The 74-acre Seattle Center complex was built for The Century 21 Exposition of the 1962 World’s Fair, and serves as the cultural heart of the city: home to the Seattle Opera and the Pacific Northwest Ballet, i.e., the newly transformed Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, numerous theater companies, the Pacific Science Center, The Children’s Museum, and the Experience Music Project|Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.

The centerpiece, of course, is the 605-foot Space Needle. On a rare, clear day — today was not one, alas — the observation deck offers panoramic views of the city, its surrounding mountains and Puget Sound from 520 feet above ground.

JM among others had recommended a visit to the Frank O. Gehry-designed Experience Music Project|Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. CF and MT had visited this garish, multi-colored building a few years ago, back before the SFM replaced the “Funk Blast” wing with its much-missed ride. (Incidentally, I thought I was only one for whom the connection between rock and science fiction was lost, but apparently not.)

We toured through the permanent exhibitions, which included the excellent “Sound and Vision: Artists Tell Their Stories” — EMP|SFM’s collection of videotaped oral history interviews. I could have spent a couple of hours in that room of monitors and headsets alone, but at least I got to watch the clip of Nichelle Nichols telling the terrific anecdote of television’s first interracial kiss, which occured on the “Plato’s Stepchildren” episode of Star Trek TOS. Not that I’d know anything about that… nope.

The interactive stations offered the chance to simulate keyboard, drum or guitar riffs, or to tool around with amplifier effects at the “Jimi Hendrix: An Evolution of Sound” exhibit. (Reminded me a bit of Rock Band… and we know how I feel about that.) The “Northwest Passage” traced the development of the Northwest music scene, which apparently owes a lot — much more than I ever would have guessed — to The Presidents of the United States of America. (Them again?) The original handwritten lyrics to “Lump” are enshrined here. Oh, and some band named Nirvana had a few hits, too. On display: Kurt Cobain’s Lake Placid blue Fender Mustang from the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video — pretty cool.

The SFM wing of the EMP|SFM was a cool, if random collection of science fiction memorabilia — robot toys, Star Wars action figures, a T-800 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the original model for the Death Star and a few other familiar characters.

Outside the museum, the annual Northwest Folklife Festival was taking place. Impromptu performances, the waft of incense, stalls selling hemp goods and holistic medicines… if I had been asked to guess at which of the two area festivals there would be a shoot-out this weekend, this would not have been my choice.

And live music… because we just can’t get enough. From the stage-facing beer garden, we sipped on cold beer and wine (organic, of course) as Little Big Man commanded the stage with his reggae sounds, wiling away the final hour before I hopped the Monorail (…Monorail …Monorail!) back downtown for the airport shuttle home.

Not that’s a full six hours. Once more: full Seattle flickr set.

We rolled into downtown, past the Rem Koolhaas-designed central branch of the Seattle Public Library — next time, I’ll take a tour — to CF and MT’s swanky hotel. I hung back in the lobby as they checked in, sipping the hotel’s lovely lavender lemonade, and put the question to the friendly desk clerk: six hours in Seattle — how should I spend it?

Out came the handy tourist map: it turns out that many of the city’s major sights are within walking distance of downtown, which gave me just enough time to take a brief tour before heading to the airport.

Our first stop: Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market, which claims to be the nation’s oldest continuously operating farmers market, having celebrated its centennial in August 2007. I’m skeptical, by the way, that the oldest market in America would be located in northwest Washington State; Reading Terminal Market in downtown Philadelphia claims the same distinction, and more believably.

We did a quick walk-through of the seafood stands where feisty fishmongers tossed and waved their wares before crowds of gawping tourists and locals. I was just as impressed with the flower stands with their kaleidoscopic array of fresh-cut blooms… and at prices far lower that any I’d ever encountered in New York. Local and exotic produce stands, pasta makers, specialty food purveyors with a few craft vendors rounded out the rest of the stalls.

Lunch was a quick and serendipitous stop at The Market Grill — an unassuming U-shaped lunch counter inside the market where I had one of my best fish sandwiches in recent memory. Nothing fancy: just impeccably seasoned and grilled halibut on a baguette, with grilled onions and homemade tartar sauce, served with a side of homemade slaw. At $12, the sandwich had seemed pricy initially — this coming from one accustomed to pricy sandwiches — but after that first bite, I felt it was worth every penny. Good find!

