Portland is a city that tries hard. It tries hard to be different, cultural, alternative and original. Nothing demonstrates this more that “Last Thursdays” in Alberta. On the last Thursday of every month a mini-festival is held for all of would be artistic souls to get together and show their stuff. The rest of the time they either wander the streets, referring to themselves as “Rainbow Kids”, or just go to their regular day job and lead otherwise normal lives.

The “Rainbow Kids” are the many, seemingly homeless people who sit around the city center with their dogs and chosen musical instrument. Their hats are always placed strategically in front of them in the hope of some altruistic currency based gesture from the passers-by. They have a lose dress code, dreads are a requirement, along with at least one item of tie-die clothing and a pair of baggy fisherman pants or perhaps a sarong. In Spain these people are known as “Perro-Flauters” or Dog-Fluters as that is what they always have and in Britain we call them Krusties. The term Rainbow comes from the name for the phenomenon of what are known as Rainbow Gatherings, which are basically festivals which espouse peace, love, environmentalism, respect and non-commercialism. The use of money is considered taboo and goods must be traded for with whatever you might have to offer, be it a handy wood fired oven for your live-in van, a joint, or simply a nice back massage. At one point the now famous Burning Man would probably have been counted as one of Rainbow events, but at a price that now stands at $300 a night, I suspect that it no longer qualifies.

Anyway, back to Last Thursdays at Alberta. Yesterday was the last Thrusday of August and I was in attendance for my first time. I hoped off the bus a good 10 blocks away from the action, once again preferring to walk instead, 10 bocks never takes too long and is certainly more pleasant than waiting for a third bus. As I wandered across NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd which splits the North section of Portland from the North East section (the city layout bears a logic equal to that of our Vulcan friend Mr. Spock), I began to get my first taste of the action. Well, a few groups of people milling about and not in cars. A few blocks further down and the size and frequency of these groups started to increase.

The first part of the event I came across was a couple of guys outside a parked van starting up on some rather funky sounding tunes, which introduced me nicely into the growing vibe around me. I finally arrived at the main evengt and was immediately greeted by 2 guys dancing to a somewhat unashamed set of cheesey house tunes. One was dancing an impressive interpretation of that classic 80s dance style The Robot, with reasonable success, while the other was doing what can only be described as a kind of Staring and the Sky, T’ai-Chi based set of maneuvers. I’ll admit, I wasn’t blown away at that point, but they were certainly enthusiastic.

Moving on and I came across a guy playing a very curious instrument that looked like a cross between a sitar and a harp. He was very skilled and the resulting sound was very soporific and would have fit well in one of my yoga classes. I later asked him what the instrument was and he told me it was called a kora. I said it looked like it came from India, to which he replied “close, it actually comes from West Africa”. He then recanted on the fact that this was close to India. I agreed.

There are some evenings when you feel like getting right in there and talking to all and sundry. This was not one of those evenings, and so I made my way through the crowds as a quiet observer, not wishing to draw too much attention to myself. I could have approached the kissing booth where a Rainbow Kid was offering free kisses while painted up as a rather cherub-like clown with a Betty Boo set of lips. I could have also had my photo taken with the group of zombie girls who had painted the top half’s of their naked bodies in accordance with their zombie faces. But I chose to watch from a distance, thinking to myself how strange it is that a thin layer of body paint can remove most of the allure that female nakedness brings.

The next notable musician was a guy set up in the middle of the road playing a series of plastic containers with two drumsticks. Playing with a unbelievable speed and rhythm I felt compelled to stop and watch for a while. He was singing too, his main lyric being “thank you” in reference to the dollars people were adding to his growing fund. He was very good, so I added a George Washington to his cause.

The place felt exactly like my many experiences at the famous British festival Glastonbury, with revelers wandering around in all states of dress and undress, keen to express themselves as originally as possible. The one thing I did notice was the distinct lack of booze and spliff-smoking that I am accustomed to in the European equivalents of such events. It seems that Portlanders can go crazy without any extra liquid encouragement. Of course it’s also possible that they had gotten suitably leathered before arriving or in one of the many bars that lined the streets. I did noticed one or two people clearly high on more than just the vibe, despite a visible police presence.

As I wandered on I was happy to see my first Native American cultural demonstration, with a group of Native Americans all sat around one large, loud drum which they were banging in unison and chanting. The whole scene was quite trance inducing and when it ended I found I had lost all sense of time. Perhaps I had been there for days… There was also a death metal band playing in front of a black van, parked up on the street in order to increase the volume and intensity of their apocalyptic sound. The final act at the other end of the pedestrianized zone of the street was a tap-dancing saxophonist, playing an eclectic series of sleazy improvisations that evoked scenes of smokey late night jazz venues, hidden in the back streets of New York. The tap-dancing offset the trashy tone of the saxophone perfectly, giving the whole show a comedy effect which was further amplified by the player’s amusing harassment of other passers-by.

Perhaps my favourite scene of the evening was delivered by a small band of Rainbow Kids playing great set of Tom Waits like numbers with a thimble and washboard, a guitar, a mandolin and a fiddle. Their sign claimed that they needed money for gas to continue their journey. The destination was unspecified. The sign was held by a half naked girl with stars on her nipples who danced, initially with her back to the crowd. About halfway through the song she turned around and began to sassily solicit money from the crowd after which she grew bored and plonked herself lazily in a large metal bucket beside the band and started rubbing herself with fists full of dollars. I gave her a fiver at the end…