The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Cold War Kids, the Helio Sequence and more have been added to the final lineup for Bumbershoot 2009. Single day tickets go on sale on Tuesday (July 21.) Find out more here.

One Reel announced another round of artists that have been added to Bumershoot 2009, which is scheduled for Sept. 5 to 7 at Seattle Center. The latest additions include Jason Mraz, Kasabian, Audrye Sessions, the Knux, Akron/Family, Vivian Girls, the Devil Makes Three, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Maximo Park, Wale with UCB, Mira, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, 3 Inches of Blood and U.S.E.

Find a full schedule and ticket information here.

One Reel announced another round of Bumbershoot 2009 additions this morning, including the All-American Rejects, the Ting Tings, Brett Dennen, Seattle's U.S.E. The lineup will be finalized in July, according to today's announcement. Find out more on the festival site here.

One Reel released a partial lineup for the 39th Bumbershoot Festival, with Katy Perry, Modest Mouse, Sheryl Crow, De la Soul and Michael Franti & Spearhead among the big names. The lineup that's been announced so far is below. Find out more here.

Bumbershoot 2009 acts announced so far ...

Sheryl Crow, Modest Mouse, Katy Perry, Michael Franti & Spearhead, De La Soul, Raphael Saadiq, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, The Long Winters, Sly & Robbie & the Taxi Gang, World Party, MSTRKRFT, Roy Ayers, Common Market, UH HUH HER, Dave Alvin and The Guilty Women, Eric Hutchinson, No Age, Matt & Kim, Dead Confederate, The Cave Singers, Swollen Members, Vieux Farka Touré, Lenka, Gang Gang Dance, Todd Snider, Holy F**k, DJ Spooky, Iglu & Hartly, Low vs. Diamond, Sera Cahoone, Eleni Mandell, Carrie Rodriguez, The Honey Brothers, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head, Extra Golden, Cordero, Forgive Durden, Hey Marseilles, Adrian Xavier and many more to be announced.

Meant to post this announcement the other day. Jeez! Bet you never started thinking about Bumbershoot this early before. This is from the e-press release:

Seattle, WA - The 39th annual Bumbershoot: Seattle’s Music & Arts Festival announces the special holiday (and economically advantageous!) “Insider Deal”: a limited edition 3-day pass to the 2009 Festival for only $60. This specially priced ticket is available in time for holiday shopping, while supplies last, exclusively to BumberFan club members; membership is free and available online at bumbershoot.org/bumberfan.

Sigh! I miss the days when you could just show up and pay something like $15 a day anyway. Then you could drive up to Canada the next day and a car for, like, $20 with the exchange rate. Life was good then.

Another Bumbershoot is history. And among other things that means I have more time to come up with Weekly Weigh-In surveys. Ones that aren't as silly as that last on about Ice Cube's gangstaism, even. Yaaaaay!

And this week, I wanna hear from everyone who made the trip north for the big Bumberevent. Click here to cast your vote for which main stage act was best at Bumbershoot 2008.

Del the Funky Homosapien was a hit over on the Fisher Green stage with a set that included some of the songs he recorded with Deltron and Gorillaz along with his solo material.
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Bay Area singer-songwriter John Vanderslice (right) delivered one of my favorite performances of Bumbershoot '08. "Tablespoon of Coedine" is a pretty mellow number on last year's Sept. 11-themed "Emerald City" album, but it reached some seriously rockin' crescendo's in the live setting. "They Won't Let Me Run" and "Kookabura" also provided moving highlights of that set.
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Officially, I took Labor Day off. But you knew I’d check out Death Cab for Cutie’s homecoming show and post a set list for you, right? So here it is, y’all.

Death Cab for Cutie set list
Bumbershoot, Sept. 1, 2008

Bixby Canyon Bridge
The New Year
Why You’d Want to Live Here
Crooked Teeth
Long Division
Grapevine Fires (Ben Gibbard: “Sometimes beautiful things happen. They do happen.”)
Movie Script Ending (Ben dedicates to anyone from Bellingham)
Company Calls
Summer Skin
Soul Meets Body
I Will Follow You into the Dark (Ben dedicates to previous main stage band, Superchunk: “This band would not be here today without Superchunk.”)
I Will Possess Your Heart
Cath
Expo ‘86
Sound of Settling
Marching Bands of Manhattan

Encore:
Title & Registration (Nick Harmer: “Not to get all heavy here. But I want everyone to keep New Orleans in their thoughts.”)
No Sunlight
Tiny Vessels
Transatlanticism (with spark shower finale)

I kind of liked Stone Temple Pilots back in the early '90s, but I'm not especially nostalgic for their sound. Plus, part of me blames them for all those increasingly annoying grunge ripoff bands that made rock radio suck so bad at the turn of the millennium.

