So we get bigger crowds with one fewer day, higher ticket prices, fewer acts to pay, yet the same people who constantly almost mindless champion Bumbershoot will all come back en masse anyway, so the organizers can pull a better profit.

The ratio of crowds and long lines to the actual amount of entertainment were what drove me away and I'm definitely not alone in that sentiment. And now, first hand accounts that those very things have indeed gotten even worse.

It's the local equivalent of an annual tourist trap.

the first two lines i got in ended telling me they were at capacity. AND HOUR AHEAD OF SHOW TIME???

what the fuck.

but i did see the gossip, heard blondie from a grassy null, saw trapped in the closet, and got a days fill of roller derby.

seriously, the lines were abnormally long this year.

Not people holding places for friends mind you, full-on walking up and stepping in front of people who had been waiting forever to secure a place in the small venues cutting! And the fact that no-one in line called them on it or reacted sucked - thank God for the awesome Bumberstaff who pulled these jokers out of line when they saw it happening.

In other news, all the scheduling was too tight, too many kids (I hope families who saw Slovin & Allen are cool with their children seeing close-ups of man-junk) and Aziz Asrani is my new favorite.

If you line up for a show an hour before it starts, you are part of the problem of long lines. It means people who are lamer than you have to get in line an hour and 15 minutes before the show.

That being said, Roller Derby and the Rat City rollergirls:), Erase Errata (for a few songs), Thee Emergency, Common Market, and the Blue Scholars rocked my socks off.

Kanye a little overated--the samples overwhelm a lack of originality in his music.

It does, however, seem like an indisputible fact that if you come to Bumbershoot to see your favorite entertainers, one by one (rather than to merely spending the day trolling among the creepy jugglers and Everett-based tourists, admiring their ICP-meets-al Qaida taste in textiles) you must build a 1.5-hour wait time into your schedule.

Unless they're playing Memorial Stadium, of course; I saw The Gossip on Saturday (front row, close enuf to be hit with Beth's tit sweat), and it was the greatest show I'd seen in weeks -- until the 13-year-old girl next to me passed out from heat stroke.

Then, I waited in line to see Horatio Sanz and the Upright Citizens Brigade -- a good hour before the show but plenty of time to secure a front-row seat (where I again tasted tit-sweat).

Then I left. Greatest Bumbershoot ever.

The commute to Black Rock took hours. There wasn't a rock and roll band in sight, only techno. The place was crawling with unattractive naked people smeared with paint. I almost got run over by a car covered in fur. As if it wasn't hot enough, some asshole goes and lights a huge wooden statue on fire.

Fuck Bumbershoot, I'm staying home next year.

But I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who sees the forest for the trees.

When One Reel discovered they could make money from it, they packed the schedule with big-draw national acts, squeezed out most of the local acts, quintupled the ticket prices, and crammed as many people as possible onto the grounds to fight it out for limited audience space. The biggest music festival in the country! Who needs that?

At the same time I also got older and grouchier, so I'm sure that's a factor.

Four days was ridiculous when you consider the biggest music festivals in the world max at three, where anyone can see everyone, but a move to tents would finish the fix -- following the festival tradition of free-roaming over spot-hugging.

Hell, build bunkers of underground parking and do it at Discovery Park.

Done!

The crowds were easily twice as bad as last year, the festival area was smaller (but with twice as much beer garden!), the outdoor stages filled up hours before show time, and the staff made an airport-securty style joke of the re-entrance procedure (A hand stamp, a ticket stamp, AND a barcode scan? Really? Where do we give the urine sample?)

Bumbershoot is pointless if you can't wander from show-to-show to sample new and interesting acts. And when the fucking Bumbrella stage is packed, you know the situation is hopeless.

(Also, also: The knitta woman. Can her 15 minutes be over now? When it comes to tree socks, more is not better. Thanx.)