On the way out, we passed by the original Starbucks; that first cafe opened in April 1971 with an initial investment of about $10,000. (Note the original brown siren logo.) Running a cafe can be a tough business, but things seemed to have worked out for this chain with 171 stores in Manhattan alone, and a two story store set to open inside the Empire State Building next week. If only they made more of an effort to serve Fair Trade coffee…

The line of caffeine addicts stretched down the block to enter this Starbucks, despite the fact that there was no shortage of places to grab the same cup of coffee elsewhere.

Is this a sculpture of a badminton birdie? Upon closer examination, we recognized the inverted umbrella, no doubt a whimsical reference to Seattle’s reputation for rainfall. (Despite the near-constant cover of clouds, we lucked out, weatherwise, this afternoon.) “Angie’s Umbrella” (Jim Pridgeon and Benson Shaw) is located on a corner in Belltown, an artificially flattened 63-square-block neighborhood, dubbed “Seattle’s Soho” for its bohemian feel and newly trendy shops and restaurants.

At the Bell Street Pier Cruise Terminal at Pier 66, also the site of the Odyssey Maritime Discovery Center, dedicated to the history of shipping and fishing in Puget Sound.

One of our favorite sights was the Olympic Sculpture Park, a 9-acre waterfront, former industrial site that was converted into a green space for art by the Seattle Art Museum. (I do so appreciate this movement of transforming urban waterfronts into public spaces.) The $85 million park opened with a two-day celebration back in February.

From the quirkily leaning “Typewriter Eraser, Scale X” (Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen) to the monumental sculptures by artists such as Alexander Calder (whose orange “Eagle” is the centerpiece), the park offers stunning views of art and nature.

Here, on the lower level, are the five swooping, asymmetrical COR-TEN monoliths that comprise “Wake” by Richard Serra, whose work we recognized from the MoMA exhibition last summer. Elsewhere, the 6’ by 19’ fan-shaped steel cut-out of New Yorker Ellsworth Kelly’s “Curve XXIV” looked like it could have been fashioned from Serra’s studio surplus.

And in front of the Bill and Melinda Gates Amphitheater, framing a view of the Seattle waterfront, Sir Anthony Caro’s “Riviera.”

Check out the full Seattle photo set — all six hours worth — on flickr.

Josh Bis (Science vs Romance) dutifully recaps Day 3 of Sasquatch on the KEXP blog. (More photo highlights of the festival here.) The talk of the final day was The Flaming Lips finale — a jolting spectacle which featured five fully nude women, U.F.O.s, Teletubbies, flashing lights, smoke machines, balloons, confetti and streamers. (Um, fully nude women. Link NSFW, obviously.)

So with most of the day left before I had to board the redeye home, we headed into the city. From Ellensburg, it was to be a two-hour drive east on Interstate 90, over Snoqualmie Pass (population: 201) and through the snow-crusted Cascade Mountains.

Emerald City, here we come!

I arrived at the Gorge to catch the second half of Rogue Wave’s set on the Wookie! stage. Later, we would see Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel, a.k.a., Mates of State here — that cute couple from Connecticut that was profiled in the issue of New York magazine I had in my backpack that afternoon.

We caught most of their set while waiting on line at the gear concessions stand. $40 for The Cure concert tee was deemed exorbitant — why, Bob? The millions you’ve made fetishing alienation and depression not enough for you? — but $25 for the limited edition festival t-shirt more reasonable. Or so we told ourselves.

As the sun shone brightly overhead, I dug into a Philly cheesesteak at the picnic area as The Blakes wrapped up their set on the Yeti! stage. (Why is it so difficult to eat healthily at these things? In my defense, it was at least not deep fried.) Afterwards, we could hear the sounds of The Presidents of the United States of America — truncated to “The Presidents” on the program — wafting over from the Sasquatch! stage. Now, I probably haven’t thought about that particular band in about a decade, so their prominence here was a bit baffling to me. Sure, “Lump” and “Peaches” were catchy in a post-grunge novelty act sort of way, but that was 1995. Chalk it up to hometown nostalgia, I suppose. (In addition to playing the main stage, PUSA were featured glowingly — twice! — at the Experience Music Project rock museum in Seattle. But more on that later.)

