Excerpted from September 2011. In case you’ve missed the annual caravan of VW buses trailing clouds of patchouli-scented funk east on I-90, the relentlessly touring Dave Matthews Band has had a three-day, unofficial standing gig at the Gorge Amphitheatre over Labor Day weekend for the better part of the last decade. And each year, Bumbershoot execs have watched Matthews and company siphon off a sizable chunk of their audience.

But this year, Dave’s going bigger—much bigger. He’s bringing along a Caravan of rocker buddies to play along the Columbia River, including Dispatch (on its first reunion tour in a decade), the Roots, the John Butler Trio, Gogol Bordello, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Josh Ritter and the Royal City, the Moondoggies…we’d go on, but it doesn’t seem sporting. Is Seattle’s jam-band jester gunning for Bumbershoot with his mini-fest, planned for the same exact weekend? What does the Bumbershoot camp have to say about its competition?

Read on.