Wednesday: “Na man, I’m good to keep driving” – Tim Willis
On Wednesday, June 10, 2009, I began my second trip to the Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, something I had been trying to do every year since I was first there in 2003. I was excited to finally be able to make the trek again and end my six year hiatus. Each year, I wanted to go, it just seemed that there was always something keeping me. We left Wednesday night from my place around 8pm. In the car was Jeff Schiz, Tim Willis, and myself. I had exchanged cars with my mom, so we were able to drive down in the comfort and space of a minivan. As an homage to Ben Summers, I took a “lunny-star” as soon as I got in the car so that I could wake up towards the tail end and take over driving in the wee hours of the morning when my companions were exhausted. However, at some point, Tim took over driving and every time that I woke up and asked if he wanted me to take over, he said he was fine, so I just kept sleeping. Basically, I missed the entire trip down.
Thursday: “I can’t believe its only Thursday” – Jeff Sangillo
We rolled into Manchester pretty early in the morning, probably around 6am or so. We were planning to stop for supplies at the local Wal-Mart, but traffic cops were only allowing local traffic off at the exit required, which really irritated Schiz, “how can they do that? This is America!” he exclaimed. Fortunately, we found a way around the roadblock and to the Wal-Mart, where hundreds of hippies had gathered. Hippies: you just can’t stop them from doing whatever they feel like doing. After getting our supplies, Schiz promptly made friends with a vangabond named Hopper, who while approximately our age and from seemingly a seemingly similar middle class suburban background, had spent way too much time in the music festival scene enjoying an abundance of the mind altering substances. Hopper had his own car and a few traveling companions, but did not yet have a ticket, or I’m guessing the money to pay for said ticket, but was confident that he would be attending Bonnaroo. We hung out with Hopper for a bit before piling back into the car to enter the venue. We all agreed that it’d be great if we could run into him again before the festival’s end.
Unlike my previous trip to Bonnaroo, for which I sat in traffic overnight, we were able to make it into the venue in less than an hour, including when security took a brief hiatus to let an intense thunderstorm pass. Just after passing through security and beginning the drive to our site, who do we see walking along the muddy road? None other than Hopper. Apparently, he had just casually walked through security in the camping area under the guise of carrying trash bags or something. We picked him up and brought him with us to our site. We made it to our campsite, which was ideally located close to the venue, and set up camp, and made friends with our neighbors. Then the drinking began.
We pregamed and cooked out for several hours before heading into the venue around 5pm ready to start the festival. A security checkpoint prevents concertgoers from entering with weapons, booze, food, etc each time you enter “Centerloo,” where all the concerts are. However, Schiz works for a bottled water company and was able to get empty bottles of water and caps that still contained the bottom seal. These caps can be placed on by hand. So instead of having to buy booze inside, we just filled a large water bottle up with vodka, so that we could easily sneak in alcohol. Filling the bottle up with bottom shelf liquor each day, we joked that we spent more on the mixers than we did on actual alcohol, genius!
Thursday ended up being my heavy drinking day. I went after that bottle and ended up getting really drunk. I vividly remember seeing Albert Cross, remember most of White Rabbits, remember heading to Portugal the Man, but then completely blacked out for a while. Fortunately, I sobered up enough to remember most of the Passion Pit show, the only bad I really wanted to see on Thursday. While the show was great, I do wish I could remember it a little more clearly. Though I do remember commenting many times that I was amazing that it was only Thursday and we still had 3 more days.
Tim was also pretty drunk, and combined with no sleeping the previous night, was probably in worse shape than I. However, he wisely decided that he should just go back to the tent and pass out, instead of continuing the night. It also started pouring rain that evening, though I fortunately had my rain gear. By the time that we returned to camp, it was pouring rain. I had left most of my equipment in the car (sleeping bag, pillow), except for my aerobed. Of course, being too inebriated to figure out how to blow up my aerobed, I decided that once the rain died down, I would just go to the car and get my back up thermarest and other sleeping items. I promptly fell asleep and woke up in the morning flat on my back without a pillow, sleeping bag, or pad. As far as I remember, that never happened to me while camping before, I hope it never happens again.
Friday: “Would you like some vodka?” – Jeff Schiz
I woke up surprisingly comfortably on Friday morning and didn’t really even have much of a hangover, though I lacked any desire to drink for quite a while. We lounged around the campsite: cooking, eating, and just chilling before heading into the venue for another day. Even though it was sunny and hot as hell, I wanted to see as many acts as I could, so we got a pretty early start on the day and were in Centerloo in time to catch the beginning of the day’s act at noon. The security lines were so long that the guards ended up just nixing the whole thing and decided to let everyone who had a wristband in, negating our need for the vodka in waterbottle idea. This would actually happen to us everyday from there on out.