I was pleasantly surprised by Michael Franti & Spearhead who brought the crowd to its feet with an extremely energetic set, sending both concert-goers and colorful beach balls bouncing up and down the hill.

Local favorites Death Cab for Cutie followed as the sun set, and the hordes really descended then, many no doubt looking to stake out prime floor spots for The Cure’s closeout show. The boys opened with new material — we approve that DCFC “avoid[ed] the post-blowup letdown with a strong new album” — before settling into more familiar tunes from Transatlanticism and Plans. Frontman Ben Gibbard, clad in black, gave shoutouts to The Cure and to The Smiths, explaining his black-wearing “because black is what I feel on the inside,” and because he was “so goddamn excited to see The Cure.” (Join the club, Ben!) He dedicated “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” to them.

[DCFC will be playing McCarren Park Pool -- with Rogue Wave -- on June 10.]

Sasquatch-induced ADD dictated that I slip out about halfway through the set to catch singer/songwriter/guitarist Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks… if for no other reason than that Malkmus was once the lead singer of Pavement, whose Slanted and Enchanted (1992) was perhaps the Greatest Indie-Rock Album Ever. (Their 1994 follow-up Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994) fares well on that assessment as well.) Pavement, which went on hiatus in 1999, is “credited with leading the lo-fi indie-rock movement of the early ’90s” and still serve as the inspiration for many modern rock bands hoping to succeed without the support of a major label.

Can’t say I’m as big a fan of the post-Pavement oeuvre. The classic rock influences are more straightforward — extended guitar riffs and such — but every once in a while, in more reflective sections, you can still hear the hints of Malkmus’ former sound.

Their set was late in getting started — lead-in The Kooks set them back by almost an hour — so by the time Malkmus and Co. took the stage, the excitement was palpable. No mystery over what many wanted to hear: I regularly heard shouts for Pavement songs, but most were satisfied with “Dragonfly Pie” and “Gardenia.” Malkmus wasn’t above teasing the audience either, remarking on how we were experiencing the nicest weather he’d ever seen at Sasquatch, although, “I heard that yesterday it was raining sideways… like, crooked rain.” Boo!

It seems that rumors of a Pavement reunion tour have been greatly exaggerated — much like the Morrissey and Marr rematch, I suppose. We can still dream… though I do hope it happens before it’s time to cash in my IRA.

After cutting out early again — really, I can count on one hand the number of full sets I caught this weekend — I found the main stage bathed in blue and violet lights for headliners The Cure, who finally emerged out of a rolling cloud of fog. Their September 2007 concert at MSG was rescheduled for my birthday in June when I’ll be out of town, so I was particularly excited about this set.

Robert Smith did not disappoint: the setlist mined the band’s extensive catalog, opening with new song “Underneath The Stars,” followed by Disintegration’s “Prayers For Rain” and Head on the Door’s “A Night Like This,” and continuing with a liberal sprinkling of the classics: “Lovesong,” “To Wish Impossible Things,” “Lullaby,” “Fascination Street,” “Hot Hot Hot!“, “Inbetween Days”…. Predictably, “Just Like Heaven” had just about everyone in the still-thick crowd on their feet dancing. Just straightforward playing, though — no banter: unlike other performers who bounded giddily around the stage, Smith spent the entire time draped over the mic, letting his distinctive voice do all the work… and it did, holding up surprisingly well after all these many years. (In body, though, 49-year old Smith is noticeably heftier, and the thick Goth make-up did his face no favors, which may explain the paucity of close-ups on the large screens flanking the stage.)

As I gazed up into the almost clear night sky, through which a few stars managed to twinkle through, The Cure broke out the moody, sentimental combination of “Pictures Of You,” “A Letter to Elise” and “From The Edge Of A Deep Green Sea” which nearly had me weeping, despite how many times I’ve heard those songs over the years.

