(photo, joel kelly [flickr])

There are a lot of things to see or do at Bumbershoot; Team Metroblogging helps you ward off confusion and indecision by pointing out some of the highlights. In this edition: Monday, the “are we there yet?” day. The day of “what? the Steve Miller Band is still together? I wonder if they’ll play ‘the Joker’” day.

This is a strong year for hip-hop, and the final stadium show should not disappoint — jazz rap uber-gods A Tribe Called Quest. All the “intellegent rap” that white-boy critics gush over? You can trace most of it back to TCQ’s brilliant Low End Theory. And they put on a great show. (9.30pm, Stadium, token required) On top of that, Sky Church has a Seattle Hip Hop Showcase that’s happening the entire afternoon. It will break Samantha’s heart if you don’t at least drop in to see one, if not all, of these local acts.

If that’s not your scene or you really want to be eclectic on Labor Day, here’s a crazy four-fer at the Mural stage. Sera Cahoone, ex-drummer of the suddenly-seminal Carissa’s Wierd (the band that brought you Band Of Horses), plays her Colorado-style country sound at 3pm. Following her at 4.45 is Bettye LaVette, a minor R&B star of the 1960s who raged back in 2005 with I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise, an incredible album where she turned a group of twee singer-songwriter songs into preach-it-sister balls-out soul anthems. She will singlehandedly confirm to you that Fiona Apple is a highly underrated songwriter… and that Fiona shouldn’t be singing her own stuff. Then come the subdudes at 6.45, one of those folk-acoustic jam bands that played in Boulder all the time when [Dylan] was an undergrad at CU (that is, they had to be playing the Fox and the Boulder theaters every day the Samples and Big Head Todd weren’t). But they are good and tight, and they’re back together touring as a NOLA band in the post-Katrina days.

If you’re not committed to reliving Dylan’s college days, there are a couple other choices to tempt you from the Mural stage:

Sparta, the non-Mars Volta half of what remains of At the Drive In will be making a lot of noise in Exhibition Hall at 7:15. At approximately the same time, Nouvelle Vague will be playing loungey French-accented covers of new wave hits (7:30, Broad Street). We’re pretty sure they’re sincere about it, too. Meanwhile (8:00, NW Court), sister act experimental indie folk duet CocoRosie are worth checking out.

Finally, 8.45 brings the current contender for the Queen Of All Indie — Leslie Feist, runner up in Stereogum’s 2005 Miss Indie Rock pageant. Feist has performed just about every genre imaginable, from her work with the pr0n-punk artist Peaches to the eastern Canada supergroup Broken Social Scene. Her own work is jazzy, folky, less barbed and cutely ironic than Nellie McKay but less far less smooth and produced than Norah Jones. And she’s, um, yummy to listen to. And look at. Let’s just put it this way: she turned a song about real estate into the most charming track on your winter playlist. And then the Postal Service remixed it and it skipped back into heavy rotation. Some cruel scheduling god decided to have her set overlap with fellow B.S.S. collectiveite Emily Hanes’s Metric (9:30, NW Stage). What’s a Canadaophile to do? Forty minutes of each seems like an adequate comopromise.

Monday is also a great day to pickup on all of the non-musical acts you’ve ignored on the previous two days of the festival. Such as the dramatic re-interpretation of R.Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet and the live version of your favorite weekend guilty pleasure, Best Week Ever going down on the Charlotte Martin Theater. Or David Cross and company’s Tinkle at the other comedy stage. It also features literary treats from Greil Marcus and Sean Wilsey, tempting if you need a reprieve from the elements. Similarly, if you’ve been indecisive about lining up for a movie, SIFF screens its audience awards at 3:30 (the Jury winners play Sunday). Thousands of Seattle film-goers can’t be too wrong.

Don’t even think about calling it a weekend until you’ve wandered through the art exhibits (three imaginary girls demand that you see End of Summer [kexp], which includes Ryan Schierling’s brilliant rock photography), the SuttonBeresCuller installation, and stocked up at Flatstock. For the past four years, the exhibition of rock posters by the country’s finest screenprinters has been the most dependable highlight of Bumbershoot. Best of all, artists sell their limited-edition work for astoundingly reasonable prices, allowing you to drastically enhance the aesthetic splendor of your home or office with a few simple purchases. Narrowing your buys to “a few” is the hard part.

Expect more updates, crappy sidekick photos, and suggestions throughout the festival. This year’s Team Metroblogging picks brought to you mostly by Dylan and Josh, with occasional soapboxing from Samantha, defense of Blondie from Carolyn, and moral support from the rest of the gang. Have fun out there and hope to see you enjoying the show, elephant ears, makeshift parades, strawberry shortcake, buskers, and all.