We saw a lot of bands during the day on Friday including:
· Gomez – English indie rock
· Vieux Farka Touré – Son of renowned Malian blues guitarist Ali Farka Touré
· Animal Collective – Baltimore-based experimental DJs
· Béla Fleck – banjo virtuoso and arguably the singularly most talented musician at Bonnaroo
· Grizzly Bear – Indie/blues rock
· Santigold – black R&B/rocker girl.
By the end of the afternoon, we were all hot, dirty, and sweaty. In the middle of Centerloo was a large mushroom-shaped fountain that dumped water on anyone standing below. Each day, we would make sure to make sure to stop by the fountain to douse ourselves with water to clean off and cool off. Standing underneath the refreshing water was always a highlight of the day for me. And walking around for the next hour with cool water dripping off me in the heat of the afternoon made the days much more bearable.
By late afternoon, we headed over to What Stage to watch R&B legend Al Green. Let me take a moment to explain that there are five main stages at Bonnaroo: What Stage, Which Stage, This Tent, That Tent, and The Other Tent. Yes, it was as confusing going from stage to stage as it sounds. Anyway, Al Green was amazing, soulfully belting out all his hits like "Let's Stay Together" and "Lay It Down," still getting his voice into those impressive upper registers and giving out roses to fans along the way. It was the same stage the I saw another soul icon, James Brown, perform 6 years ago. I sipped a Magic Hat and relived that previous night while equally enjoying the current one.
After Al Green, we caught a little bit of TV on the Radio on Which Stage before heading back over to the What Stage for the Beastie Boys. The sun had gone down and it was a blast being reminded of junior high days while jumping up and down listening to Mike D, MCA, and Ad-Rock lay down rhymes over Mix Master Mike’s familiar beats. Special guest Nas also came out for a song or two.
After Beasties was Phish, the headliners of the night and one of the primary reasons that I committed to going to Bonnaroo this year. The crowd was amped beyond belief and glow sticks exploded into the air when they began their set with Chalk Dust Torture. If you’ve never been to a Phish show, you’ve never been privy to seeing the glow stick wars that erupt. Phans bring in glow sticks by the thousands and send them flying through the air, sometimes one at a time, other times as collected bundles. Frequently, they are thrown in time with the music, and the build up of a song culminates with a crescendo of glow sticks. Its quite a site to be jamming out to Phish.
Unlike a normal Phish show, that contains some Phan favorites mixed in with less popular songs, the next 3 hours was like a Phish greatest hits show. Schiz and I kept waiting for the set break, but it never came, just a solid 3 hours of music with no more than five minutes of rest over a set that included: Divided Sky, Possum, Down With Disease, Stash, Golgi Appartus, Wolfman's Brother, Free, Wading In The Velvet Sea, Harry Hood, Highway To Hell, and 2001. They then closed with Wilson sandwiched between You Enjoy Myself. Amazing!!! Just that one night of Phish alone was worth the trip.
After Phish I was excited but exhausted. I wanted to head over to check out at least some of Girl Talk, a popular mash up artist. Unfortunately, I didn’t want to stay very long, opting to just go back to camp and sleep.
Saturday: “Ticket to Bonnaroo: $250. Food, water, beer: $100. Being able to take a shit will jammin’ to live music: Priceless” – written inside portable toilet located at the back of What Stage
The beginning off Saturday was just like Friday, though I did wake up in a sleeping bag…well sort of in a sleeping bag, and completely in a pool of sweat. It is June in Tennessee after all.
We headed to Centeroo a bit earlier than we did the previous day. It was still a quarter of noon, but Schiz wanted to get inside by noon because the surprise act of the weekend, Jimmy Buffett, was scheduled to start at noon. As we neared the venue, I noticed that the song playing over the venue’s loudspeakers was “Why Don’t We Get Drunk,” a Buffett classic. Surely, they were just playing a recording of the song in anticipation of the real deal. Once again, the security guards gave up on patting down the long lines of people and just let us go straight through so as the large crowd did not have the chance to get unruly. With braceleted hands raised anyway, it became customary for each patron to reward the guards with high fives for allowing us through untouched.
As we neared Which Stage, where Buffett was playing, we realized that it was in fact Jimmy himself. Not only was he the surprise guest at Bonnaroo, who agreed to play at the last minute in the middle of the afternoon, most likely for little to no money, he went on early! Clearly, this is a man who just loves playing music. Buffett wasn’t even initially listed as an act, but rather what began as a performance by Ilo and the Coral Reefer All-Stars (who he frequently collaborates with) turned into half of a full-on Jimmy Buffett performance, with the head Parrothead delivering "Margaritaville," "Fins," "A Pirate Looks at 40" and more to a noontime crowd on Saturday. Schiz was particularly impressed with Jimmy’s performance and happily started in on our bottle of booze to celebrate and get the day started properly.