I wish I could just stop
I know another moment will break my heart

I was probably — no, almost definitely — the biggest Cure devotee among our small group, and well into the band’s third(!) hour of playing, my friends were getting restless. By the time the second encore of old-school tunes launched — a run of “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Jumping Someone Else’s Train,” and “Grinding Halt” — The Cure had been on stage for nearly two and a half hours. At one point, Smith promised (threatened?) to play until dawn, and though I probably could have stayed on to see him take up that challenge, enough was enough. We made our way to the parking field to the strains of “10:15 Saturday Night” missing only the 31st song: “Killing An Arab.”

Going into this weekend, I hadn’t known what to expect from Sasquatch — the “circus of grossness” had been a distinct possibility — but this experience far exceeded my expectations. It was even worth missing the Brooklyn Bridge’s 125th birthday celebrations back at home. Aside from the occasional errant whiff (fully anticipated), the crowd was remarkably respectful. Or maybe just happily baked — who’s to say? A big plus was that by carefully monitoring my liquid intake, I managed to avoid the dreaded Honey Buckets altogether… perhaps the festival accomplishment of which I am most (dubiously) proud. That and squeezing my way to the front of The Breeders show on Day 1.

Revisiting old favorites and discovering new sounds were the primary reasons for attending, but the best moments I found were not the times spent rushing among the Sasquatch!, Wookie! and Yeti! stages, but the stretches spent just laying in the sun, enjoying the natural beauty of the gorge and the company of my friends. Throw in a plate of freshly fried dough and a frozen lemonade slushy, and it just doesn’t get any better.

Full Sasquatch Festival 2008 set on flickr.

We spent the early part of the afternoon along the roads of Central Washington: a pretty — and pretty fast (ouch) — drive which eventually brought us to the Wild Horses Monument on Interstate-90.

David Govedare’s sculpture of 16 wild horses was installed on this bluff near the town of Vantage for Washington State’s Centennial Celebration in 1989. Native American Govedare is one of the Northwest’s most recognized artist for his public works, including the lifesize Bloomsday runners of “The Joy of Running Together” (1986) in downtown Spokane’s Riverfront Park. (Not everyone’s a fan.)

This 200-foot line of charging horses (no two alike) can be glimpsed briefly from the interstate — if you’re not the one behind the wheel — or more leisurely from the Wanapum Vista Overlook, where we made this stop. Bonus: an expansive view of the Columbia River Valley, Wanapum Lake and the Vantage Bridge.

Govedare’s installation, created from welded 1″ thick tempered steel plates, is titled “Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies“; the scene re-creates the legend of the Great Spirit turning loose a herd of the first wild horses onto earth. There is a rather treacherous-looking trail leading up the horses, but my festival flip-flops probably wouldn’t have gotten me very far up the bluff.

Later, at the Cave B Winery adjacent to the Gorge. Inventor/neurosurgeon cum real estate developer Vince Bryan purchased this 550 acre plot of land on which he carved out 100 acres of vineyard; since then, over two dozen wineries have moved into the area. He and his wife built the neighboring Gorge Amphitheatre in 1983 (now owned by Live Nation); in the 1990s, the Bryans added the inn and resort. A golf course is in the works.

We joined up with our Chimposium-visiting friends and together signed up for a tasting of six wines: the 2006 Cave B Sauvignon Blanc; the 2007 SageCliffe 100 Chardonnay (unoaked); the 2007 Cave B Saignée Rosé; the 2006 Cave B Sangiovese; the 2004 SageCliffe Merlot; and the 2005 Cave B Syrah.

A and NO picked up a couple bottles of the Merlot for sipping out on the veranda from which we could take in the awe-inspiring view of the vines and the Columbia River Gorge, while plinking traces of the White Rabbits piano heavy set drifted over from the festival next door.

Check out the flickr sets from our afternoon.

After Michael Stipe kept us up late last night — has a hot shower ever felt more heavenly than after a long day spent outdoors? — we settled in for a leisurely morning exploring our surroundings. To answer NO’s query: this town of 15,000, incorporated in 1883, was so named in 1889 by its first postmaster John A. Shoudy, after his wife Mary Ellen.

