A couple of years ago, I walked a few blocks north from my Wallingford home toward sounds of the annual Tangletown Porchfest. A hundred or so of my neighbors gathered in the street as bands rocked out on front porches, some with costumes and mesmerizing visuals projected behind them. The band names were funky (like Dumb Thumbs or Worms in Dirt), and the sound was funkier.
Conversations buzzed as the crowd moseyed down the block to the next private porch–turned–music venue. I chatted with neighbors, exchanged names, traded phone numbers. In the years since, they became ski friends and dates and people I still run into at QFC and Zoka Coffee. The Seattle Freeze thawed out on a cute street on a June Saturday night, in a microfestival held in front of someone’s immaculate garden boxes.
After listening to a few sets, I popped into the corner store for drinks, exactly what festival creator Josh Golden envisioned. “What I’m hoping is that people will come and they’ll watch some music that they plan to see. They’ll see some music they didn’t plan to see,” he says, “and then they’ll go down to Tangletown and enjoy some food or some coffee.”
Golden started the annual fest out of Covid necessity; his band had just started to get regular bookings when venues shuttered, so he turned to his neighbors for help in creating something for artists and music lovers during the six-feet-apart days. Homeowners lent porches and driveways for a music fest that’s more of a progressive walk than disparate onstage acts like Capitol Hill Block Party. But what Porchfest shares with its larger cousin is a mostly outdoor music experience with thoroughly Seattle roots.
The best neighborhood events take place al fresco. In summer, Fremont boasts a free
Friday-night music series in a parking lot where the sun sets over live bands and vendors before a silent disco breaks out. Neighborhood farmers markets make their seasonal return to Columbia City, Magnolia, Phinney Ridge, and Lake City, more than doubling the weekly market count. The West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day sees hundreds of homes hawk wares from their stoops, and Columbia City blends block and music festivals for the monthly summertime Beatwalk.
In Seattle, being outdoors once the thermostat hits 70 and sunsets creep toward 9pm feels like a feral need. Do I feel judged, even publicly shamed, if my weekend to-do lists don’t include time basking in our best season? It’s an easy yes.
Summer plans in the Pacific Northwest are often built around that need to be outside. Concerts? Move them outdoors, from Chateau Ste. Michelle to the Gorge. Warehouse-style thrift and art sales? Only if they set up in a park. Movie night? Let’s do it on the lawn. It’s practically baked into Seattle Municipal Code.
Plenty of bigger events take place without a roof: Pride, Seafair, some of Bumbershoot. They’re tentpoles of a Seattle summer, marking the passage through the season. But what keeps us from taking far-flung vacations during the summer, what keeps us awake long past those late sunsets, are our party-planning neighbors. The events are hyperlocal, built through grassroots dedication, and maybe a little grungy. The best of summer might be a little concert on the front porch next door.
