KUBE Summer Jam review | Waiting on Lil Wayne

At White River Amphitheatre in Auburn, KUBE 93 Summer Jam looked like a party in a parking lot on Sunday.

Inside the gates, there was a complete confusion of KUBE listeners waiting for Lil Wayne and strutting their stuff: fat, thin, black, white, Asian, Latin, young, old, un-cool and super-cool. Dorky kids with braces trying to act grown-up next to sexy girls and their tough boyfriends (who were trying just as hard as the dorky kids to look cool but were way better at it).

Seattle rap group Dyme Def was hanging out at their booth near the stage, selling T-shirts and handing out free "mixtape" CDs.

Like many inside the gates but not inside the concert, Dyme Def's crew members were vendors, here because it would be commercially irresponsible to have no Summer Jam presence. They were committed to a long, hot day of business. There are brands to build after all.

There were a ton of booths on the boiling blacktop behind the stage, all blaring different rap music and advertising area artists, clothing lines, etc.

At Summer Jam, basketball shoes were normal shoes. Short pants were long pants on guys, underwear on girls. T-shirts were long. Polo shirts were, too, and had lots of bright stripes.

If you had the ability to shave creative designs into your hair, you did and were showing off.

The air was charged with sexuality, from the poster advertisements for "naughty" social-networking sites, to what some people were(n't) wearing, to the content of the artists themselves.

Lil Wayne, the headliner, is platinum on the strength of "Lollipop," an entendre that has him explaining "She wanna lick the wrapper."

This report was filed right after Ray J did a set all about sex, the subject of both his current radio hits, "Gifts" and "Sexy Can I," and Bow Wow strip-show chair-danced all over a plus-sized audience woman.

Both of them became famous as kids but now project a changed, adult image.

Basically that means they can make songs like fellow Summer Jammer T-Pain, songs about and designed for substance use and sexy parties.

The sound quality at White River was uniformly horrible, mostly gargantuan, stomach-rumbling bass hits. There was no mid- or high-end.

Any melody in a track was gone, reduced to shouts or sustained yells. From far back on the amphitheater grass, it sounded like muffled, pounding Morse code.

Plus, the first sets began at least an hour late and rumors swirling through the crowd suggested there might be more delays through the evening.

Pat-down searching was enforced and barbed wire surrounds the amphitheater.

Nothing says "party" like barbed wire, right? No matter. Summer Jam has a particular party culture, and people don't need cues to know what to do: get hot, sweaty, sexy, and rap along to Lil Wayne.

Andrew Matson: 206-464-2153 or amatson@seattletimes.com

EXCERPTS FROM THE BLOG