Ellensburg’s raison d’etre is Central Washington University. MT observed that the streets were very similar to those of Ithaca… down to the signature area gorges. Our plan this morning was to visit the Yellow Church Café on South Pearl Street – a converted 1923 German Lutheran church popular among the locals for its [secular] weekend brunch. We arrived, however, to find a small crowd already gathered in the foyer: though classes were out for the semester, the otherwise sleepy college town was descended upon by Sasquatch visitors, and our party of five was advised of a half hour wait for a table. Just in case we were nostalgic for home.

Being somewhat less enthusastic about this early afternoon’s musical lineup, we were in no urgent rush to head out to George. And the delay gave us some time to walk the pretty streets of historic downtown.

This densely decorated two-story red wood frame house, known as Dick and Jane’s Spot, is the project of local artists Dick Elliott and Jane Orleman, who have dedicated their home and yard to showcasing their own and the work of dozens of other artists.

Back at the cafe, we waited a bit more until at long last our party was called up and seated upstairs in the former choir loft, from which we had a birdseye view of the main dining room and open kitchen.

CF and MT were running late for their scheduled visit to the Chimposium, so we started off by requesting a cinnamon roll for the table – warm, sweet and enormous… plenty satisfying, even split five ways. No doubt each wedge still packed the caloric punch of a full breakfast. (Fortunate, as our friends hardly had time to taste their meals before dashing off to campus to communicate with the chimpanzees.)

From among the mouth-watering list of “Praiseworthy Breakfasts,” I ordered the “Huevos Rancheros” — minus the cheddar — seen here. (“St. Benedict’s Eggs” and “Pagan Pancakes” were also options.)

Worth the wait, and it did get me to church on Sunday after all.

Filing in among the 22,000 sell-out crowd. A somewhat diverse group, agewise — festival headliners were R.E.M., The Cure, and The Flaming Lips, after all — but ethnically… well, not so very. College students, neo-hippies (the ones who weren’t at the Northwest Folklife Festival taking place the same weekend at Seattle Center), hipsters and yuppies seemed to comprise the major cliques, with a few music industry people thrown into the mix.

The weather reports predicted rain on and off this weekend, but by 2PM, the sun was shining brightly, baking the Gorge in a summer-like heat.

Josh Bis (science vs. romance) offers a terrific write-up of the festival’s first day on the KEXP blog along with plenty of photos taken from a much better vantage point than mine. As it turned out, he and I had almost identical concert schedules — impressive considering the 50+ acts on three stages over the two (of three) days I attended. In roughly decreasing order of profile, performers played back-to-back on the Sasquatch! Main Stage, set directly in front of a stunning canyon/river backdrop, the Wookie! [sic] Stage in the meadow and the Yeti! Stage in the plaza, adjacent to the picnic tables.

This would be our primary view for the next two days:

We arrived at the main stage just in time for one of CF’s festival highlights: Beirut (Zach Condon) playing an Eastern European inflected set of “spooky gypsy music.”

Up-and-coming Athens, Georgia trio The Whigs, who rocked it out at SXSW in March, were on tour promoting their second album “Mission Control (released on Dave Matthews’ label.) CF and I caught the last couple of songs of their energetic set as we made our rounds through the Gorge grounds, stopping for a pair of frozen lemonade slushies, which were absolute perfection on this bright, warm afternoon.

As we spread out on the grassy knoll during Ozomatli — one of the jammier bands in the lineup — we heard what we thought were speakers blaring Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” from the third Yeti! stage. NO excitedly informed us that the rich baritone actually… improbably… belonged to Vince Mira — a scrawny Latino teenager from Seattle, who drew an awestruck crowd and became the talk of the festival that day. (Seriously: check out Mira’s appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show; this kid will blow your mind.)

We headed over to check it out and caught Canadian songstress Kathleen Edwards — hailed as “one of the most distinctive singer-songwriters to emerge in years” — playing a prettily earnest alt-country set, accompanying herself on violin.

