We’re heading into Bumbershoot weekend, so it’s time to make your game plan. Here are The Stranger’s tips and picks for the last big music festival of the season.

Our Can’t-Miss Shows on Saturday

J.R.C.G.

J.R.C.G. isn’t your typical outdoor-music-festival fare. They're not about breezy escapism or forced feel-good vibes. Rather, they make you confront life's darker aspects and help you to transcend the bullshit through the sheer power of their music and words. Read Stranger contributor Dave Segal’s write up here. (Mural Stage, 1:40 p.m.-2:10 p.m.)

Great Grandpa

A lot has changed for Great Grandpa since their 2017 breakout, Plastic Cough. They’ve gone on hiatus, some of them moved to different countries, their lead singer transitioned, two members started families. Their 2025 album, Patience, Moonbeam, is a product of all that change. It has a more acoustic and tuneful groove. Read Stranger contributor Sam Machkovech’s interview with the band here. (Fountain Stage, 1:50 p.m.-2:20 p.m.)

Pretty Girls Make Graves

Stranger Managing Editor Megal Seling says that if you only see one show at Bumbershoot, it better be this one. “Pretty Girls Make Graves were only around for about five years at the turn of the century (this century), and the band was a mash-up of musicians from some of the Northwest’s most innovative and experimental hardcore and punk bands from the ’90s,” she wrote. “What a gift to have the chance to see them again, with music that’s still as furious and pertinent today as it was then. I still feel every note of “Speakers Push the Air” in my bones.” Don’t miss it. (Mural Stage, 8:15 p.m.-9:30 p.m.)

Cat Seat Headrest

Car Seat Headrest, our favorite furry-fronted band (that we know of), released The Scholars this May, its first album in five years. Fictional magical college rock operas may not be your thing—but come to think of it, how would you know? Hardly anyone makes rock operas these days; nobody else (that we know of) makes fictional magical college rock operas at all. Really, the fiction is just another portal for the same deeply personal, aching, emotionally bleeding-out stuff that made frontman/multi-instrumentalist Will Toledo a lo-fi 2010s Bandcamp breakout and make him a modern indie superstar. But there’s a crucial difference: The Scholars sounds like Car Seat Headrest "the band," not Car Seat Headrest, "the Will Toledo project known as Car Seat Headrest." This is a festival, anyway. It’s about performance, and there’s a reason Toledo has such rabid fans. He’s a hell of a performer. (Don’t know Car Seat Headrest? Try Twin Fantasy [2011] or Twin Fantasy [2018], or the song “Maude Gone”). (Fountain Stage, 8:15-9:30)

Weezer: Voyage to the Blue Planet

If you missed Weezer’s Voyage to the Blue Planet tour last year, now’s your chance to catch it. This set list has every song you’ve ever drunkenly screamed into a karaoke mic: “Beverly Hills,” “Island in the Sun,” “Buddy Holly,” “Hash Pipe.” Do your self a favor and catch this set before they stop doing it. (Fountain Stage, 10:15 p.m.-11:30 p.m.)

Other Saturday Acts We’re Stoked About:

Indigo De Souza (Fountain Stage, 3:50 p.m.-4:35 p.m.)
Liv Victorino (Mural Stage, 4:25 p.m.-4:55 p.m.)
Budos Band (Fountain Stage, 5:05 p.m.-5:50 p.m.)
Quasi (Mural Stage, 5:45 p.m.-6:30 p.m.)
Biblioteka (VERA Stage, 7:25 p.m.-8:05 p.m.)
TeZATalks (VERA Stage, 9:45 p.m.-10:30 p.m.)
Pattie Gonia’s DJ Set (Mural Stage, 9:30 p.m.-midnight)

Our Can’t-Miss Shows on Sunday

Digable Planets

The Stranger’s Senior Staff Writer Charles Mudede calls Digable Planet’s Blowout Comb one of the best hiphop albums of all time. “This album can be compared—in terms of originality, depth, complexity, political consciousness—with the best of the best of its time,” he writes. “Each track effortlessly and richly weaves samples and live instruments. And the raps have a depth and an execution that turns to Miles Davis’ cool period for inspiration, rather than Coltrane intellectual acrobatics on Giant Steps. And the Black Power movement of the 1960s is the ghost in this late-20th century machine. There is a specter that haunts the album and its society, and the specter is soul on ice.” Get your chance to see them live. (Fountain Stage, 5:05-5:50)

The Linda Lindas

The Stranger’s Social Media Editor, Christian Parroco caught The Linda Lindas last year, when the band opened for Green Day: “The band members are still in their teens, and the LA group is unapologetically fierce, blending their fresh take on punk with a DIY attitude that calls back to the genre’s early days.” Read more about the show here. (Fountain Stage, 2:50 p.m.-3:20 p.m.)

Janelle Monae

Whether you fell in love with Janelle Monae during their “Tightrope” era, their Dirty Computer era, or their Age of Pleasure era, you’ll want to catch this set. (If you haven’t fallen in love with them yet, what are you doing. Catch up.) (Fountain Stage, 8:15 p.m.-9:30 p.m.)

Aurora

This etherial Norwegian gnome is is coming back to Seattle, and you shouldn’t miss her. If you’re not familiar with her music, just listen to “The River” on headphones. That’s all you need to know. (Fountain Stage, 10:15 p.m.-11:30 p.m.)

Other Sunday Acts We’re Stoked About:

The Army, The Navy (Fountain Stage, 12:55 p.m.-1:25 p.m.)
Bebe Stockwell (Fountain Stage, 1:50 p.m.-2:20 p.m.)
Tennis (Fountain Stage, 3:50 p.m.-4:35 p.m.)
Petra Haden (VERA Stage, 5:25 p.m.-5:55 p.m.)
Day Soul Exquisite (VERA Stage, 8:35 p.m.-9:15 p.m.)
Bob The Drag Queen’s DJ Set (Mural Stage, 9:30 p.m.-10:45 p.m.)

Comedy

Stranger contributor Sam Machkovech wrote: “Last year, Bumbershoot relegated its comedy lineup to a sun-soaked tent, because nothing says ‘comedy’ like sitting in a tepid, sealed fabric enclosure with zero breeze on a hot day. Bumbershoot course-corrected this year by moving its "Comedy Coop" into the SIFF theater, with luxuries like air conditioning and, er, chairs. One thing that remains consistent with last year's stand-up lineup is an emphasis on local, working comedians, not national headliners.” You can read about Sam’s recommendations here.

Food

Do we love Chicken Supply, Musang, and Gold Coast? Absolutely. Devotedly. Yes. Are we planning to wait in line for 30 minutes to eat it at a music festival? Probably not. Bumbershoot is for elephant ears, Shishka Berries, and beer gardens (but only if you can snag a spot in the shade).