So I would have much rather kept kickin' it over at the Fisher Green stage with 72-year-old reggae icon Lee “Scratch” Perry Sunday night at Bumbershoot. But a lot of people seem to think the STP reunion is a pretty big honkin' deal. And I felt it my obligation as a rock critic to at least catch part of the band's main stage set over at Memorial Stadium. Besides, you never knew if embattled singer Scott Weiland would show off any of the "erratic onstage behavior" that got him booted out of Velvet Revolver.

My girlfriend and I showed up just in time to catch the guy making a request.

“Please don’t throw beers cans," he said, speaking in a spacey, disconnected voice before his band launched into grunge-era rocker, "Crackerman." I’m not particularly in the mood for beer right now.”

What? I hadn’t seen anything fly up there (granted I was pretty far back.) And I’m almost positive no one was selling canned beer at Seattle Center. Recalling how visibly wasted Weiland had appeared last time I saw STP at the Tacoma Dome years ago, I figured this could get interesting. But to his credit, the singer was charismatic and remained coherent during the tail end of the STP set, which included some of the bands biggest hits – "Creep," "Sour Girl," “Interstate Love Song” -- all delivered in front of a psychedelic backdrop of kaleidoscopic color, cascading rose petals and sub-oceanic views.

“There’s a song off our first record that even if you don’t own it you’ve probably heard it once or twice. It goes like this,” Weiland said by way of introducing “Plush,” which sparked big cheers.

The material mostly went over well, with fans singing along with their favorite parts. I enjoyed some of the catchier numbers, but it mostly sounded pretty dated. If I'm going to party like it's 1993, I would have much rather have been watching a recently reunited Soundgarden. But who wouldn't, huh? We took off a few minutes early to beat the traffic.

Ewww! What’s that smell, mon?: Reggae titan Lee “Scratch” Perry lights his incense hat early during his set on Bumbershoot's Fisher Green stage. "I don't smoke ganja anymore," he once told PopMatters.com. "I smoke incense. Because when you smoke incense, your senses are in."
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We’re at about the halfway point for the 38th annual Bumbershoot festival. And here are a few highlights from day two so far.

There’s always eye-catching spectacle to be found on Seattle Center’s International Fountain Lawn during Bumbershoot. This year there are the pro skaters and BMX riders doing their thing on the Rockstar Vert Ramp and today’s coolest discovery, Strange Fruit. Trust me, you’ll want to stop and stare if you’re passing through, like I did en route to Bumbershoot's rock poster exhibit, Flatstock. The Melbourne, Australia troupe does a hypnotic and graceful synchronized swaying routine, all of the colorfully clad performers perched atop flexible, 15-foot poles. Their last performance today will be over by 6:45 p.m., but you’ll be able to catch them again at 2:45 p.m., 4:15 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. on Monday.
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Seattle buzz the Blakes were a hit for the second year in a row over at the Exhibition Hall. The band consists of brothers Snow and Garnett Keim on bass and guitar respectively (that’s Snow in the pic), and Bob Husak on drums. It was my first time catching the power trio, which plays high-energy power-pop. A couple the songs I heard reminded me of the rauchier side of the the Posies, though I'll have to spin the copy of their self-titled Light in the Attic release that I bought to get a better handle on their sound.
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The natives were restless earlier Sunday at Memorial Stadium, their boos getting increasingly loud as Grammy nominated R&B singer Keyshia Cole remained M.I.A. half an hour past her scheduled start time. I had flashbacks of rapper Lil Wayne’s plane touching down during Summer Jam, the show he was scheduled to headline, earlier this summer at the White River Amphitheatre. But the wait wasn’t to be that long, with Cole taking the hint, getting in gear and proving worth the wait. Her booming vocals powered disgruntled women’s anthems “I Should’ve Cheated” and “I Changed My Mind.” And she dedicated a cover of Prince’s “When Doves Cry” to her mother, their relationship and her mom’s struggles with drug addition having been chronicled by BET reality show “Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is.”
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I’m headed back in now, but will have more later, including highlights of Stone Temple Pilots’ headlining show tonight at Memorial Stadium. If you're still on your way up, you can find complete ticket and scheduling details at here.

