We just wrapped up an amazing two night stint in support of the Summer Meltdown Encore by Terra Roots, Friday at the Lo-Fi Performance Gallery in Seattle and Sunday at the Wild Buffalo in Bellingham. First off, it was so great to see dedicated and familiar Meltdown staff and fans outside of the Whitehorse Amphitheater spot in Darrington, and to perform with some of the usual suspects at a couple of the coolest venues around. Unfortunately, the scheduled Canadian headliner Wassabi Collective had issues getting through the border. Lucky for us, and everyone in attendance, there was plenty of talent afield in Flowmotion, Josh Clauson Trio and Black Cherry Crush, and we scored a later and longer set time both nights.

Lo-Fi Performance Gallery

When we were setting up for the show the Lo-Fi had a very unassuming atmosphere, where you couldn’t really grasp what the experience would be. Since we initially had an earlier than usual start time, plenty of dedicated Brümpers and Meltdown faithful packed the house from the start. When filled, the place really started to make sense, and the layout of really tall ceilings, front bar and art display, back stage and bar area with a direct view of the Space Needle provided the ideal backdrop for a memorable evening. It had the atmosphere of an indoor mini-festival, with the “All Things Meltdown” room lovingly provided by Sarah Payne Hall and friends, and a photo slideshow comprised of Sara Soko, Frank Blau and Carlton Ward’s finest.

We were on first and provided the crowd with some of our usual favorites, as well as some new ones that are still somewhat being worked on as we go. To wrap the set up we invited Bob Rees and RL Heyer from Flowmotion to join us, and were honored to have them in the mix.

Wild Buffalo

We have been talking about getting up to Bellingham for a while now, but our path has always taken us East instead of North. Patience is a virtue, because this was the ideal intro for us.

Our friends Jen and Aaron cooked the band an amazing meal in the world’s largest skillet beforehand. We then headed over to the venue and prepared for the night. It is a very impressive spot with a really unique twist, due to the amazing large format artwork and easily accessible island bar in the middle. It is much larger than we had expected (we still can’t believe that none of us have been there before), but a great Sunday night crowd filtered in and stayed late.

We switched spots with Josh Clauson Trio and had the middle slot. We have been working on covering Flowmotion‘s song Candy, and it was pretty cool playing it for Josh who wrote it years ago. We also were fortunate for the opportunity to get Josh and his keyboardist Eric Robert (Vicci Martinez) to sit in with us. Black Cherry Crush closed out the night in style with a soulful and rocking set.

Thanks to Sara Soko for all of the photos and video, Flowmotion, all the performers, Ben Bruce and Erin Bruce, Q, Sarah and Preston Hall, Justin Garcia and all of the Meltdown and Terra Roots staff for including us in such an awesome weekend. Their hard work year round shows every Summer.