The day continued as the previous one, hopping from show to show. However, learning a valuable lesson from the previous day and plotting out my day and evening, I decided that it was imperative that I take it a little easier than I did the previous day, sitting when possible and avoiding the sun when possible. There were several bands playing late night sets on Saturday night that I not only wanted to see, but have plenty of energy for. So I figured it was best to only lazily make my way to some of the earlier acts. Some of these earlier acts included:
· Cherryholmes – A family bluegrass troupe
· Allen Toussaint – Influential figures in New Orleans R&B scene in the 60’s and 70’s
· Rodrigo y Gabriella – A pair of thrash metal influenced Mexican acoustic guitarists who are both able to move their hands faster than I thought was humanly possible
· Raphael Saadiq – Soul singer that was a highlight of the festival for Tim
· Gov’t Mule – A jam band lead by front man Warren Haynes, who is a member of 75% of all jam bands currently operating in America, who in addition to his own talented song writing shared with us amazing renditions of several notable covers including the Beatles’ "Helter Skelter," Radiohead's "Creep," and U2's "One"
· Mars Volta – A rock band that I’ve been struggling to classify into a single genre for almost a year now, though all I know is that they rock hard
· Decemberists – Indie rockers who I was happy to catch a few songs of, even if just to cross off my bucket list.
The headliner for the evening was the Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen. As I’ve heard is typical for him, he and the rest of the E Street Band rocked hard for nearly 3 hours. Unlike Phish the previous evening, I didn’t really think that Bruce did anything special for his Bonnaroo performance, but we were fine with this considering that I know that every show he puts on is equally amazing. We were treated to many of his biggest hits like “Born to Run” and “Badlands,” some of his minor or newer hits like “The River” and “Radio Nowhere” and some of his more obscure songs like “Growing Up,” a song which was always a personal favorite of mine. Since it was Bruce Springsteen, I felt like it was a “drinking” concert, so towards the end of the show, I was trying to resist calls from nature in favor of maintaining the amazing spot that I had secured fairly close to the stage. I finally relinquished close to the end of the show and headed to the loo.
Instead of battling my way back to the stage, I decided to head to the next act, Nine Inch Nails, a industrial rock band, that would be starting their set soon. I only left early so as to stay with Chris, a friend of Schiz’s who we had met up with, who wanted to get up close for the next show. I was a little reluctant to leave Bruce and not all that enthused about being close to such an intense act like NIN, but didn’t want to be standing by myself at the show. With little effort we were able to get within thirty feet of the stage. While waiting for the NIN to come out, I was kicking myself for leaving Bruce early as I heard him finish up his encore with “Glory Days.”
It was a good bit after one in the morning when Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails began their act, but I was closer to the stage than I had been for any show yet at the festival. NIN was also by far the “hardest” music that I had seen there yet, and the crowd was ready to mosh. Even with all the concerts I had been to, I had never really been in a mosh pit before and not really sure it was something that I wanted to be a part of, but it was Bonnaroo and I was up close, so there was no way that I was giving up any ground. It turned out being one of the highlights of my weekend, even though I lost Chris within the first few minutes.
In the mosh pit, the entire crowd began pushing each other and swaying to the music. However, it wasn’t violent pushing meant to harm anyone, rather almost a dance that everyone participated in to show their support for the band. While every individual aggressively pushed up against his fellow concertgoers, it was always done in an respectful manner. There were never any clenched fists or jerking pushes, just each man (and several women) pushing up against each other, jockeying for a position slightly closer to the stage. I was wearing my backpack the entire time, but not once did someone grab it to try to throw me out of the way. On the rare occasion that someone fell over, there was no worry of being trampled by the masses, as a dozen feet in the nearby vicinity to the fallen stopped moving and a dozen hands reached down to pick the person back up as soon as possible. It was unlike anything that I had ever really experienced, but right in line with the sharing and giving nature that the Bonnaroo festival and its participants promote. I had only planned on staying for part of the show in order to catch another late night act, but judging by the ear-to-ear grin I knew was spread across my face, I knew that I had to stay for the entire set.
Rhythmically jumping, swaying, pushing, and struggling with the crowd was fun and exhausting. Tightly packed in the with crowd, I was soon soaked in sweat. I would tire myself out, feverishly working my way toward the stage, then relax as others did the same and pushed me out of the way. When the feeling of battery acid pumping through my legs dissipated, the process would start all over again. At one point, I was able to reach out and touch the front railing, though the front row of the crowd close enough to grip it made sure not to give up any more ground. Lead singer Trent Reznor left the stage and entered the top of the crowd right were I had been just a song before.
