When the new Bumbershoot crew put their first arty foot forward last month, outlining plans to make the long-running festival about more than music again, it was meant as a statement. But Steven Severin, a Seattle concert promoter who co-owns Neumos and has thrown shows in this town for 25 years, knows all eyes are going to be on the “re-imagined” fest’s musical slate as his New Rising Sun group steers the beloved and embattled event into its next era.
The intrigue around Bumbershoot’s four-years-in-the-making return to Seattle Center Sept. 2-3 couldn’t be higher, and even in regular years, its lineup announcement is arguably Seattle music’s most heavily scrutinized event.
“We’re bringing all these different aspects to Bumbershoot as well — bringing the art, bringing the education — but we know in Year One everybody’s gonna be looking at the lineup for the music and that’s what they’re gonna come for,” Severin acknowledges. “Next year, hopefully they come just because it was an awesome time.”
The wait for this year’s lineup, at least, is over. On Thursday, New Rising Sun revealed its musical tilt, mixing genres and generations with a heavy dose of punk and soul, a byproduct of Severin’s personal tastes.
Among some of the bigger names are Northwest indie-punk greats Sleater-Kinney; roots-rocking innovator Brittany Howard; Seattle-formed twang rockers Band of Horses; indie electronic star Zhu; punk heroes Jawbreaker, AFI and the Descendents; and Sunny Day Real Estate, the recently reunited emo progenitors who played Bumbershoot roughly 30 years ago and sounded mighty as ever during the second of two hometown shows at the Moore Theatre last week.
Other highlights include buzzy jazz phenoms Domi & JD Beck; heavyweight DJs Fatboy Slim and A-Trak; synth rockers Phantogram; indie-pop duo Matt and Kim; New Orleans rockers The Revivalists and second-line staples Rebirth Brass Band; soul men Durand Jones and Jacob Banks; boom bap revivalist Benny the Butcher; electro-cumbia stalwarts Bomba Estéreo; U.K. shoegazers Ride (performing 1992’s “Going Blank Again”); singer-songwriters Cassandra Lewis and Valerie June; European psych rockers Temples and Slift; punk bands Screaming Females and Destroy Boys; South African DJs Uncle Waffles and Major League Djz; garage rockers Hunx & His Punx; and electronic experimentalist Debby Never, who’s set to drop her whirling and pulsating debut album Friday via Sub Pop.
“I gotta tell you, it’s scary to go out with this lineup, because it’s not LCD Soundsystem and Lizzo and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,” Severin says, “because we’re not charging $350 a day, so we can’t have that.”
Beyond showcasing artists of all stripes from Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, one of Severin’s mandates was reducing ticket prices, which had become an increasingly sore subject among Seattleites who remember Bumbershoot’s more accessibly priced days. Having Amazon underwrite a chunk of discounted early bird tickets, which Severin says were gobbled up “way faster than we had expected,” was part of the plan. (Tickets currently run $110 for two-day passes, $65 for single-day, plus fees. For comparison, tickets for the last Bumbershoot in 2019, which was three days and featured bigger headliners, started at $220.) But it also meant budgetary strategics, recruiting artists that would provide enough comeback bang for fans’ bucks without reaching for giant-star headliners that would push ticket prices up.
“This is a very different kind of thing,” Severin says, recalling telling booking agents how the nonprofit fest, which aims to train the next generation of Seattle event producers while encouraging audience participation, wasn’t working with Coachella money. “We’re trying to put together a new model that can go around the country and can hopefully catch on.”
Notably, Bumbershoot’s middle card features a number of proven hometown club fillers like the still-sizzling Dip, who have been playing to bigger and bigger crowds around the country; Thunderpussy; rappers Dave B. and Sol; blues-rockers Reignwolf and The Black Tones; and the reinvigorated True Loves, after local guitar hero Jimmy James left his post with the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio. There’s also no shortage of regional favorites from across eras, like Tacoma garage rockers Girl Trouble; Sweet Water; The Dandy Warhols; Morgan and the Organ Donors (featuring Bikini Kill drummer Tobi Vail) out of Olympia; and Seattle punk faves Wimps, returning from a little hiatus. Plus, there are can’t-miss contemporaries like Chong the Nomad, Black Ends, Breaks and Swells, Them, King Youngblood, Spirit Award and more. (Check out the full lineup below.)
Bumbershoot’s two outdoor main stages will run back to back at the International Fountain and Fisher Pavilion, with artists also performing at the Mural Amphitheatre, KEXP and Vera Project stages, plus a Broad Street dance stage. Eventually, Severin anticipates expanding Bumbershoot to a third day, as it has been in the past.
New Rising Sun might not have Lizzo, who was a late scratch (due to illness) from the AEG-helmed 2019 lineup, but Severin is hoping for an uptick in attendance from recent years.
“If we hit the 20,000 to 22,000 people a day [mark], that’s kind of our sweet spot of where, there’s a lot of room to still grow from that,” Severin says, noting in its “heyday” Bumbershoot drew around 45,000 attendees per day. “But it’s our first year. I hope that people are going to trust us. … We know there’s going to be some people who are going to wait and see, they’re going to wait until next year and they’re going to need to see that buzz going.”
Washington’s late-summer festival calendar is also increasingly busy with Day In Day Out (Aug. 12-13) also at Seattle Center, THING in Port Townsend (Aug. 25-27) and Bumbershoot’s return. While each event is unique, there’s a fair amount of overlap in their target demographics. Regardless, Severin doesn’t seem concerned about a crowded playing field.
“We want all the festivals to kill it,” he says. “I think there’s enough people here that none of us should have a problem hitting the numbers that we need to to be able to keep doing it.”
Bumbershoot 2023 music lineup
A-Trak, AFI, Algernon Cadwallader, Anabel Englund, Band Of Horses, Benny the Butcher, Beverly Crusher, Black Ends, Breaks and Swells, Brittany Howard, Bomba Estéreo, Cassandra Lewis, Chimurenga Renaissance, Chong the Nomad, Dave B., Debby Friday, Descendents, Destroy Boys, Domi & JD Beck, Durand Jones, Fatboy Slim, Fouad Masoud, Girl Trouble, Gustaf, Hunx and his Punx, Jacob Banks, Jawbreaker, King Youngblood, Long Dark Moon, Major League Djz, Massey Ferguson, Matt and Kim, modernlove., Morgan and the Organ Donors, Phantogram, Pink Boa, Pressha, Puddles Pity Party, Radioactivity, Rebirth Brass Band, Reignwolf, Ride (performing “Going Blank Again”), Scarves, Screaming Females, Simone BG, Sleater-Kinney, Slift, Sol, Spirit Award, Sunny Day Real Estate, Sweet Water, Temples, The Black Tones, The Dandy Warhols, The Dip, The Revivalists, Them, Thunderpussy, Trinix, True Loves, Uncle Waffles, Valerie June, Wimps, Zhu
