Bumbershoot 2015: Faith No More, The Melvins, Ben Harper, Neko Case, etc.

By Jason Schreurs

Forty-five years is a long time for any festival to keep running, and to expect that Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival would stay the same all of those years is probably asking too much. With a change in production companies this year, the annual festival in the city’s downtown Seattle Centre was bound to have some quirks and bumps along the way, much to the chagrin of the paying public and longtime festival-goers (some of whom got stuck in some pretty nasty looking lineups). But, ultimately, Bumbershoot still delivered what we’ve come to expect from the long-running festival: great music, great comedy and enough arts-related things to see and do throughout the weekend.

Saturday started with abysmal weather, including a thunder and lightning shower that temporarily shut down all four outdoor stages while the majority of festival-goers either just called it a day or sought refuge in the indoor arena (this year reserved mostly for rap and dance music), or at the numerous comedy shows sprinkled throughout the festival. But not before recently reformed Babes in Toyland proved why they were such a driving force in the early ’90s alt-rock/grunge/punk scene. Led by vocalist/guitarist Kat Bjelland, the womanly trio delivered a sonic bombast that sadly was short cut by the aforementioned forces of nature. A bit sloppy, yes, but powerful as heck.

For fans of the heavier side of Bumbershoot, Sunday’s main stage lineup was the stuff dreams are made of. Starting off with a frightening afternoon performance by Portland’s garage punks Dead Moon, which sadly ended with elderly guitarist/vocalist Fred Cole collapsing on stage, the day could have had a dark cloud over it. Instead, The Melvins came out and brow-beat the sizeable crowd with their double-drum attack and tendency to test the limits of an audience’s heaviness tolerance. One of the best sets at Bumbershoot this year, hands down.

Brand New and Social Distortion walked through sets of their respective kinds of punk (poppy emo and rocked out), which led way to Faith No More. Rolling onwards from their recent reunion and new album, Sol Invictus, Mike Patton and company delivered a career-spanning set that must have been every bit as good as their heyday live show (some say The Real Thing era, others argue for Angel Dust, still others say the later-era live shows were the true legend). Having never seen them before this tour, I was completely in awe of their charisma and stage presence, not to mention how perfect each and every song they played sounded.

The holiday Monday and final day of Bumbershoot was a mellower affair, with Seattle’s Minus the Bear delivering the loudest set of the day, sprinkling their electronics amidst a deep rock rumble. A couple of new songs showed much promise as the small but dedicated crowd swayed in the evening sun. Earlier that day, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats cranked through a way-too-short set of soul-infused folk rock. Rateliff won over a lot of new fans on this day, something that the last standout performer of Bumbershoot 2015 experience two full decades prior. Yes, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals closed out the festival in the best way possible, showing why Harper has had over 20 years of success with his blues-infused rock and roll. Harper, ever-charming, was particularly excited to be playing Bumbershoot, a festival that helped give his career a jumpstart more than 20 years ago. It was the perfect way to close out a particularly strong festival, musically, even despite some evident logistical hiccups along the way.