I’m only a casual Nine Inch Nails fan, but was able to hear most of the songs I wanted to hear from the band’s repetoir, and seeing them so close made me appreciate them all that much more. What made the show particularly interesting was Reznor’s announcement that it would be the band’s last US show ever, which was news to me. I was ecstatic that I got to experience it.
The show ended and my heart rate retuned to its normal pace as I walked over MGMT, an indie electronic band that I had also wanted to see. I was a little bummed that I had to give up seeing their set in favor of NIN, but this is the kind of thing that sometimes happens when there are lots of bands to see but not much time. Fortunately, I was able to catch the last few songs, including one of their biggest hits, “Kids.” Fortunately, MGMT is playing All Points West, a festival latter in the summer that I also hope to attend. Missing the majority of their set at Bonnaroo will provide me more incentive to make it to their next gig.
I wandered back to our campsite, my shirt still stilly sweaty and my adrenaline still pumping, to find Tim fast asleep in the tent and Schiz sloppily chatting/dozing with our camp neighbors in one of their lawn chairs. I wasn’t far behind him in falling fast asleep as we crawled into our tent.
Sunday - "Anybody ready for some motherfuckin' Phish?" - Snoop Dogg
Sunday was our final day at Bonnaroo. Though there weren’t as many acts playing on Sunday as the previous days, particularly ones that excited me, it was still going to be a full day of music for the three of us. What’s always unfortunate about the last day though is that you’re already thinking about going home. As much fun as I was having, my body was exhausted and I was already thinking about the long drive home, the shower I would take immediately upon entering my apartment, and the comfortable bed in my room which is strategically placed right below an air conditioner vent. Don’t get me wrong though, it was still a full day of shows and I was going to enjoy them to their fullest: tired, filthy, or otherwise.
We packed up our campsite so that we could leave quickly at the end of the day, but due to the weak line up in the early part of the day, we headed into the venue a little later than normal. It appears that the rest of the festival was thinking the same think, and we were once again faced with crowds at the entrance that overwhelmed security. Despite it being the final day, we were still able to see several excellent shows including:
· Citizen Cope – alternative, bluesy, folksy singer
· Erykah Badu – The First Lady of Neo-Soul
· Coheed & Cambria – hard rock I’m not quite sure what
The early evening show was Snoop Dogg, who while in my opinion, isn’t a particularly talented or interesting performer, has just established himself as such a cultural icon, that being in his presence is fun in and of its self. Snoop has also written or participated in many hit tracks which are fun to join him in a sing along.
To close off the festival was a repeat of Friday’s headliners, Phish. While it wasn’t the 3 hour powerhouse of music we say the previous night, it was still an incredible night. That evening, Phish played their much more traditional 2 set evening, though it was still probably about 3 hours in total overall. We heard additional Phan favorites like AC/DC Bag, NICU (a personal favorite of mine), Bathtub Gin, Character Zero, Run Like an Antelope, and Farmhouse, while glow stick once again flew through the air. However, towards the end of the first set, we were treated to a special treat. Phish stopped the music to introduce a special guest for the evening, and the superpowers of the weekend collided as Bruce Springsteen joined Phish on stage for surprise renditions of several songs featuring Bruce on vocals including "Mustang Sally" "Bobby Jean" and, that’s right you guessed it, "Glory Days," the song that I had missed the previous night. It was already the perfect end to a perfect weekend and that was only the end of the first set! As amazing as the E Street Band is backing up Springsteen, having Phish take their place was much more special. I remarked to Schiz that this event has never happened before and would probably never happen again. In seeing Phish back up Bruce Springsteen, we witnessed something that would probably only happen that once in history. Spectacular!
We finished up our evening with Phish and our time at Bonnaroo and headed back to the campsite. An exhausted Tim had already headed back to our packed up campsite. We were happy to find the most of the tents in the area put away and many of the cars gone, making it easy for us to navigate out of the site, away from Bonnaroo, onto the highway, and towards home. I started the drive a little after 1am local time with the intention of driving as far as possible before having to pull over to sleep.
The miles rolled by one after another as I tried to stay awake with coffee, air conditioning, and music. However, we were only a couple hours down the road when I realized that it was time to either pull off the road or crash into a ditch. I soon found a large, unoccupied motel parking lot off an exit. I locked the doors and closed my eyes.
Monday – “I can’t wait to take a shower” – All
The dawn was just breaking when Schiz woke up and realized that we had stopped driving. Having woken up sufficiently, he volunteered to take over the driving. I crawled in back and passed out. When I woke again, Schiz was back to sleeping in the passenger seat and Tim had taken over, though we were still a good several hours away from home. The hours and miles rolled by as we listened to talk radio and chatted. Eventually, we made it back to my apartment and I made it into the shower.
