i have returned from Bonnaroo alive and well.
Thursday:
Scott and i leave around 6am, making a quick stop along the way for ice, arriving at the queue around 8am. We stay in the car queue until 2:15pm, when we pass through the check station and head to our new 4 day home: a campsite right on the road and a 5 minute walk to the entrance of Centeroo. Amazing. We luck into some great neighbors.
Superdrag – Very good. Better than i thought they’d be. I’d heard songs, but they were more early Weezerish than i remember. A pleasant surprise.
MGMT – Another surprise. In the vein of Flaming Lips. My favorite song was Electric Feel. The only song the entire weekend that i made a note to remember. Here’s the video.
Battles – Most disappointing performance of the entire fest. Drummer from Helmet. I guess i expected more. It was essentially controlled noise with beats under it. The beats were nice. The noise was, well, noise.
Zach Galifianakis / Reggie Watts & John Mulaney in the Comedy Tent – Yes, yes and yes. i missed Lez Zeppelin and Vampire Weekend to see this comedy trio, but it was WELL worth it. Really funny. I got to sit in an air conditioned tent to boot.
Friday:
When we woke up around 7:30, it was similar to the Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven inside the tent. Scott even thought he heard the “ding,” signaling us that we were “ready.” Luckily it cooled down later in the day. Our neighbors hooked us up with some tasty hamburgers, which was very kind.
Electric Apricot: Quest for Festeroo (A Les Claypool movie) – The Cinema Tent was partially air conditioned. This movie was mockumentary style ala Spinal Tap, but was about a jam band trying to record and play at a jam band fest. It wasn’t bad.
Minus the Bear – Oh hells yes. i walked up at the start time and they had already started, which was a little sad, but they killed it. Great set. One of my top 3 of the whole fest. They did not disappoint.
Les Claypool – i’m a longtime Primus fan, so this was a classic treat. Although he didn’t play any Primus songs, he still brought the bass infused magic. He wore a crazy Clockwork Orange style mask for some of it, switching masks as the show continued.
Willie Nelson – It was great to see this legend that i grew up listening to. He opened with Whiskey River and kept the classic songs coming. He would point and wave throughout the entire show, just like i hoped he would. i laughed several times at his borderline obliviousness to the music he was playing. There was at least one song that i thought he was playing a different song than the rest of the band. Only Willie could pull it off.
Chris Rock – We left Willie slightly early to get a good spot for Chris Rock and Metallica. Rock’s stand-up was seasoned with politics, race, and sex humor, just like you’d imagine. He did not disappoint.
Metallica – Let me say this first: i played Creeping Death in Manchester before Metallica did. That said, Metallica brought pain and suffering to Middle Tennessee. They opened with Creeping Death and then followed it with a nice selection of older songs, mixed with a few newer songs that i didn’t know, which was okay, because other people seemed to know them. i’ve been a fan of Robert Turillo, the new bass player, since his time with Suicidal Tendencies and Infectious Grooves, and he did a good job. i heard that Metallica played the Basement before this show, which would have been amazing to see.
MSTRKRFT - Amidst a sea of glowsticks and mind-altering drugs, MSTRKRFT took the stage, sending out pulsating beats to stir the crowd into a trance-like state of booty shaking. The DJ on the left was Ron Jeremyesqe with his predator mustache, but something about it was fitting. He continually kept upending a bottle of Crown Royal as the set continued. i can’t stop listening to these guys. Especially Bounce.
Saturday:
The day was cooler starting out (Scott woke up in a pool of water, sadly), and our neighbors shared some hot dogs. Tasty. Hanging out at camp made us a little late to the shows, but it was worth it. You can’t do everything, and we were sore from standing the entire previous day.
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings – Great R&B / Funk. Wish we had seen more of them, but what we saw was very good.
Ozomatli – They played at the main stage and did a fine job. Nothing too exciting. One of the guys was on crutches.
Mastadon – With my earplugs pushed in as far as they could go, we ventured over to the ominous rumble that was the Mastadon show. After about 20 min, i couldn’t take any more. i felt like a Mastadon was standing on top of my chest as the show kept going. Not that they were bad, but i could feel the thumping and crunching through my body, and we had to leave for fear of being turned to dust. We joked later as we saw people on the ground that evening waiting for Sigur Ros that those bodies were the carnage of the Mastadon show. We even stopped saying their name and referred to them as the Band that Shall Not Be Named.
Ben Folds – After some sweet potato fries and a pesto mozadilla, we enjoyed the piano stylings of one Ben Folds and his 2 kickass band mates (drummer and bass, just like the Ben Folds Five days). They played a nice selection of old and new stuff, had much crowd involvement, and their performance ranked in my top 3 of the whole festival. At the end they had a very small amount of time, so they busted out a very fast rendition of One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces. VERY fun.
Pearl Jam – After resting at our camp site for a bit, we skipped Jack Johnson but waded through his crowd to get a spot for Pearl Jam, which happened to be the same great spot we had for Metallica. i had never seen Pearl Jam before, but i have been a fan since Ten. Eddie Vedder soap boxed for a bit, but wasn’t too over the top from stories i’ve heard. He told the crowd that together we could change the world, but he was very vague about what he was saying. Toward the end, some poor guy, sounding like he was full of sincerity yelled out “Tell us what to do, Eddie!” Poor guy. i think if Vedder had told us to plant a tree, he would have left right then to do so. Great show though. Here was their set list.
Kanye West – Originally, Kanye was supposed to play around 8pm, before Pearl Jam, but he wanted it to be dark for his “stage show” so they moved him to 2:45am. Pearl Jam ended around 12:30, and Scott and i were pretty tired and just wanted to sit, so we decided to try to get the best spot we could for Kanye and rest for a bit. This means we missed Sigur Ros, Lupe Fiasco, The Coup, Talib Kweli, and Ghostland Observatory. Biggest mistake i made all weekend. Kanye didn’t take the stage until 4:40. The sun rose during his performance. Everyone was TICKED. People started throwing glowsticks at the stage. One of the glowsticks hit one of the screens, damaging it by creating a smear of digital color on it. They kept trying to reset it, but nothing worked. They spent so much time trying to get his “stage show” ready. Kanye came out, performed his little hip hopera, then left the stage after only about 45 min (he was slotted for 1 1/2 hours), never addressing the audience or anything. No apologies or explanations. He got booed, and on the graffiti walls around Bonnaroo, “Kanye Sucks” and other phrases were spray painted. Good one, Kanye.
Sunday:
Rogue Wave – Caught a song or 2. Meh.
Rock N’ Roll Comedy w/ Jim Norton & Brian Posehn featuring Michelle Buteau – Pretty funny. Not as good as the other comedy i saw, but worth getting out of the sun for.
Aimee Mann – I’ve been a fan of Aimee for quite a while. She played several new songs and several songs off the Magnolia Soundtrack, which was one of the reasons i became a fan in the first place. A nice set and performance.
And then we left. Scott’s battery died, so we had to get a jump, but, due to our great camp/parking space, we left without any trouble at all. We drove through what seemed like 3 miles of camp space, and that’s when we truly realized how amazing our spot was. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend.
