Ask the classically trained, hard-rocking cellists of Portland Cello Project to play their cover of Kanye West’s “All of the Lights” at Two Union Square during this Out to Lunch set. You won’t regret it.
The outdoor concert starts at noon and goes till 1, 1:30.
Updated 10:30am. If you like what you see this afternoon, Portland Cello Project is also playing the Triple Door with Scott MacIntyre (American Idol, Season 8) on August 29. Tickets ($20-$25) are available at thetripledoor.net.
FRIDAY
Hazy pop band Seapony joins Gold Leaves and Math and Physics Club for another (free!) Concert at the Mural, starting at 6 at Seattle Center’s Mural Amphitheatre.
More free fun: Start early at SLUBP (our fun new acronym for the South Lake Union Block Party). The neighborhood bash runs from noon till 11pm and features wine tastings, a beer garden, and noshes from local eateries (fingers crossed that includes pretzels from Brave Horse Tavern). Michael Cera flick Scott Pilgrim vs. the World screens at dusk.
Just down the street at Olympic Sculpture Park, SAM’s late-night art party Remix kicks off at 8 with music by local DJs, dancing, cocktails, and artist talks. First 50 people wearing gingham get in free.
Or you could enter a dream within a dream within a dream when Inception screens at dusk at Mural Amphitheatre.
Get your Jeff Bridges fix at Fremont Outdoor Movies’s Tron-a-thon. The Tron double header starts with the 1982 original, where the Dude plays a brilliant young software engineer, and closes with Tron Legacy (2010), where he plays…a brilliant old software engineer. Doors open at 7; film starts at 9.
SUNDAY
Tis a cultural event when the Boston Red Sox visit Safeco play the Mariners. We learn how to swear in a different language. Those dirty water lovers are in town Friday through Sunday.
Nibble your way down 12th Avenue on Capitol Hill during the 12th Avenue Neighborhood Festival. Bars and restaurants along the block—including Skillet, the Local Vine, Barrio, La Spiga, and High 5 Pie—offer up cheap bites and drink deals.
All the Go-Go’s—Belinda Carlisle, Charlotte Caffey, Gina Schock, Jane Wielden, and Kathy Valentine—are back together for a 30th anniversary Go-Go Ladies Gone Wild Tour and they’re stopping by Woodland Park for a BECU ZooTunes show. Lock up your children.
Gypsy jazz act Pearl Django and vocalist Greta Matassa liven up the Two Union Square business center with a free Out to Lunch concert from noon-1:30pm today. Go go go.
Concerts at the Mural, the annual Friday-night summer series at Seattle Center’s Mural Amphitheatre, opens August 5 with a fury: alt-country band the Maldivesand chamber pop crew Hey Marseillesand the tambourine-lovin’ Black Whales split the bill. We’d pay to see just one of those local acts onstage—and luckily, we don’t have to drop a dime for any of these concerts. Admission is free, but you’ll have to pay a little at the beer/wine garden and for Skillet Street Food. Doors open at 5 and shows start at 6, except for this Saturday’s BBQ, which kicks off at 2.
Here’s the full lineup:
Aug 5 Featuring the Maldives, Hey Marseilles, and Black Whales. Aug 6KEXPBBQ featuring Fool’s Gold, Capsula, Virgin Islands, and Mad Rad. Aug 12 Featuring Seapony, Gold Leaves, and Math and Physics Club. Aug 19 Featuring Black Mountain, My Goodness, and Whalebones. Aug 26 Pickwick, Drew Grow & the Pastors’ Wives, and Ravenna Woods.
CONTEST Seattle Center is also sponsoring a Concerts at the Mural contest to win seats in the designated VIP area for you and five friends, six food tickets, and six drink tickets for the beer garden. Enter to win at thenextfifty.org.
Concerts at the Mural are on Fridays, Aug 5-26, and Saturday, Aug 6, at Seattle Center’s Mural Amphitheatre. Admission is free. If it looks like rain, call Seattle Center Customer Service at 684-7200 or go to seattlecenter.com after 2pm for updates.
For a moment there, the narrow balcony above the Ballet Vietnamese eatery verged on collapse. Twenty or so hyper partyers had sardined themselves onto the rickety perch, causing it to sag precariously over the heads of the herd—bodysurfing, hundreds deep—clogging Pike Street on a steamy Sunday evening last July. Neither they, the fans dangling over the edge of the rooftop above them, nor the yellow-shirted fanatic who shimmied up the utility pole, cared: The Dead Weather was performing not half a block away. On a stage butting against Broadway, amid spastic lights and a cranked sound system, raged the Kills’ Alison Mosshart, Jack White, and the rest of the supergroup. It was an epic rockout—and it went down in one of Seattle’s densest corridors.
To the uninitiated, this is the Capitol Hill Block Party. In June MTV dubbed it one of North America’s best under-the-radar summer blowouts. It’s our city’s most revelrous, claustrophobic, buzzy music festival and, thanks to the rowdy crowds, possibly its most polarizing.