On Wednesday, June 10, 2009, I began my second trip to the Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, something I had been trying to do every year since I was first there in 2003. I was excited to finally be able to make the trek again and end my six year hiatus. Each year, I wanted to go, it just seemed that there was always something keeping me. We left Wednesday night from my place around 8pm. In the car was Jeff Schiz, Tim Willis, and myself. I had exchanged cars with my mom, so we were able to drive down in the comfort and space of a minivan. As an homage to Ben Summers, I took a “lunny-star” as soon as I got in the car so that I could wake up towards the tail end and take over driving in the wee hours of the morning when my companions were exhausted. However, at some point, Tim took over driving and every time that I woke up and asked if he wanted me to take over, he said he was fine, so I just kept sleeping. Basically, I missed the entire trip down.
Thursday: “I can’t believe its only Thursday” – Jeff Sangillo
We rolled into Manchester pretty early in the morning, probably around 6am or so. We were planning to stop for supplies at the local Wal-Mart, but traffic cops were only allowing local traffic off at the exit required, which really irritated Schiz, “how can they do that? This is America!” he exclaimed. Fortunately, we found a way around the roadblock and to the Wal-Mart, where hundreds of hippies had gathered. Hippies: you just can’t stop them from doing whatever they feel like doing. After getting our supplies, Schiz promptly made friends with a vangabond named Hopper, who while approximately our age and from seemingly a seemingly similar middle class suburban background, had spent way too much time in the music festival scene enjoying an abundance of the mind altering substances. Hopper had his own car and a few traveling companions, but did not yet have a ticket, or I’m guessing the money to pay for said ticket, but was confident that he would be attending Bonnaroo. We hung out with Hopper for a bit before piling back into the car to enter the venue. We all agreed that it’d be great if we could run into him again before the festival’s end.
Unlike my previous trip to Bonnaroo, for which I sat in traffic overnight, we were able to make it into the venue in less than an hour, including when security took a brief hiatus to let an intense thunderstorm pass. Just after passing through security and beginning the drive to our site, who do we see walking along the muddy road? None other than Hopper. Apparently, he had just casually walked through security in the camping area under the guise of carrying trash bags or something. We picked him up and brought him with us to our site. We made it to our campsite, which was ideally located close to the venue, and set up camp, and made friends with our neighbors. Then the drinking began.
We pregamed and cooked out for several hours before heading into the venue around 5pm ready to start the festival. A security checkpoint prevents concertgoers from entering with weapons, booze, food, etc each time you enter “Centerloo,” where all the concerts are. However, Schiz works for a bottled water company and was able to get empty bottles of water and caps that still contained the bottom seal. These caps can be placed on by hand. So instead of having to buy booze inside, we just filled a large water bottle up with vodka, so that we could easily sneak in alcohol. Filling the bottle up with bottom shelf liquor each day, we joked that we spent more on the mixers than we did on actual alcohol, genius!
Thursday ended up being my heavy drinking day. I went after that bottle and ended up getting really drunk. I vividly remember seeing Albert Cross, remember most of White Rabbits, remember heading to Portugal the Man, but then completely blacked out for a while. Fortunately, I sobered up enough to remember most of the Passion Pit show, the only bad I really wanted to see on Thursday. While the show was great, I do wish I could remember it a little more clearly. Though I do remember commenting many times that I was amazing that it was only Thursday and we still had 3 more days.
Tim was also pretty drunk, and combined with no sleeping the previous night, was probably in worse shape than I. However, he wisely decided that he should just go back to the tent and pass out, instead of continuing the night. It also started pouring rain that evening, though I fortunately had my rain gear. By the time that we returned to camp, it was pouring rain. I had left most of my equipment in the car (sleeping bag, pillow), except for my aerobed. Of course, being too inebriated to figure out how to blow up my aerobed, I decided that once the rain died down, I would just go to the car and get my back up thermarest and other sleeping items. I promptly fell asleep and woke up in the morning flat on my back without a pillow, sleeping bag, or pad. As far as I remember, that never happened to me while camping before, I hope it never happens again.
Friday: “Would you like some vodka?” – Jeff Schiz
I woke up surprisingly comfortably on Friday morning and didn’t really even have much of a hangover, though I lacked any desire to drink for quite a while. We lounged around the campsite: cooking, eating, and just chilling before heading into the venue for another day. Even though it was sunny and hot as hell, I wanted to see as many acts as I could, so we got a pretty early start on the day and were in Centerloo in time to catch the beginning of the day’s act at noon. The security lines were so long that the guards ended up just nixing the whole thing and decided to let everyone who had a wristband in, negating our need for the vodka in waterbottle idea. This would actually happen to us everyday from there on out.
