Left: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and Elvis Costello play at Sasquatch! Music Festival 2013. Right: Confetti falls on the crowd, and Purity Ring takes the stage at Capitol Hill Block Party 2013.
ROCKING PANORAMAS KING GORGE
PHOTOGRAPHS CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: DAVID CONGER, SUZI PRATT, DAVID LICHTERMAN / COURTESY KEXP, MORGAN SCHULER / COURTESY KEXP
Sasquatch! Music Festival May 23–25, July 4–6; the Gorge Amphitheatre, George; sasquatchfestival.com Carved into basalt cliffs high above the Columbia River in central Washington, a natural amphitheater—is the sort of venue that draws music pilgrims from around the world. The sun sets behind the stage, spreading its hazy late-day glow over the valley, the campgrounds, and desert landscape beyond. For more than a decade, Sasquatch! Music Festival has been the high point of the Gorge’s annual lineup: a Memorial Day weekend celebration featuring some of the hippest acts in indie rock, hiphop, pop, comedy, electronic, and more. Everyone from Coldplay to the Pixies has done a tour at the Gorge, and 2013’s headliners—Mumford and Sons, Sigur Rós, the Postal Service, and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis—reflected both the festival’s diversity and its commitment to Northwest artists. (Mack and Lewis and the Postal Service are homegrown.) One might say that, like its namesake,
Sasquatch has grown too big. Since its inception in 2002, the fest has gone from a single day to four, and tickets have consistently sold out within hours of release. This year festival organizers expanded the series to two separate three-day events—over Memorial Day and the Fourth of July weekends—with entirely different lineups. Outkast, Queens of the Stone Age, M.I.A., Neko Case, and the Violent Femmes are featured in May. Soundgarden, New Order, Shelby Earl, and Spoon are among those headlining July. Let it be known: everything’s bigger at the Gorge. INSIDER TIP General camping, which is included with a festival pass, can turn into a frat party. Find alternatives at tourgrantcounty.com. STREET BEATS
Capitol Hill Block Party July 25–27; Union to Pine Streets between Broadway and 12th Avenues, Seattle; capitolhillblockparty.com
We get older, but Capitol Hill Block Party stays the same age. One of Seattle’s urban music festivals consumes Pike and Pine streets—known to locals as the PikePine corridor—for a weekend every July, with twentysomethings in fluorescent tank tops (and thirtysomethings looking pleasantly bewildered) rocking out to hip-hop, rock, and electronic music. It’s an all-afternoon, late-night event packing multiple venues in the city’s oh-so-hipster neighborhood. With a wristband, it’s easy to pop inside Neumos nightclub for a dance party, stumble back into the sunshine to catch a rising Seattle band at the Vera stage, grab a cold beverage at a beer garden, and claim territory for the nighttime headliner, be it Fitz and the Tantrums, the Flaming Lips, or Girl Talk (some of past years’ main attractions). Relive the days when you, too, could rock and roll all night. Some of the biggest names play a session in Caffé Vita or Barboza, Neumos’s basement bar, capacity 200. INSIDER TIP
WWW.EXPERIENCEWA.COM WASHINGTON STATE VISITORS’ GUIDE 2014
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