Words by: Michelle Swami

Shots by: Brendan Lee (HHV watermarked photos only) & Christopher Nelson

 

Synopsis

For those who don’t know, Sasquatch is a Northwest music festival held annually on Memorial day long weekend at the beautiful Gorge Amphitheatre, located 2 hours due east of Seattle, Washington. It is a diverse festival experience with acts of various genres and often hosts a fair amount of Northwest favourites and a healthy amount of hip hop music. This year’s lineup included Kendrick Lamar as the headliner for the festival, Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, Dilated Peoples, Run the Jewels, Bishop Nehru, Action Bronson, GoldLink, Grinch and Sam Lachow.

All in all, I had a great Sasquatch experience. Most festivals I go to, I have a hard time in and getting out. I don’t know if it was because we arrived the day of, or the fact that we had Premium camping, but getting in and out was a piece of cake. But that was camping; the queue to get into the actual festival was ridiculous and was definitely handled better in previous years. In fact, this was the first year the festival wasn’t sold out, yet I found this year to be the busiest. The vendors could also be improved. I talked to a few festival attendees for a few tips and tricks and apparently the grilled cheese was a go to snack because of its effectiveness to fill you up and the cheapest thing on the menu, for $6, for two slices of bread and “American” cheese. Unfortunately there was no tips/tricks for beer. The cheapest beer was $9 for a Bud Light and my fellow Canadians and I had a chuckle at the fact that Molson Canadian was considered a “Premium beer” and sold for $14 a pop. That’s right.

Ridiculous prices and line up’s aside, the artists definitely made up for it. This year we were blessed with lots of hip hop, definitely more than previous years as Sasquatch is known to be a predominately indie rock festival. I had many favourite sets, I couldn’t even pinpoint just one. I really enjoyed Modest Mouse’s headlining Saturday set; London producer SBTRKT who brought crooner and Drake collaborator Sampha on stage with him for a surprise live set; local Seattle rapper Grynch (who brought every Seattle rapper from under the sun clouds, on stage with him for his early afternoon set); Run the Jewels, whose infectious live show lived up to its exceedingly high hype; and of course, the weekend’s headliner, Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick unfortunately didn’t play any new songs, save one or two (Alright and These Walls). He did manage to play ‘Fucking Problems’ twice and ‘MADD City’ five times, which kind of annoyed me, but his live show (which has thoroughly improved) and the energy that derived from it, made up for that. Not only that but he brought a couple lucky fans onstage to perform MADD City with him, which was pretty neat to see.

 

Best Performance

My favourite set of the weekend (hip hop wise) would definitely go to Action Bronson, here’s why:

As the first day of Sasquatch gets halfway through, up on the Bigfoot stage appears Bigfoot himself, Action Bronson. Bronson, part time chef whose real name is Ariyan Arslani steps on stage wearing clothing you and I would be wearing day four of the festival. Looking comfortable as can be, Action comes out wearing a baggy grey t-shirt, gym shorts and trademark beard to elevator music. “TURN THAT SHIT OFF” Action says to the sound guy, as he starts things off with ‘Brand New Car’.

 

While Action owns the stage, the weather gets noticeably stranger and stranger as the set goes on. As Action started to play cuts from his first two albums, the weather was bright, sunny and as hot as 32 degrees. But deeper into his set, things started to get dark and it looked like a storm was a-brewing. That didn’t stop Action Bronson’s mood though. Bronson was loving the crowd, jumping off stage plenty of times to take selfies with fans, and even at one point, like many artists did at this festival, talked about the legalization of weed in Washington and said that the crowd “wasn’t smoking enough weed” and then went proceeded to throw nugs of weed into the crowd.

About a third into his set, the storm started to set in. The sky was grey, the clouds were covering and there was wind blowing of at least 20 km/hr. As Action goes into ‘Drive Slow’ a monitor on the stage left actually falls half way and is held up, dangling by one wire. That doesn’t deter Action though. He finishes his set as though nothing is happening (even though half the crowd disperses for cover) and even comes back to do an encore after the crowd that is still there, chants “Action! Action!” and goes on to do a few more songs, ending with the crowd pleasing ‘Baby Blue’. This set proves once again that Action Bronson is festival material; needing to go to the bathroom hasn’t stopped him, neither has a severe windstorm at a gorge.

 

Photo Gallery

 

 

Kendrick Lamar

Photos (6) by Christopher Nelson © All Rights Reserved 

 

Run The Jewels

 

 

 

Schoolboy Q

 

 

Ab – Soul

 

Dilated Peoples

 

 

Action Bronson

 

 

GoldLink

 

 

Bishop Nehru

 

Sam Lachow

 

Grynch (w/ Brothers From Another, Sol, Fearce Vill and                     Wanz)