Music / Nightlife

Charles Bradley performs at Timber! Outdoor Music Festival on Saturday. Photo by Owen R. Smith.

Charles Bradley hugged me. Wading into a sea of  ecstatic revelers Saturday night at Timber! Outdoor Music Festival as the final strains of “Why Is It So Hard” played, Bradley cast his arms open wide, pulled me into an enormous bear hug and whispered his sincerest thanks for coming to watch him play. I stood there, as more people pushed to get their moment with Bradley, stunned. I have experienced very few things in my 20 or so years of attending concerts that have given me real pause, but that indelible moment of gratitude from an artist who had just spent over an hour killing himself on stage is something I will carry with me long after I’ve stopped writing about music. It was exactly the sort of moment that organizer Kevin Sur had hoped for when he booked Bradley, whom he called the most gracious performer he’d ever seen.

It was a beautiful weekend for Capitol Hill Block Party. But alas, all things must end. Our writer Mike Ramos (@Ram0s206) was there to catch all the hits and misses from the weekend. And photographer Maddie Meyer took in the sights. Reminisce, or see what you missed, with this collection of posts from Twitter…

Sara Slayton, of Camas, Wash., dances behind her boyfriend Marc’antonio Undeberg, of Seattle, during a performance by the band Poolside on the main stage during Capitol Hill Block Party on Saturday.  (Photo by Maddie Meyer / The Seattle Times)

The third and final day of the Capitol Hill Block Party is heavy on the local acts, but still has some national headliners to attract the mainstream crowd.

The 17^th annual Capitol Hill Block Party kicked off this weekend with sunny, mid-70-degree-weather that seemed especially ideal after last week’s streak of rainy days. (Check out our photo gallery here.)

This year’s multi-genre musical offerings have been hit (Chromeo!) and miss (A$AP Ferg…),

A$AP Ferg reaches out to the crowd from on top of a speaker during his performance Friday. (Photo by Maddie Meyer / The Seattle Times) See more photos from Day 1

Saturday features two way-retro headliners in Canadian ’80s-electro-funk revivalists Chromeo and New York’s The Budos Band, who make the kind of big-band instrumental funk that sounds like it belongs on ’70s kung fu movie soundtracks. Manchester, England, producer Star Slinger’s soulful sample chops and The Thermals’ Portland indie-punk add some variety to the day’s offerings, but the hidden theme for Saturday is showstopping female artists:

Concertgoers take in Capitol Hill Block Party 2013. (Marcus Yam/The Seattle Times)

The Capitol Hill Block Party — Seattle’s favorite one-day actual block party-turned three-day corporate-sponsored music festival — is returning to a fenced-in Pike Street for the 17th year this weekend.

Friday’s lineup boasts headlining indie-rock veterans Spoon, who haven’t released an album since 2010s “Transference” but have a new one called “They Want My Soul” on the way that comes packed with a wannabe slacker-pop summer anthem “Do You.” Brooklyn DIY keyboard/drums dance-pop sweethearts Matt & Kim will also bring their energetic, feel-good live set to the main stage.

After the success of Timber! Outdoor Music Festival last year, organizer Kevin Sur felt one emotion: a deep, abiding gratitude to everyone who had helped bring it off without a hitch.

It was a feeling that stuck with him as he chose soul revivalist Charles Bradley to top a 2014 lineup that includes J. Mascis, Damien Jurado and the Seattle Rock Orchestra. The festival runs July 24-26 and kicks off Thursday afternoon with a performance by the Shumba Marimba Ensemble.

“We felt like we had an overwhelming amount of support from the music community in making our first year a success, and that got me thinking about Charles Bradley,” Sur said.

For those seeking a little outdoor fun, while staying out of the sun, Light in the Attic’s First Annual Summer Spectacular offered a great way to find some relief from the record-breaking heat.

Overton Berry’s set gave LITA’s event a jazzy touch . (photo: Gillian G. Gaar)

The Seattle-based record label, known for its reissue projects like the “Wheedle’s Groove” CD and film covering Seattle’s ’70s-era funk scene, and a lavish box set by iconoclastic singer-songwriter Lee Hazlewood, hosted a laid-back afternoon of live entertainment yesterday at their warehouse/record store on a quiet street in Ballard.

(Peter Boettcher Photography)

Electronic music is so ubiquitous today that EDM (electronic dance music) fans may not appreciate how revolutionary the music was in the early ’70s.

German group Kraftwerk pioneered the sound, releasing the mesmerizing album “Autobahn” and its title track in 1974.

Chilean tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana with bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Francisco Mela. (Photo by Chris Cameron)

With two large stages bookending the stately Vancouver Art Gallery and a student showcase by the Robson Square ice rink — plus a wall of food booths lining Howe Street — the Vancouver International Jazz Festival transformed downtown Vancouver into a fairgrounds Saturday and Sunday, attracting an all-ages, urban crowd in sunhats and shorts to a wealth of free shows.

There, and in ticketed events on Granville Island and at Ironworks, a late-night Gastown venue, the 12-day festival stayed true to its mission of presenting a challenging menu of international acts.

For whatever reason, for those first few days, the ladies ruled.