The endure got into the festival spirit on the second day of Bumbershoot 2008 on Sunday. The temperatures were mild, not unco cold like Saturday's, and the sun came out in the afternoon.
Sunday's fluffly white clouds were in contrast to Saturday's sinister overcast skies of gray and black. On Day 2, whitney Moore Young Jr. Bumbershooters even braved the waters of the International Fountain, sousing themselves in the spraying. On Saturday that would have brought on chilblains.
Although official attendance figures aren't in in time, Seattle Center's 40 estate did not seem as crowded Saturday and Sunday as in past years. However, virtually all the Mainstage shows were packed to the capacity � about 23,000 � both days. And the three clowning stages, inside the Vera Project and the Intiman and Charlotte Martin theaters, were standing-room-only for every show.
Overheard in the railway line waiting to get into rapper T.I.'s Mainstage show Sunday afternoon: "Dude, I wish I had a Mini-Me to stand in line for me."
Full venues can be a miscellaneous blessing at Bumbershoot. Those who can't get into the filled venues may discover something else they like at one of the outdoor stages, or at the art or literary venues, or even take in one of the street performers garbled throughout the grounds.
Folks were ooohing and aaahing at 15-year-old yo-yo champ Sterling Quinn, for instance, near the solid food booths cicily Isabel Fairfield of the Mural Amphitheatre. "Help Me Get To The National Yo-Yo Contest," read a hand-painted house next to his hat on the ground, filled with donations.
The crowds this year tend toward jr. people, teens to 30-somethings, said Jon Kertzer, who's been mired in Bumbershoot, as a booker, dining table member and now in an advising capacity, since 1974. He works for Microsoft's Zune project and has an international-music wireless show on KEXP-FM.
"For a while in that location was more of a baby-boomer core audience," he said. "Now it's more than of a � I hate to use the term 'Gen-X' � merely it's more of an audience in their 20s and 30s, who hold small kids and stuff."
He pointed out that thither didn't used to be acts that could fill the stadium.
"In the sure-enough days, the biggest venue was the Opera House. It was a smaller, more versed festival. But the stunner of the festival remains that you can find new things." He cited his have personal discovery of the Asylum Street Spankers, an acoustic vapors and jazz band that played the Mural Amphitheatre on Saturday.
David Meinert, a local rock group manager and Bumbershoot programming consultant, recommends the Physics, a mellow, local, hip-hop trio from the South End, acting today at 2:30 p.m. on the Fisher Green Stage.
"They couch out a really outstanding album, 'Future Talk,' last year. They're like Blue Scholars a couple of years ago, when they played Bumbershoot." The Scholars are now one of Seattle's top hip-hop acts.
Meinert also recommends Dan Deacon, an electronica artist playing the Exhibition Hall Stage at 4:15 p.m. today.
Kertzer recommends Xavier Rudd, tonight at Fisher Green, release on at 9:15 p.m. Rudd's an Australian whose arsenal of instruments includes a didgeridoo.
Other Sunday notables:
Best overheard conversation � Near the Meldi Madness "Henna for the Masses" booth, a mother and a shirtless young man were admiring a modern, arm-length henna tattoo on his right arm.
"Put your shirt on, honey, it's cold."
"No. I want everybody at shoal to think I got a tattoo."
"School doesn't start up until Tuesday. Aren't you going to shower ahead then?"
Boy newmarket to think. "Um, no, I'm not."
Best cheap Bumbershoot souvenir � Photos from the $3 picture booths on the third base floor of Center House and in the Fun Forest games building.
Loneliest seat at Bumbershoot Sunday � The Lost Kids booth inside Center House.
"The only person who's occur by today was a girl wHO we reunited with her parents here when she was 6," said one of the staffers, wHO preferred non to give her nominate. "She hugged me and said, 'I'm 18 and in high school. I'm, like, old now. But I'll never forget you guys.' "
Patrick MacDonald: 206-464-2312 or pmacdonald@seattletimes.com
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