Wu-Tang bring the bass

Around 10:00 last night, I heard that telltale rhythmic pulse that can only mean one thing: drive-by bass. I mean a car with a whumping subwoofer pushing long audio waves through the neighborhood air. Only...usually those sounds fade out after a minute or two as the driver moves on. Not this time. After about 10 minutes, I stepped outside to see if I could figure out where it was coming from.

Check this map out. I live near University Village, point 1 on the map. Memorial Stadium at Seattle Center, the outdoor venue where Wu-Tang closed the Bumbershoot music festival last night, is located at point 2. That's more than 3 miles as the crow flies, 5 miles in a car. I've heard some Bumbershoot acts from Capitol Hill, about a mile from the venue, but I've never heard music from this neighborhood. But that was it--it lasted about 45 minutes, from 10 to 10:45, which maps exactly to their set time. (No hip hop act starts on time.) And if you watch this video, you can hear how loud the bass was by the way it distorts on the recording.

I don't know who created the sound system for the show--One Reel (the organization that puts Bumbershoot on) or Wu Tang--but whoever did it, congratulations on having the biggest bass ever.

They were accompanied by a spectacular thunderstorm all along the western horizon.