Fuck Katy Perry and Sheryl Crow—I have rarely seen a band more suited for playing to soggy people on a sunny Saturday afternoon than Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head. These party-rock synth kids got some damned lucky breaks to be playing for crowds this big, and they were appreciative, giving and smiley, their keyboardist-cum-bassist-singer wearing a Delicious Vinyl t-shirt and yachting cap like a man steering his hometown crowd towards the shores of Par-Tei. They did all the hits—at this point, they have nothing else to play—and after song after catchy song about sideways ponytails and Bis-esque beard lust, I realized that this may be the best intentionally shallow band I’ve heard since Poison. And they even sprinkled a champagne-bottle full of glitter over the crowd. Score one for Seattle.

Up next, the Comedy Stage North presented short, dry delights by L.A. genius Matt Braunger and Todd Barry, Mr. “Crazy Dogs” from Flight of the Conchords, who spent a good portion of his set making fun of Matthew McConaughey. Comedian Reggie Watts really tore the house down, rambling between different accents, a sampler and an electric piano. His sideways slant on comedy with short musical distractions evoked classic Steve Martin in a fresh way, albeit bigger and hairier and possibly funnier. I tried in vain over the next couple days to snag an interview with him, but no dice. Hope he doesn’t wind up making movies with Hilary Duff.

Os Mutantes were next, with Sergio Dias dressed up like Richard Pryor at a late sixties wedding. I got a good look at him as I sat waiting for the show to start—in L.A. I’m not used to the ground being wet, so I basically gave myself a through-the-pants bidet treatment while simultaneously casting an attractive set of cheek prints in the grass. The other kind of grass made its impression on my section of the audience, rolled by some middle-aged Patagonia-wearing Seattleites, one of whom asked me if I was “from Brazil,” since I seemed to know the songs so well. Actually I was just mesmerized by the beauty of spoken Portuguese punctuated by English comments about Dias’s love of Obama and his apology to Argentina for Brazil’s crushing 3-1 victory in that day’s football match. It was good, though I missed the vintage fuzz sound from their original recordings, and wished I had the vantage point of my photographer, who got great shots of the fun and footlights and the four-year-old girl bopping around on the stage.

Later, after some rain, a delicious falafel and a couple gross beers, De La Soul hit the same stage with a full band—horns and all—called the Rhythm Root All-Stars. It was cool, maybe even “fresh,” in both senses of the word. But man, what is up with outdoor concerts and loud-as-fuck snare drums? Every outdoor show sounds like “a boogedy boogedy THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK, a boom clap boom-boom THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK, doo bee doo bee THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK,” with the crowd at the back hearing basically nothing but a giant chasm of boxy backbeat. No slight on the band, but De La Soul sounded better with just Maseo DJing, and the crowd responded by going apeshit for “Me, Myself, and I”—hands in the air and the party people over there saying yeah right after the party people over here had just said the same. The encore was their 2004 hit with the Gorillaz, “Feels Good Inc.” And we did feel good as we headed out—security jackals nipping at our heels, away from the Space Needle and bad memories of Flo and Eddie and towards the dimly-lit joys of post-concert blitzkrieg beverages in Seattle’s subterranean Cha Cha Lounge.

—Dan Collins