We saw a lot of bands during the day on Friday including:
· Gomez – English indie rock
· Vieux Farka Touré – Son of renowned Malian blues guitarist Ali Farka Touré
· Animal Collective – Baltimore-based experimental DJs
· Béla Fleck – banjo virtuoso and arguably the singularly most talented musician at Bonnaroo
· Grizzly Bear – Indie/blues rock
· Santigold – black R&B/rocker girl.
By the end of the afternoon, we were all hot, dirty, and sweaty. In the middle of Centerloo was a large mushroom-shaped fountain that dumped water on anyone standing below. Each day, we would make sure to make sure to stop by the fountain to douse ourselves with water to clean off and cool off. Standing underneath the refreshing water was always a highlight of the day for me. And walking around for the next hour with cool water dripping off me in the heat of the afternoon made the days much more bearable.
By late afternoon, we headed over to What Stage to watch R&B legend Al Green. Let me take a moment to explain that there are five main stages at Bonnaroo: What Stage, Which Stage, This Tent, That Tent, and The Other Tent. Yes, it was as confusing going from stage to stage as it sounds. Anyway, Al Green was amazing, soulfully belting out all his hits like "Let's Stay Together" and "Lay It Down," still getting his voice into those impressive upper registers and giving out roses to fans along the way. It was the same stage the I saw another soul icon, James Brown, perform 6 years ago. I sipped a Magic Hat and relived that previous night while equally enjoying the current one.
After Al Green, we caught a little bit of TV on the Radio on Which Stage before heading back over to the What Stage for the Beastie Boys. The sun had gone down and it was a blast being reminded of junior high days while jumping up and down listening to Mike D, MCA, and Ad-Rock lay down rhymes over Mix Master Mike’s familiar beats. Special guest Nas also came out for a song or two.
After Beasties was Phish, the headliners of the night and one of the primary reasons that I committed to going to Bonnaroo this year. The crowd was amped beyond belief and glow sticks exploded into the air when they began their set with Chalk Dust Torture. If you’ve never been to a Phish show, you’ve never been privy to seeing the glow stick wars that erupt. Phans bring in glow sticks by the thousands and send them flying through the air, sometimes one at a time, other times as collected bundles. Frequently, they are thrown in time with the music, and the build up of a song culminates with a crescendo of glow sticks. Its quite a site to be jamming out to Phish.
Unlike a normal Phish show, that contains some Phan favorites mixed in with less popular songs, the next 3 hours was like a Phish greatest hits show. Schiz and I kept waiting for the set break, but it never came, just a solid 3 hours of music with no more than five minutes of rest over a set that included: Divided Sky, Possum, Down With Disease, Stash, Golgi Appartus, Wolfman's Brother, Free, Wading In The Velvet Sea, Harry Hood, Highway To Hell, and 2001. They then closed with Wilson sandwiched between You Enjoy Myself. Amazing!!! Just that one night of Phish alone was worth the trip.
After Phish I was excited but exhausted. I wanted to head over to check out at least some of Girl Talk, a popular mash up artist. Unfortunately, I didn’t want to stay very long, opting to just go back to camp and sleep.
Saturday: “Ticket to Bonnaroo: $250. Food, water, beer: $100. Being able to take a shit will jammin’ to live music: Priceless” – written inside portable toilet located at the back of What Stage
The beginning off Saturday was just like Friday, though I did wake up in a sleeping bag…well sort of in a sleeping bag, and completely in a pool of sweat. It is June in Tennessee after all.
We headed to Centeroo a bit earlier than we did the previous day. It was still a quarter of noon, but Schiz wanted to get inside by noon because the surprise act of the weekend, Jimmy Buffett, was scheduled to start at noon. As we neared the venue, I noticed that the song playing over the venue’s loudspeakers was “Why Don’t We Get Drunk,” a Buffett classic. Surely, they were just playing a recording of the song in anticipation of the real deal. Once again, the security guards gave up on patting down the long lines of people and just let us go straight through so as the large crowd did not have the chance to get unruly. With braceleted hands raised anyway, it became customary for each patron to reward the guards with high fives for allowing us through untouched.
As we neared Which Stage, where Buffett was playing, we realized that it was in fact Jimmy himself. Not only was he the surprise guest at Bonnaroo, who agreed to play at the last minute in the middle of the afternoon, most likely for little to no money, he went on early! Clearly, this is a man who just loves playing music. Buffett wasn’t even initially listed as an act, but rather what began as a performance by Ilo and the Coral Reefer All-Stars (who he frequently collaborates with) turned into half of a full-on Jimmy Buffett performance, with the head Parrothead delivering "Margaritaville," "Fins," "A Pirate Looks at 40" and more to a noontime crowd on Saturday. Schiz was particularly impressed with Jimmy’s performance and happily started in on our bottle of booze to celebrate and get the day started properly.
