Two-and-a-half-hours south of Vancouver, the three-day Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle is pretty much as perfect a long weekend as one could ask for. The sun is blazing down in hot, sticky rays, and the festival grounds are positively packed to the gills. Upon arriving, the overwhelming feeling is option paralysis -- there are so many cool things to do at any one given time, that it's difficult to pick.

Kicking off the weekend were Blondie, still going strong and playing the main stage Saturday afternoon. Though the group best befit a nightclub setting, Blondie in the daylight is still a grin-inducing affair. Deborah Harry, once a Playboy bunny and now possibly the coolest 61-year-old on the planet, looks amazing, still a confection of raw sexuality and effortless disaffectedness.

She leads her band through all the hits -- Rapture, Maria -- well aware what the crowd has amassed for. There are grannies, kids, and stylized hipsters all dancing to the new-wave legends, and the whole affair is a wonderful welcome.

Later at the Backyard Stage, a showcase of up-and-coming bands, both California's Rogue Wave and Georgia's Of Montreal put on shows that prove worthy of all the buzz surrounding them. Of Montreal, a group of skinny-whippet indie boys, are wearing frilly vintage dresses, but manage to come off less as silly jokesters and more as art-damaged sugar-pop pushers. They're easily one of the highlights of the weekend, and the crowd, less uptight than a non-dancing Vancouver audience, respond with equal enthusiasm.

At the close of Friday, AFI (A Fire Inside) play the main stage. The Californian emo-punk outfit trade in easily accessible emotions, and the audience packing the stadium ground reflect that fact -- they are young, clad in black and dripping in eyeliner and body jewelry.

For an (ahem) older member of the audience, the group might recall '80s metal balladeers Warrant meeting industrial pioneers Nine Inch Nails. It's not the most pleasing combination, but the kids seem to love it.

When vocalist Davey Havok (possibly not his real name), dressed, along with all of his band, in tight white trousers, falls to the ground on his knees, screaming "Lover, I am loveless" over and over, the audience goes wild. One hopes that these youngsters will eventually grow out of their pain-rhymes-with-shame phase, but the reality is that for some, despairing emo will be a lifelong affliction. Those folk could pick a worse band than AFI, but for the rest of us, AFI's teenage diary antics are a bit hard to bear.

Kanye West, arguably the biggest act of the whole weekend, is exactly as grandiose and as showstopping as an act headling this festival should be. Playing the main stage at 9:30 Sunday, West and his crew have the crowd waving-their-hands-in-the-air-like-they-just-don't-care in breathtaking numbers by beat one and the show gets better from there.

Dressed, like AFI, in head-to-toe white, the outspoken rapper looks and sounds fabulous. Heard 'Em Say, West's most catchy and popular hit, lights the crowd on fire as do Golddigger and Drive Slow. While West is known for the way his self-effacing style contrasts with his egotistic persona, there's no confusion here: West is a star, deserving in every way to headline a festival of this calibre. Indeed, the show is worth the price of a weekend pass alone.

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