Once again, I’ve got the caffeine I.V. drip going and working wifi. So I can share a few sights and sounds from the 38th annual Bumbershoot festival. The bad news, though, is that festival organizers are only allowing Seattle and national media access for main stage photography this year, which is pretty disappointing considering how many South Sounders make the drive up I-5 to support Bumbershoot. Still, we’ll see if we can’t get a little closer for some shots of T.I. and Stone Temple Pilots today. Or, you know, some kind reader could donate one of those fancy telescopic lenses that would allow me to shoot from the back of Memorial Stadium. Hmmm? No? Eh, Worth a try.

Our own Vicci Martinez played her second Bumbershoot, this time making a splash on the more prominent Mural Amphitheatheatre. I caught up with her after she got done signing autographs. And you can click here to listen to some of what she had to say. And having built a pretty big fan base around these parts, Vicci tells me she’s starting to map out her first national tour.
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Actor, poet and pop star Saul Williams brought his punk-hop sound to the Fisher Green stage. And dressed as the character from his new “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust” album, he and his band get best outfit award, hands down. Williams dedicated the performance to Chief Seattle, and his early set included “Grippo,” Tr(n)gger” and “Black Stacey.”
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New this year is the Rockstar Vert Ramp, featuring pro skaters and stunt BMX riders a couple of times a day.
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Also new is Project X, a series of interactive time capsules placed around Seattle Center where patrons are asked to write and record short stories, leave odds and ends to be frozen and commemorate events they remembered happening in their lifetimes. That’s where I met Liz Hayden (second pic) and polished up my backwards writing skills as we communicated through a clear, plastic wall.
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And just so we don’t leave out our other local rising stars, Mono in VCF was also a hit over at the Experience Music Project on Saturday. (Singer Kim Miller shown.) This is one of Tacoma’s most promising and unique bands. I’m pretty impressed with how the sound has evolved, going, from the trendy Smiths/Joy Division-inspired post-punk they started out with when singer Charles Perales was with them to a sweeping cinematic sound with roots in ‘60s psych-pop that would make them an ideal opening act for Portishead. (Sigh! If only they’d ever play Seattle again.) Ellensberg singer-songwriter Mark Pickerel joined the band to perform a song by guitarist/keyboard player Hunter Lea’s main influence, the late Lee Hazelwood. And later that night I spotted most of these guys trying to get backstage to kick it with Beck. I’ll have to ask if they made it next time I see ‘em.
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I'd hoped to have more photos, notes and audio posted from Bumbershoot's first day at this point, but had some serious wifi issues up at Seattle Center. but the good news is that now that I'm back in T-town, I can sort through and post some of the stuff I got up there. Plus, I took down Beck's set list.

And while I love just about everything the Beckster does, this was definitely my least favorite Beck show. It was decent, but the sound was muddy, the performance was disappointingly straightforward with few of those weird live Beckisms that fans have come to expect. And what’s up with neglecting all of “Mutations"? Dude! I love that album! But it was cool to see Beck perform his existential, epic new track "Chemtrails." That song is so haunting, and the drums are just killer.

Anyway, enough of my jibba jabba. Here’s what the man played.

Beck set list
Bumbershoot, Memorial Stadium
Aug. 30, 2008

Loser
Girl
Nausea
Timebomb
Minus
Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat (Bob Dylan)
Que Onda Guero
Nicotine & Gravy
Mixed Bizness
Soul of a Man
Modern Guilt
Gamma Ray
Hell Yes (Pause for band huddle and gear change. Beck: “I wanted to get a headset microphone like N’ Sync. ... We’re gonna press some 808 buttons.” Start goofy drum machine set)
Black Tambourine (end goofy drum machine set)
Devil’s Haircut
Think I’m In Love
Youthless
Sunday Sun
Golden Age
Lost Cause
Chemtrails

Encore:
Where It’s At
E-Pro

Over the weekend a friend of mine was asking me who I was most excited to see at Bumbershoot 2008. First I thought, “@#%@! It’s less than three weeks away.” And then I answered Beck. The new album is amazing, and he always comes up with some fun gimmicks for the live show. Were those puppets at Sasquatch a couple of years ago a hoot or what?

Anyway, enough of what I think. Who are you excited about seeing on the main stage this year? Weigh in here.

P.S. You can see who's playing all the stages here.