at Marymoor Park

On a typical overcast Friday night, The National and Okkervil River melted the faces off of the crowd at Marymoor Park. We've got the photos to prove it!

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Sprawling lawns, stellar sound, The National, and you.

And your plus one. And Okkervil River. And for free.

Sound good? Great! Because that's what's in store for you this Saturday up at Marymoor Park if you're our lucky winner! We've got not one, but two bright-and-shiny tickets to give away to one lucky fan. Maybe that's you! So take a break from poring over all those pretty Bumbershoot pictures you took this weekend and enter our contest:

Send an email to tig@threeimaginarygirls.com with the subject line WaitForTheClick -- and tell us why we should choose you to attend this bliss-extravaganza of a show. Make us swoon with your adjective, drop a haiku, do whatever you like -- but just act fast, because we need your entry by 5pm on Tuesday, September 8th.

And while you're manually refreshing that auto-refresh to see if you've won, do yourself a favor and put this ish on repeat:

Good luck, everyone! We'll see you at the park!

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Seven bands, nine hours, sixty-eight degrees, three rounds of busking, and a good helping of some straight-out wonderfulness: it all adds up to this year's No Depression Festival up at the lush, lovely Marymoor park in Redmond. With stellar sets from bands like The Swell Season, the Cave Singers, Alejandro Escovedo, and Sera Cahoone -- well, it's tough to find anything bad to say. We got our indie roots on all day, and through part of the night -- without a curfew, I'm quite sure Glen Hansard and Co. would have sang us straight through to the sunrise.

Sera Cahoone, warming up the post-Maldives crowd.

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Check it out!

We're giving away two tickets to this year's No Depression festival!

On August 21st, the grounds of Marymoor Park (Redmond, WA) will be graced with not just one or two, but seven swoonworthy acts to fit the taste of every alt.americana, alt.country, and modern-folk indie-roots enthusiast within driving distance. Performers like Lucinda Williams and the Cave Singers will be sharing the stage at the second annual installment of ND, following in the footsteps of stellar sets from last year's big name headliners -- Gillian Welch, Iron & Wine, and Jessica Lea Mayfield, just to name a few.

Did we forget to mention that the Swell Season is headling? Silly us! If you haven't bought yourself some tickets already -- and even if you already have -- you might want to take a moment right now to enter our ticket giveaway. Send an email to tig@threeimaginarygirls.com with the subject line SummerIsTheSwellestSeason and tell us why you think we should send you off to the Park for the day!

The only full-font fine-print is that entries must be recieved by midnight on Wednesday, August 11th to be entered into the drawing. Winners will be announced on Friday, August 13th. There's no catch! You can even bring your underagers, since No Depression is an all-ages event.

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at Marymoor Park

The Flaming Lips are a piece of the beginning of a very long musical story for me. Country girl moves to city, meets guy in Tripping Daisy shirt, gets musical education and learns some hard lessons about life. That Tripping Daisy guy brought over the Soft Bulletin record, and my life really was never the same again. I can recount many nights spent with my best friend in my Camaro, seats laid back all the way, smoking a joint and marveling over Soft Bulletin or Clouds Taste Metallic. I've spent all these years pining for the Flaming Lips, embracing all their weird projects (hi Zaireeka) and geeking out on each release they put out. Finally seeing them perform, and in a venue so beautiful and comfy as Marymoor Park, was the culmination of all those years of anticipation.

Stardeath & White Dwarfs, the opener, is an Oklahoma band as well and the lead singer just happens to be Wayne Coyne's nephew Dennis. I give absolute props to them on the fact that they opened their set with "Sweet Loaf" from the Butthole Surfers. That song set the tone for the rest of the set, swirling psychedelia punctuated by seizure-inducing disco light flashes. The raspy-voiced Dennis sported nifty white jumper pants with suspenders, channeling classic rock mainstays like Black Sabbath or Pink Floyd, with a sprinkle of the weirdness of Can. Topping off their set was an overly dramatic and bro-rocky cover of Madonna's "Borderline", which would have probably been better left to queen of pop herself.

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I would be really really upset if I lived my whole fabulous life and never took the opportunity to see The Flaming Lips. From those early psychadelic garage-rock days to the immaculately produced and executed work of the last few years, they are a constant wonderment to me. Not only are their albums some of the most noted in indie rock, but the down-to-earthness of their personalities (as seen through the phenomeal docu-realness Fearless Freaks) and their continued sonic genius make them hard to put down.

A perfect venue for a near-perfect band, I'm positive that Marymoor Park will help put The Lips' best foot forward on Friday night (August 21st). I'm excited to experience their antics, be they Hatorade for the Arcade Fire or the NEW King of Pop outfitted in a fetching dolphin suit, I'll be there to soak it all up.

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at Marymoor Park

Combine the gorgeous summertime drive to Redmond, the grassy knolls, the impeccable soundsystem, and the energy of these spectacular bands -- and you've got a one-of-a-kind warm-weather blissy magic night that concert postcards are made out of.

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at Marymoor Park

No Depression Festival - Short Version:

It was hot. We ate barbecue. I drank a lot of beer and cider. Most of us had dirty, bare feet. Zee Avi is adorable. Jeff Fielder is totally amazing. Jessica Lea Mayfield is a lo-fi version of Jesse Sykes. Everyone loved Justin Townes Earle. No one much liked Patterson Hood. Sam Beam makes me swoon, EVERY DAMN TIME. Lesbians love Gillian Welch.

No Depression Festival - Long Version:

Due to bad traffic across the water, I was a little late arriving at the No Depression festival on Saturday but still managed to hear the last two or three songs by the very pleasant Zee Avi. I was interested to see her live, owing to the lore that has built up around her unusual entry into the biz and she pulled it off with very confident stage presence. I have to admit though, she does sound a little like Norah Jones to me.

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No Depression has long been the place to get the inside scoop on the best Americana, roots and alt-country folks to watch - and we're pleased as punch that they've put all that know how into a full on festival of fabulous artists. The first ever No Depression Festival is set for Saturday, July 11th at Marymoor Park in Redmond. They've scored a stellar line up and you certainly don't want to miss: Gillian Welch, Iron & Wine, Patterson Hood & the Screwtopians, Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter, Justin Townes Earle, Jessica Lea Mayfield, a Seattle roots-music all-star revue, and Zee Avi. And we have a pair of tickets to giveaway to a lucky imaginary reader! Enter to win a pair of tickets by emailing us at tig @ threeimaginarygirls.com with "NoDep" in the subject line sometime prior to Friday, July 3 at 9am. Please include your mailing address so that we can put the tickets in the mail asap!

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at Marymoor Park

When the humble and talented boys from Wellington, New Zealand took the stage on Saturday night at Marymoor Park, the excitement and anticipation of the crowd was palpable.

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