Bumbershoot Day One: Quick and Dirty

Day one's been largely covered, so here Seattlest will just fill in some gaps, bullet-style, so we can try to catch the tail end of Dengue Fever's set.

Funnel Cake - There's funnel cake to be had. 'Nuff said.

Jamie Lidell - If you've seen Lidell before, you already know how engaging a performer he is. Well, he certainly didn't disappoint this time around, doing his patented show filled with improvisation, jokes, some beautiful soul singing. And we're sure you'll hear plenty of other avenues saying he was "so hot" or "so electrifying" that he set the speakers on fire, so we'll refrain from doing so, but know that at the end of his set, some of the speakers did indeed have flames coming from them. He was singing soul, but flaming speakers is fucking punk rock.

Nomo - At the same stage in the slot following Lidell was Ann Arbor collective NOMO (with no delays after dealing the sound situation). They brought their largely instrumental funk to the Bumbershoot masses and were well-received by the crowd. Some songs felt shortened from their album versions, while others suffered from the same jam-bandy tendencies, going just a minute or so too long. That was fortunately a minor gripe, as the band certainly has chops and are worthy of your attention, in both recorded and live form.

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - Sharon Jones was the day's highlight. Her voice was strong, and you could tell she was just born to be on stage. I don't know what sort of training one has to do in order to maintain a note while doing the mashed potato, but should Sharon Jones put out a video, she could make millions. The Dap Kings provided the funk, and the only word to describe them is "tight." We were already Sharon Jones fans from her albums (go buy them - you will like them), but now we refuse to miss her. This is how music is meant to be done, and while one could call the performance "old-school," the more apt word is "timeless."

Lady Sovereign - We're not sure what show Kim saw, but the S-O-V sounded like S-H-I-T. It might have been an issue with the sound in the beer garden (those flaming speakers were the ones projecting in that direction), but Sov's performance just left a lot to be desired. Even recorded she's a bit hit-or-miss, and the show came off as mainly misses, with her unable to inflect as needed, and her tiny stature swallowed up by the large stage. She's got charisma and talent in spades, but neither of those came across last night to our ears, as we walked off to catch the tail end of the lackluster Badly Drawn Boy set.

Image from flickr user drkranium