All
Slayed

This was the hip-hop 'Shoot. All the rock bands were tepid and boring. If you avoided rock, ate food, and attended the greater than ever Flatstock (Guys, Dale Flattum formerly of Steel Pole Bath Tub and Milk Cult was there.) then you had a good time as I did.

Yeah, it's work to have fun at this event as always, but I didn't have issues with lines. If they were too long, I just got food instead.

Damn, I'm fat now.

All of you ignore the altar of the BRICK O' FRIES aka Zieglers Curly Fries. Have a brick, and enjoy life.

PLUR-RRRRRRRRRRGH!

That said, I didn't have as much fun this year, and I don't think it's B-shoot's fault. I think it's because I'M GETTING OLD.

Crowds, lines, bad food - none of that shit matters when you're young. I used to wait in line FOR HOURS to be in the front row at mainstage shows and I had a blast the whole time.

Now, I'm 38 and the whole thing just has less appeal. Maybe this year was an exception, but it might be time to face facts.

You kids enjoy B-shoot. It's a great festival.

I entirely agree that the ratio of waiting-to-entertainment was way off. My girlfriend and I eventually just parked ourselves at the backyard stage and stayed there because we got tired of battling for a place at this venue or that.

The good news: Zero 7 was AWESOME. You were at Kanye? Sucker!

I scalped my ticket to Kayne to a 15/16? year old kid from Everett/Kent? for $5. So did two more of us. Not really the Bumbershoot spirit, so I felt bad... until I bought some Bahn Thai with the money.

•Twenty minutes of Jeremy Enigk.
•Twenty minutes of Mike Daisey.
•Twenty minutes of Mates of State.

Yeah, I know what you mean: in three days I only managed to see Po'okela Street Band, P:ano, The Epoxies, The Thermals, Of Montreal, Cloud Cult, The New Pornographers, the last half of Dengue Fever (whom the programmers cruelly, cruelly slotted opposite the New Pornos), The New Fangs, Mike Daisey, one hour of the film festival, The Village Green, Mountain Con, Greil Marcus, The Invisible Eyes, Go Like Hell, enough of CocoRosie to make me want to puke, and Metric.

The *only* show which I wasn't able to easily get within a few rows of the stage for was CocoRosie (which sucked anyhow -- though it was majorly crowded). The only show for which I waited more than 45 minutes or so in line was the New Pornographers -- but that's only 'cause I'm totally obsessed with them.

I did miss Jeremy Enigk, assuming that Mike Daisey would be sold out if I'd caught that show -- though this turned out not to be the case.

I say it was the best Bumbershoot in recent memory (though I would agree that the first half of Saturday's selections was underwhelming).

It's probably sacrilege to even suggest this, but perhaps Bumbershoot has outgrown the Center. Perhaps it needs something like a fairgrounds and management that is up to the task of redesign and relocation. Same with the Bite. Since the Bite has become, more or less, Adventures in Kiddieland, perhaps it needs a new venue as well.

It's almost a physical law: things deteriorate as word gets out how good they are. It happened to California. It happened to grunge. It's happened to a lot of Seattle.

I admitted it, I'm old and grouchy, and I never claimed not to suck.

I would fix Bumbershoot by eliminating most of the big name acts and focusing on locals and acts that are just about to break. That would keep the fannypack brigade to a minimum, and allow lower ticket prices. Put most things on outdoor stages with open sitelines, as others have said. Schedule Friday again, and make Friday free. Try not to be the biggest music festival in the country.

Maybe it's time for a new music festival, or maybe the CapHill Block Party is it.

don't know why. I've been to other years, skipped last year, but it just sucked the life out of me, my girlfriend, and her six year old son.

not sure why.

I didn't mind. But still mentally tired.

If they don't fix it ...

While the smaller comedy stages often looked overbooked, I thought that the organizers did a nice job of putting a wide variety of high quality acts on wait-free outdoor stages.

Just a thought, because the festival is total fucking crap as it is.