” “St Pauli,” “My Little Brother,” “Post Soothing Out,” “Emily Kane,” “Nag Nag Nag Nag” (one better than Caberet Voltaire), and a mix up of “Direct Hit” and “Formed a Band.”

Next, I watched the beginning of Barrington Levy’s incredibly populist, crowd-pleasing, but not all that impressive set. Airhorns sounded, a hypeman talked Levy out onto the stage (“Barrington Levy is in the building”—what building?), and the crowd threw hands up, tossed beach balls, and gave off appreciative puffs of smoke. Levy skanked across the stage like a kid and led the crowd through some call and response and some impossible motormouth scatting.

Apples in Stereo were playing the same lawn where I saw Of Montreal last year, and I couldn’t help but long for that other Elephant Six band. Don’t get me wrong, Apples in Stereo sounded fine, just more traditionally psychedelic, jammy, and classically poppy than Of Montreal. Their keyboardist even wore a tin foil and rainbow jumpsuit/cape ensemble that looks like it came from the same wardrobe as Kevin Barnes’. But I’ve never heard an Apples in Stereo song that’s grabbed me that much. (Line Out readers, is there a song that would win me over?) They’re what I might describe as a great band to watch from the beer garden if I were a wag.

What kind of a godless atheist would I be if I didn’t catch at least one satanic metal band at Bumbershoot? Book of Black Earth sounded just brutal on the EMP’s sound system, and I can even kind of get into the cheesy, computerized flame-and-skull motif happening on the led screen behind them. The greatest thing about Book of Black Earth, and Teen Cthulu before them, is their ability to combine seriously crushing metal with a rare sense of humor. TJ Cowgill delivered all his between song banter in full cookie-monster metal growl, lending an extra layer of funny to shit like: “Cast a 9th level spell against security if you have to” “This song’s about our booking agent, it’s called ‘Agent of Destruction’,” and, after a blond girl jumped onstage and bear hugged him: “My ex-girlfriends are crazy, and they’re everywhere.”

Which brings us back to Art Brut! I stopped taking notes during their set for the first time all weekend. I planned on being way too busy rocking the fuck out, and I was. Alotted an hour and 15 minutes to play, Argos joked that we’d be hearing not just b-sided but pretty much everything the band ever recorded. While that wasn’t literally true (a shame), it was pretty close. I didn’t get a setlist, but if someone out there has one, send it in to egrandy@thestranger.com and I’ll post it. Highlights included “Bad Weekend,” “Bang Bang Rock’n’Roll,” “Emily Kane,” “Rusted Guns of Milan,” and the insane blow out of “Good Weekend/Formed a Band.” Argos’ leap into the crowd to wander around (still only in socks?) was pretty great, too. I was shocked—shocked!—that more people weren’t dancing and singing along, but there was a good little pack of kids up front that were into it. The appeal of Art Brut is twofold—they’re one of the hardest, slickest rock bands around, and they’re one of the smartest. You can dig Art Brut for their clever, inside-jokey lyrics, or you can just get down with their kick-ass riffs and rock show stagecraft. And if you can’t dig Art Brut or get down with them, then I just don’t know what to do for you.

Their set (with thanks to Chris):

1. Pump up the Volume
2. Bad Weekend
3. Bang Bang Rock and Roll
4. These Animal Menswe@r
5. Blame it on the train
6. Modern Art
7. St. Pauli
8. Rusted Guns of Milan
9. Late Sunday Evening
10. 18,000 Lira
11. I Will Survive
12. Moving to LA
13. Jealous Guy
14. My Little Brother
15. Post Soothing Out
16. Emily Kane
17. Nag Nag Nag Nag
18. Direct Hit
19. Good Weekend
20. Formed a Band

I missed most of Devendra Banhart set milling around backstage, waiting to do a brief interview with Argos, but I did catch their interpolation of Fleetwood Mac during one of their electrified new songs.

People were exiting the Memorial Stadium in droves, but Fergie’s set wasn’t done yet. A dozen people—dancers, hypeman, a band maybe—were bouncing around the stage, but Fergie wasn’t among them. The hypeman rhymed “Seattle” with “battle” (ooh!) and led the crowd in some kind of this side/that side cheering contest. Then Fergie took the stage, commanding the crowd to “raise your hands if you’ve ever been on Perez Hilton!” What the fuck, that’s got to be everyone in the crowd, right? That’s like Chris Rock says about “Mo Money, Mo Problems”: something everyone can relate to. Fergie’s voice is nasal and weak live. She was wearing latex (or rubber?—probably something waterproof) pants. I lasted about half a song.

Hey, did I mention Art Brut?!