…has come and gone. There seemed to be something missing from it this time, something uncommercial and unrehearsed. (Aside from the street beggars, such as this one dutifully preparing a sign reading “Smiles Are Free, Heroin Isn’t.”)

Most of the action took place behind the plastic-wrapped chain-link fence separating the $10 admission stage and beer garden from the much smaller free performance stage and the handful of “political” booths (most of which were exclusively devoted, in this age of corporate corruption and government power-grabbing, to the notion that all it takes to be “political” in a morally-superior way is to eat the right foods.)

A P-I freelance writer loved the (quite rockin’) set by the Gossip (above), and particularly noted the singer’s willingness to show off part of her bod. The writer was much less approving of Helle’s Belles guitarist Adrian Connor showing off part of her bod. Yo, Chris Nelson: Equality works both ways. A svelte straight woman has just as much right to take public pride in her midriff as a voluptuous lesbian does.

Meanwhile, other acts just rocked on, oblivious to the made-up controversy, such as local skeptical-pop stalwarts Peter Parker.

In another part of town over the weekend, the indie role-playing-game store in the U District that took the place in neighborhood gamers’ hearts from the short-lived Wizards of the Coast palace held its own “coming out” party of sorts, setting up some tables on the sidewalk so as to give some hardcore gamer dudez a dose of what’s stereotypically thought of as a rare and not-always-craved commodity among gamer dudez, sunlight.