Betweeen Taylor Swift, Barbenheimer, Bite of Seattle, Women's World Cup watch parties, and a Canadian baseball fan invasion—the Capitol Hill Block Party had a lot of competition this weekend. Still, every day inside the festival’s gates was full of enthusiastic music fans dancing, singing along, and crowd-surfing in pool floats. The Stranger was there, too! Here are the sights and sounds we managed to catch amidst the Busiest Weekend in Seattle. (Can we take a nap now?)

FRIDAY

To answer the question you're all no doubt wondering, no, Rebecca Black did not play her polarizing 2011 anthem "Friday," despite having a Friday evening slot at the festival. Rude! But also not totally surprising—after all her entire debut album, Let Her Burn (released this past February), is about being reborn, rising from flames that tried to burn her alive. In the song "Destroy Me" she sings, "Feeling pretty cute until I ran into you / Chewеd me up and spit me out like gum on your shoе." Her set at Block Party was all about introducing the crowd—which was big enough to give Goth Babe's audience over on the Main Stage a run for its money, by the way—to who she is today, rather than riding that wave of tainted nostalgia. We respect that.

SATURDAY

We got to CHBP early on Saturday to avoid the crowds and were drawn in by the country-pop vibes of Eliza McLamb on the Vera Stage. The 22-year-old from North Carolina went viral on TikTok with her song “Porn Star Tits” in 2020 while she was working on a farm in Kansas, and the crowd was full of Gen Z-ers in cowboy boots. They all screamed loudly at how gracious she was playing her first-ever festival. 

“I’m sure a day will come when I will stop writing love songs about homoerotic female friendship, but today is not that day,” she quipped before launching into the title track of her EP Salt Circle on the Vera stage.

True to her word, about half of her songs were about sisterhood imbued with a deep yearning that could only be called sapphic. “Salt Circle” is addressed to her best friend and spiritual soulmate: “It doesn’t feel quite right to call you a friend/When we take on new bodies I will scour the earth to find you again.” Fittingly, she also introduced an unreleased number about when a friend’s controlling boyfriend is “your enemy” and harmonized with her friend and fellow CHBP performer and tourmate Hana Bryanne on a dreamy cover of “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer, punctuating the song with a platonic smooch.

Her set on the Vera Project's stage marked a milestone of sorts: McLamb’s first-ever show was at the Vera Project two years ago. She’s definitely established herself as an act to watch, especially for fans of introspective indie pop like Lucy Dacus and Indigo de Souza.

We made our way to Barboza to cool off from the sun and see local pop-punk artist Hannah Duckworth, who could be the lovechild of Enumclaw and Taylor Swift (she was even wearing a sparkle-studded collar). You can get tickets to her show at Neumos on August 24 if you want to see what we mean. She played all three of the songs in her discography, all released this year, and some new ones, which we’re excited to hear again once they come out. 

Back to the Vera Stage for renforshort, a 21-year-old pop artist from Toronto who’s collabed with the likes of Travis Barker. She didn’t play that song, though, probably because she lacked a drummer, performing with just a guitarist and backing track. It was hard to hear her live vocals over the track, and lyrics were pretty simplistic, but sometimes “fuck, i luv my friends” is all you really need to hear at a summer music festival.

“Listen, this is a song about queer joy, but we’re also here for queer motherfuckin’ rage,” MUNA’s Naomi McPherson declared before the band launched into their breakout hit “Silk Chiffon” over on the Main Stage.

If you’ve only heard the carefree cotton-candy pop anthem, you’d be forgiven for assuming the band, who recently supported Taylor Swift on her Eras tour, is all sunshine and rainbows. But MUNA has always embraced the ecstasy of queerness alongside angstier, thornier realities—oftentimes in the same song.

While the group bounced around to the self-love ode “Number One Fan,” someone buzzed an illicit drone perilously close to the members’ faces, prompting lead singer Katie Gavin to say, “If that’s yours and you hit me with your fucking drone, I swear to God…” To whoever piloted that drone: Seriously?! Props to the band for still putting on an excellent performance amid what must have been incredibly frustrating and dehumanizing circumstances.

As Gavin mentioned onstage, the trio has over a decade of history together, which gives them a chemistry that is irresistible to watch. Guitarist Josette Maskin pogoed up and down and darted impishly around the stage, as Gavin twirled and McPherson nodded along. (In the grand tradition of Fleetwood Mac and Sleater-Kinney, Gavin and McPherson used to date in college but remain friends and bandmates.) 

With the release of their 2022 self-titled album, MUNA has also emerged as queer heartthrobs. The crowd shrieked and swooned as Gavin danced up against McPherson and gyrated before a kneeling Maskin during the horny bop “No Idea.” 

Gavin addressed the “queer and trans cuties” in the audience before segueing into the song “I Know a Place,” which imagines a haven where LGBTQ+ people are all safe to express themselves—something that’s particularly poignant in this age of banned books and anti-trans legislation. Fans swayed as the sun sank behind the main stage and a gentle breeze blew, and for a moment, it felt like that place was within reach.

SUNDAY

Things were off to a sleepy start on Sunday as festival goers, some visibly nursing hangovers, started to trickle into Neumos at 4:15 pm to catch Seattle DIY psyche/post-punk trio Weep Wave as they took the stage. 

"Sunday baby!" exclaimed vocalist/guitarist Dylan Fuentes to a subdued round of hoots and cheers. The bass-heavy dance ability must have caught some ears, though, as dozens started packing in the venue. The band's tight-as-hell sound is the product of their strong touring hustle, as they have busted their asses on the road—and it shows. After the trio finished up the set, which included a few songs from their yet-to-be-named upcoming LP, it was obvious by the amount of rump-shaking on the dance floor and the merch line after that that Weep Wave had earned themselves quite a few new fans. 

Later on Sunday, as the majority of the crowd headed toward the exits and the vendors started tearing down their booths, it took every ounce of energy we could muster not to walk out the chain link fence along with them. After a long day soaking up the sun with loud EDM beats echoing every which way and a bit of human interaction overload, we were pretty spent. But we're so glad we decided to stay and catch one last group for the final day of Capitol Hill Block Party because Flesh Produce woke us the fuck up. 

It was 10:15 pm when vocalist Myla Proffit and drummer Karl Fagerstrom took the Barboza stage and lit the crowd up with a furious thunderstorm of what we would call breakneck glitch pop gone hardcore with some nu-metal flavor. 

“Who would have thought?” Proffit asked the crowd. “Fleshy P at the Capitol Hill Block Party. Tell your friends that's what we call ourselves. It's uncomfortable, but so is our music.” 

Fagerstrom pounded his drums brutally while simultaneously triggering old-school Nintendo-sounding samples and trip-hoppy beats. The sweaty crowded room swayed as dozens in the front moshed and jumped along to Proffit’s energetic flows that live somewhere between Mindless Self Indulgence and Bikini Kill. It was a fitting end to an eclectic day of music because truthfully, Flesh Produce’s music mixes so many of the sounds from across the day—punk rock, hip hop, EDM, metal and pop. Make sure you don’t skip out early (like we almost did) the next time Fleshy P takes the stage. 

---

Follow The Stranger on Instagram to see so many more photos and videos from this weekend's festival!

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by The Stranger 🗞 (@thestrangerseattle)