This year the block party turns 15, and attendance is expected to approach 30,000 over three days, July 22 to 24, to see 70 acts on five stages. —Chris Werner
Capitol Hill Block Party runs July 22–24. Tickets are $27.50 for a single day ticket or $82.50 for a three-day pass, available atcapitolhillblockparty.strangertickets.com.
Kirkland Uncorked, the annual lakeside bacchanale (a white-collar bacchanale), boasts three days of wine tastings, grilling demonstrations by local chefs, and more than 40 artist booths sponsored by Kirkland Arts Center. You’ll find a lot of pretty people swirling vino from 20 Washington wineries against a backdrop of Lake Washington, which is littered with yachts from the boat show. There’s Pyramid beer for the hopheads, and a dog modeling contest for… I don’t know, whoever likes dog modeling contests. But the setting couldn’t be better.
General admission is $25 advance, $30 at the door, which includes a commemorative glass and 10 tasting tokens (most wines cost 1-2 tokens). Non-tasting admission is $15. A portion of proceeds supports the Hope Heart Institute.
Kirkland Uncorked runs July 15-17 at Marina Park (25 Lakeshore Plaza, Kirkland). Tasting gardens are open Fri 5-10pm, Sat 1-10pm, Sun 1-6pm. For the full schedule, visitkirklanduncorked.com.
Does Anita’s Crepes have a food truck? We hope one turns up in honor of Bastille Day at SAM’s Picnic at the Park in Olympic Sculpture Park tonight. As Chris Werner reported on Nosh Pit, this is a new weekly outdoor fete, hosted by Seattle Art Museum and boasting multiple food trucks, wines from Taste, and live music every Thursday night through mid-September. Fun starts at 5:30 and goes until 8; bring an appetite.
GreenStage hosts its annual Seattle Outdoor Theater Festival in Volunteer Park, with two full days of tempests, comedies of error, and family fare (such as the sure-to-be-classic Arrh! A Dinosaur Ate My Spaceship). Eight local theater companies take part—here’s the full schedule:
Saturday, July 9
Noon As You Like It (Last Leaf Productions)
2pm Macbeth (Seattle Shakespeare Company’s Wooden O) In the Enchanted Forest (Open Circle Theater)
4pm The Merchant of Venice (Last Leaf Productions)
5pm Arrh! A Dinosaur Ate My Spaceship (Theater Schmeater)
7pm The Tempest (GreenStage) The Lost Folio (Wing-It Productions)
Sunday, July 10
2pm Antony and Cleopatra (GreenStage) In the Enchanted Forest (Open Circle Theater)
4pm King of the Playground (Balagan Theatre)
5pm Arrh! A Dinosaur Ate My Spaceship (Theater Schmeater)
7pm The Comedy of Errors (Seattle Shakespeare Company’s Wooden O) The Lost Folio (Wing-It Productions)
Also July 9 and 10
All-acoustic, eco-friendly GreenNote music fest is back for its second year, with singer-songwriter Matt Nathanson headlining at Seattle Center’s Mural Amphitheatre on Saturday, and Five for Fighting teaming up with Jon McLaughlin on piano on Sunday. Gates open at 5pm both nights; opening acts start at 6; and tickets are $22–$30. Read about GreenNote’s origins in our July 2010 article Smells Like Green Spirit.
July 8: Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglass at Marymoor Park
Admittedly, I was drawn to Alison Krauss because of the company she kept—the same probably holds true for thousands of Led Zeppelin fans who picked up Robert Plant’s new album in 2007 and went “who’s that chick?” when they saw its cover. Their Grammy-winning collaboration had the benefit of T. Bone Burnett’s production savvy—he handpicked what’s been called an eclectic collection of covers for the odd couple’s duets; in doing so, he introduced a legion of rockers to a bluegrass beauty.
After her mega success with Plant, Krauss, who turns 40 this month, has returned to her roots—recording and touring again with Union Station, her backing band since the late ‘80s. She’s a little more country on new album Paper Airplane, but those vocals are still worthy of a rock god.
A day-by-day guide to outdoor fun all summer long.
Posted by: Laura Dannen on Jul 06, 2011 at 10:25AM0 Comments
Doing a dance for the sun gods.
Temperature’s supposed to hit 80 degrees today, which means I Must. Get. Outside. If you have the same (manic) inclination, consider checking out our Summer Events Guide: a day-by-day planner with outdoor events across greater Seattle, from now through Labor Day weekend. We found something for nearly every day—movies under the stars, concerts on the lawn, free family activities—and for the days we missed, I’ll fill in the holes on Culture Fiend.
Starting today, we’ll suggest a daily outdoor activity on the blog—just look for the tagline Sun’s Out, Get Out. You can always find the full list on our website under Seattle Summer Events Guide.
Today’s event
Twangy Seattle rockers Massy Ferguson are on the rise with their Bruce Springsteen-influenced roots music. Catch them live at a Shoreline Concert in the Park, tonight at 7 in Animal Acres Park.
Before joining Seattle Metropolitan, Laura Dannen covered all things A&E as deputy editor of Time Out Singapore. She’s an award-winning reporter and editor whose team of entertainment junkies delivers daily doses of news, reviews, and interviews.
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Culture Fiend covers the best Seattle has to offer in theater, music, art, and more.
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