The day continued as the previous one, hopping from show to show. However, learning a valuable lesson from the previous day and plotting out my day and evening, I decided that it was imperative that I take it a little easier than I did the previous day, sitting when possible and avoiding the sun when possible. There were several bands playing late night sets on Saturday night that I not only wanted to see, but have plenty of energy for. So I figured it was best to only lazily make my way to some of the earlier acts. Some of these earlier acts included:
· Cherryholmes – A family bluegrass troupe
· Allen Toussaint – Influential figures in New Orleans R&B scene in the 60’s and 70’s
· Rodrigo y Gabriella – A pair of thrash metal influenced Mexican acoustic guitarists who are both able to move their hands faster than I thought was humanly possible
· Raphael Saadiq – Soul singer that was a highlight of the festival for Tim
· Gov’t Mule – A jam band lead by front man Warren Haynes, who is a member of 75% of all jam bands currently operating in America, who in addition to his own talented song writing shared with us amazing renditions of several notable covers including the Beatles’ "Helter Skelter," Radiohead's "Creep," and U2's "One"
· Mars Volta – A rock band that I’ve been struggling to classify into a single genre for almost a year now, though all I know is that they rock hard
· Decemberists – Indie rockers who I was happy to catch a few songs of, even if just to cross off my bucket list.
The headliner for the evening was the Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen. As I’ve heard is typical for him, he and the rest of the E Street Band rocked hard for nearly 3 hours. Unlike Phish the previous evening, I didn’t really think that Bruce did anything special for his Bonnaroo performance, but we were fine with this considering that I know that every show he puts on is equally amazing. We were treated to many of his biggest hits like “Born to Run” and “Badlands,” some of his minor or newer hits like “The River” and “Radio Nowhere” and some of his more obscure songs like “Growing Up,” a song which was always a personal favorite of mine. Since it was Bruce Springsteen, I felt like it was a “drinking” concert, so towards the end of the show, I was trying to resist calls from nature in favor of maintaining the amazing spot that I had secured fairly close to the stage. I finally relinquished close to the end of the show and headed to the loo.
Instead of battling my way back to the stage, I decided to head to the next act, Nine Inch Nails, a industrial rock band, that would be starting their set soon. I only left early so as to stay with Chris, a friend of Schiz’s who we had met up with, who wanted to get up close for the next show. I was a little reluctant to leave Bruce and not all that enthused about being close to such an intense act like NIN, but didn’t want to be standing by myself at the show. With little effort we were able to get within thirty feet of the stage. While waiting for the NIN to come out, I was kicking myself for leaving Bruce early as I heard him finish up his encore with “Glory Days.”
It was a good bit after one in the morning when Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails began their act, but I was closer to the stage than I had been for any show yet at the festival. NIN was also by far the “hardest” music that I had seen there yet, and the crowd was ready to mosh. Even with all the concerts I had been to, I had never really been in a mosh pit before and not really sure it was something that I wanted to be a part of, but it was Bonnaroo and I was up close, so there was no way that I was giving up any ground. It turned out being one of the highlights of my weekend, even though I lost Chris within the first few minutes.
In the mosh pit, the entire crowd began pushing each other and swaying to the music. However, it wasn’t violent pushing meant to harm anyone, rather almost a dance that everyone participated in to show their support for the band. While every individual aggressively pushed up against his fellow concertgoers, it was always done in an respectful manner. There were never any clenched fists or jerking pushes, just each man (and several women) pushing up against each other, jockeying for a position slightly closer to the stage. I was wearing my backpack the entire time, but not once did someone grab it to try to throw me out of the way. On the rare occasion that someone fell over, there was no worry of being trampled by the masses, as a dozen feet in the nearby vicinity to the fallen stopped moving and a dozen hands reached down to pick the person back up as soon as possible. It was unlike anything that I had ever really experienced, but right in line with the sharing and giving nature that the Bonnaroo festival and its participants promote. I had only planned on staying for part of the show in order to catch another late night act, but judging by the ear-to-ear grin I knew was spread across my face, I knew that I had to stay for the entire set.
Rhythmically jumping, swaying, pushing, and struggling with the crowd was fun and exhausting. Tightly packed in the with crowd, I was soon soaked in sweat. I would tire myself out, feverishly working my way toward the stage, then relax as others did the same and pushed me out of the way. When the feeling of battery acid pumping through my legs dissipated, the process would start all over again. At one point, I was able to reach out and touch the front railing, though the front row of the crowd close enough to grip it made sure not to give up any more ground. Lead singer Trent Reznor left the stage and entered the top of the crowd right were I had been just a song before.
