With over one hundred thousand visitors daily from all over the World the Seattle Arts Festival, more fondly known as Bumbershoot, is easily the biggest festival of its kind on the planet and electronicmusic.com was there to check it out.

FRIDAY August 29 1997

The first day of the festival was spent wandering around and checking out all the various venues, which totalled over 30 separate stages ranging from small designated areas dotted around the Seattle Center campus through to a 30,000 person capacity stadium, home to the biggest shows.

The only electronic music related attraction on this day was actually something violently electrical. Dr. Electrics House of Shock (or short, as the case may be). As the arcing blue white raw energy made my insides turn to jelly the smell of ozone drifted across and I knew I wanted this to last forever. Pure power, but alas brief and oddly nonexistant.

There was another exhibition of an electronic nature that I happened upon, that of a Microsoft sponsored Sony "Make Your Own Website" promotional thing which basically consisted of a truck trailer full of PC's (Sony Vaio's) that seemed to be crashing one after the other. All the teenagers in attendance seemed to accept this as a normal occurence for Windows95 and one by one stood zombielike as a beleagured IT tech took his turn at their machine.

SATURDAY August 30 1997

With queues hundreds of yards long to see relatively obscure local bands perform I realised that this really was the place to get seen by capacity generic crowds. After sneaking peeks into most of the afternoon venues only to find much of the same thing - guitar rock - I finally realised I was well and truly entombed in guitar town USA and accepted that there was only one event that even vaguely resembled an electronic music act, Medeski Martin & Wood, which wasn't even until later in the day. In the meantime I decided to visit the KCMU tent who along with 107.7 The End are responsible for supplying Seattle with liberal doses of cutting edge progressive music of the electronic variety. What I learned was that their sponsored stages were host to Rockabilly and Blues acts only which was confusing as the majority of their programming is decidedly futuristic sounding. Nevertheless Dick Dale did indeed rock as did most of the other bands I happened to hear while walking by.

The same policy of "tried and tested" musical genres actually makes up the majority of the bands at this years festival with artists such as Cheryl Crow, Blues Traveller and a multitude of acoustic bands dominating the ambience.

Finally, on this the second day of Bumbershoot at around 7:00PM, John Medeski (of Medeski, Martin & Wood) took the mainstage and ripped into a free form jazz expedition. Okay so there are no actual electronic instruments present (a concert grand piano, Hammond B3 and a Wurlitzer electric piano) but at least it's better than the CajunFolkGuitar PopSalsaBlues mix I'd been subjected to so far.

SUNDAY August 31 1997

With Cheryl Crow managing to half fill the mainstage I checked out a great show by Zap Mama on the Luaka Bop Records Showcase Stage then headed straight to the Opera House to hear Jane Siberry sing.

Along with a female backing vocalist and a keyboard player (Concert Grand, Kurzweil) Jane hit the high and low notes and nearly all the notes in between like the consummate professional she is. I'd never heard of her before today but I'll never forget that voice.

Unfortunately the tinkly piano accompaniment became a little too Teshesque, and shortly after a trumpet player joined the party I left.

That about wrapped up my Sunday and again Bumbershoot was a heavenly place for the tie died set but kind of a drag for yours truly. Lets see what Monday brings.

MONDAY September 1 1997 (David Byrne Day)

Finally Monday and not only is David Byrne in town but he's brought along a few of his friends to give us all a special treat. A full on electronic extravaganza that packed the stadium out and actually had those in the furthest reaches of the stands on their feet, for the first time all weekend, which prompted all the local hip music papers to completely ignore his show. A rare tribute indeed.

Taking the stage donned in a full piece pink fluffy suit Mr. Byrne started his set with the classic Once In A Lifetime and instantly had the audience mentally preparing for a full on show that would exceed all their wildest dreams. Backed by a bassist, keyboard playing mixing percussionist, theremin playing backing vocalist and a sit down no holds barred beyond professional keyboard player David awed those who were seeing him for the first time and wowed those who kind of new what to expect.

Four costume changes and selections from most all Talking Heads releases, his amazing Brian Eno collaboration (My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts) and all his solo albums (apart from "The River") made all ears open and eyes track his every move.

What a great way to end an exhausting weekend. Special thanks go out to Terri Hiroshima and Christian Lewis in the on-site One Reel production office, and Karina Rostek down at the stadium.

Rating - 801,548 (out of a possible 1,000,000)

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