Rainn Wilson (The Office’s Dwight Kurt Schrute), who was at the Festival promoting his upcoming film, The Rocker, had the unenviable task of announcing that The National would not be appearing due to a broken-down tour bus. Disappointed murmurs all around. In their stead we had the capable Fleet Foxes, making their second appearance of the day after opening the main stage at noon.

Then more Canadian action: The New Pornographers, who played a set culled heavily from “Challengers” and “Twin Cinema.” To our delight, Neko Case was up on stage; likewise Dan Bejar, whose other band Destroyer had just finished playing a Wookie! Stage set. The Pornos’ cover of ELO’s “Don’t Bring Me Down” was one of the best set-closers of the day.

By the time M.I.A. came onto Sasquatch! stage, anticipation was high; Maya had to drop out of last year’s line-up due to visa issues, but overall, I was somewhat disappointed by this (very loud) set. All of which made the decision to skip out for a fried dough break all the easier.

Mmm… elephant ears — so devoid of nutritional value, yet so utterly delicious. The flaky pancakes of fried dough, dusted with cinnamon or powdered sugar fresh from the deep fryer, were the culinary hit of the festival, judging by the near-constant line at the concession stands. Though had it not been for that line, we may not have gotten wind of the unannounced appearance by The National, who finally made it on site, and were given over the Yeti! stage to perform. Word of their impromptu concert spread wildly as fan Rainn Wilson good-naturedly roasted the boys from Brooklyn in his introduction, citing diva pique as their reason for failing to perform earlier.

At one point Zach Condon (Beirut) wandered over, and I went into paparazzi mode.

So much music, so little time. Riveted by lead singer Matt Berninger’s deep velvet voice, we ended up abandoning our plans to check out Austin’s Okkervil River — listen to the NPR piece about them here — before finally making our way to the Wookie! Stage to stake out spaces for The Breeders close-out set. Yes, The Breeders! That set created probably our biggest dilemma of the evening: Modest Mouse was playing simultaneously, and though I had looked forward to catching former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, I could not pass up the rare opportunity to see Pixies bassist Kim Deal. (And in fact, Modest Mouse will be opening for R.E.M with The National at Jones Beach in mid-June — tickets still available, $39.00-$1,098.00.) Truly an unexpected treat to see the Deal twins, whom we know have had their issues in the past, even as the cloud cover (which had been building since late afternoon) finally gave way to intermittent drizzling rain.

“Cannonball” still rocks — 15(!) years later.

We had to tear ourselves away from The Breeders show (where I’d wended my way through a gaggle of under-aged drinkers to within five feet of the stage) to catch the beginning of R.E.M.’s set. By then, the sopping chill had settled in — probably 30 degrees off the peak afternoon temps — and the hardy fans who remained huddled for warmth on the hill as Michael Stipe and Co. took to the rain-slicked stage. Calling out support to Barack Obama, and doffing his socks and shoes, a pinstripe-suited Stipe, backed ably by Peter Buck, proved the case for the band’s longevity, playing a tight, hard-driving set that successfully integrated new material with their early and late-era classics. “Drive,” “Losing My Religion,” and “The One I Love” invited audience sing-alongs as “Orange Crush” and “Man on the Moon” closed out the nearly two-hour set.

The most arduous part of this leg of our travels was finding the exit out of the multi-tiered parking garage. (Most confusing signage ever!) But once we hit the I-90, it was a straightforward and breathtaking two hour drive to The Gorge Amphtitheater.

I heard on the local news this morning that area ski lodges would remain open for Memorial Day weekend. I was incredulous until we passed through these snow-capped mountains, a mere hour out of the city.

Once through the mountain pass, the climate warmed considerably, and the landscape gave way to an almost Southwestern vista: flat lands of sagebrush that seemed to stretch for miles. Just the place for a wind farm:

At the turnoff to The Gorge, preparing for an amazing lineup of music.

Sasquatch Musical Festival photos up on flickr! Beirut, Ozomatli, The Whigs, Fleet Foxes, Kathleen Edwards, The New Pornographers, M.I.A., Grand Archives, The National, The Breeders (Kim Deal!), and headliner R.E.M.