I’m only a casual Nine Inch Nails fan, but was able to hear most of the songs I wanted to hear from the band’s repetoir, and seeing them so close made me appreciate them all that much more. What made the show particularly interesting was Reznor’s announcement that it would be the band’s last US show ever, which was news to me. I was ecstatic that I got to experience it.
The show ended and my heart rate retuned to its normal pace as I walked over MGMT, an indie electronic band that I had also wanted to see. I was a little bummed that I had to give up seeing their set in favor of NIN, but this is the kind of thing that sometimes happens when there are lots of bands to see but not much time. Fortunately, I was able to catch the last few songs, including one of their biggest hits, “Kids.” Fortunately, MGMT is playing All Points West, a festival latter in the summer that I also hope to attend. Missing the majority of their set at Bonnaroo will provide me more incentive to make it to their next gig.
I wandered back to our campsite, my shirt still stilly sweaty and my adrenaline still pumping, to find Tim fast asleep in the tent and Schiz sloppily chatting/dozing with our camp neighbors in one of their lawn chairs. I wasn’t far behind him in falling fast asleep as we crawled into our tent.
Sunday - "Anybody ready for some motherfuckin' Phish?" - Snoop Dogg
Sunday was our final day at Bonnaroo. Though there weren’t as many acts playing on Sunday as the previous days, particularly ones that excited me, it was still going to be a full day of music for the three of us. What’s always unfortunate about the last day though is that you’re already thinking about going home. As much fun as I was having, my body was exhausted and I was already thinking about the long drive home, the shower I would take immediately upon entering my apartment, and the comfortable bed in my room which is strategically placed right below an air conditioner vent. Don’t get me wrong though, it was still a full day of shows and I was going to enjoy them to their fullest: tired, filthy, or otherwise.
We packed up our campsite so that we could leave quickly at the end of the day, but due to the weak line up in the early part of the day, we headed into the venue a little later than normal. It appears that the rest of the festival was thinking the same think, and we were once again faced with crowds at the entrance that overwhelmed security. Despite it being the final day, we were still able to see several excellent shows including:
· Citizen Cope – alternative, bluesy, folksy singer
· Erykah Badu – The First Lady of Neo-Soul
· Coheed & Cambria – hard rock I’m not quite sure what
The early evening show was Snoop Dogg, who while in my opinion, isn’t a particularly talented or interesting performer, has just established himself as such a cultural icon, that being in his presence is fun in and of its self. Snoop has also written or participated in many hit tracks which are fun to join him in a sing along.
To close off the festival was a repeat of Friday’s headliners, Phish. While it wasn’t the 3 hour powerhouse of music we say the previous night, it was still an incredible night. That evening, Phish played their much more traditional 2 set evening, though it was still probably about 3 hours in total overall. We heard additional Phan favorites like AC/DC Bag, NICU (a personal favorite of mine), Bathtub Gin, Character Zero, Run Like an Antelope, and Farmhouse, while glow stick once again flew through the air. However, towards the end of the first set, we were treated to a special treat. Phish stopped the music to introduce a special guest for the evening, and the superpowers of the weekend collided as Bruce Springsteen joined Phish on stage for surprise renditions of several songs featuring Bruce on vocals including "Mustang Sally" "Bobby Jean" and, that’s right you guessed it, "Glory Days," the song that I had missed the previous night. It was already the perfect end to a perfect weekend and that was only the end of the first set! As amazing as the E Street Band is backing up Springsteen, having Phish take their place was much more special. I remarked to Schiz that this event has never happened before and would probably never happen again. In seeing Phish back up Bruce Springsteen, we witnessed something that would probably only happen that once in history. Spectacular!
We finished up our evening with Phish and our time at Bonnaroo and headed back to the campsite. An exhausted Tim had already headed back to our packed up campsite. We were happy to find the most of the tents in the area put away and many of the cars gone, making it easy for us to navigate out of the site, away from Bonnaroo, onto the highway, and towards home. I started the drive a little after 1am local time with the intention of driving as far as possible before having to pull over to sleep.
The miles rolled by one after another as I tried to stay awake with coffee, air conditioning, and music. However, we were only a couple hours down the road when I realized that it was time to either pull off the road or crash into a ditch. I soon found a large, unoccupied motel parking lot off an exit. I locked the doors and closed my eyes.
Monday – “I can’t wait to take a shower” – All
The dawn was just breaking when Schiz woke up and realized that we had stopped driving. Having woken up sufficiently, he volunteered to take over the driving. I crawled in back and passed out. When I woke again, Schiz was back to sleeping in the passenger seat and Tim had taken over, though we were still a good several hours away from home. The hours and miles rolled by as we listened to talk radio and chatted. Eventually, we made it back to my apartment and I made it into the shower.
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