Ahh,
Bonnaroo. It is the Best of times,
it is the Worst(ish) of times. But
somehow the Best always outweighs the Worst(ish). And I say Worst(ish) because it’s really not the actual
Worst of times – it’s just a big pile of stress, surrounded by the best music
in the world.
And my own
personal Bonnaro stress comes in various forms – first I got stressed because
our tent site was a full mile from the entrance to the Grounds (which was
actually a blessing because it was slightly farther away from the music that’s
BLA-BLA-BLASTING ‘til 5AM), then I nearly had a panic attack because our
tent/car got illegally hemmed in by other tents/cars, so we couldn’t drive out
to get the LIQUOR that I so badly needed since there’s no stinkin’ liquor at
Bonnaroo – only beer – and this homie don’t drink beer (but the fire marshals
soon cleared fire lanes so I got my liquor), then I got stressed by the
excruciating pain from the internal
organ damage I inflicted by not drinking enough water (because I didn’t want to
have to be constantly going to the port-o-potty during concerts). And of course, there are the dense crowds
of 70,000 people, the concerts you get excited about where you can’t even get
close enough to HEAR much less SEE (like the Lumineers, boo), the port-o-potties
that are ripe with aroma by day 2…
On the flip
side, there’s THE MUSIC.
Somehow, the quality of music is so f’in good that all the bad stuff is
worthwhile. Here are my five most
favorite concerts, and my single least favorite concert:
1. PAUL MCCARTNEY! Every single person at Bonnaroo was
SHOCKED by the fact that he gave the best concert of the weekend. Macca (I just learned his nickname)
rocked it like a 30-year-old man.
He had a first-rate band, played mostly Beatles songs (!!!), and he was funny
and charming and endlessly energetic for nearly 3 hours. He had 70,000 people singing Eight Days
A Week, Live and Let Die, and most joyously, Hey Jude. The “nah nah nah” end of that song was
such a loud exuberant sing-along that I bet you probably heard us in your
dreams and started singing along too. He also did Blackbird, which is one of my favs. Here’s the entire, ridiculously awesome
set-list: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/paul-mccartney/2013/great-stage-park-manchester-tn-bd9d10a.html. Oh and did I mention that we
were RIGHT UP FRONT??????
2. Edward Sharpe
and the Magnetic Zeroes – just a big bucket of FUN from start to finish. The main guy (whose name is actually
Alex Ebert) looked like he had crawled out of a dumpster – his old clothes were
filthy and his hair clearly hadn’t been washed in days. He even said at one point, “I fucking
hate these pants. I’m all out of
pants!” Here’s a photo - http://cdn2-www.craveonline.com/assets/uploads/gallery/bonnaroo-2013-edward-sharpe-the-magnetic-zeros/img_9702.jpg
. Despite his dumpster-y
appearance, he and his 11-piece band were faaaabulous. They play rock music like it’s gospel
music, and everyone in the audience was smiling non-stop. Alex kept running out into the audience
to sing, and at one point he was just standin’ a few feet away from me,
crooning amongst the crowd. During
“Home,” Alex asked for stories from the audience and one guy said “A year ago
you came and visited me in my hospital room in the cancer ward – I had a
transplant that day that saved my life!”
Alex recognized him, flipped out, gave him a huge hug, and brought him
up on stage to play tambourine for the rest of the song. And that’s pretty much how the whole
concert went.
3. Bjork! This brilliant woman is from another
planet, and gives a crushingly unique and memorable show. She wore an outfit that made her look
like a nebula (http://cdn1-www.craveonline.com/assets/uploads/2013/06/DANNY_CLINCH-04911.jpg)
and her choir of Icelandic girl-singers danced like manic rock volcanoes. The best song of the night was “Declare
Independence,” which she screamed at us so emphatically that we all felt like
she was our Inner Conscious come to life.
There is nobody like Bjork, and there never will be, even in this world
of derivatives. Oh and did I
mention that I WAS IN THE FRONT ROW???? (I spent a lot of my time just waitin’
for the shows I really wanted to see so I could get the perfect vantage point)
4. Wilco. Hadn’t
ever seen Wilco live even though I looove that band, and I was not
disappointed. I was somehow
unaware of the virtuosity of the guitar player (Nels Cline) and drummer (Glenn
Kotchke). Fab set list, including
Via Chicago and California Stars, so I felt like they were playin’ the sound
track of my life. Was also
right up front for this one. J
5. One of the
best moments of Bonnaroo: We had gone to see Portugal. The Man (that period
annoys the crap out of me) during the day on Saturday but it was super crowded
and we couldn’t see them except on the big video screen. Then late that night as we were heading
back to our tent, we saw the band throw down their gear in a random spot and
start playing. Like, just for
us. (And about 100 other people,
but whatever). I was literally right
in front of them - when I put my drink down, I put it on one of their
amps. The event staff shut them
down after a few songs, but they clearly didn’t want to stop playing so I said
to the lead singer (John Gourley), “I will
personally hold back the event staff if you’ll play one more song!” So he played that awesome track, “So
American,” just for moi (and 100 other people, but whatever).
I
could go on about other great shows – Rayland Baxter (singer-songwriter), John
Fullbright (blues singer-songwriter), Passion Pit... But there were also some big disappointments. Mackelmore was boring and way too self-righteous
in my opinion (but apparently tens of thousands of people disagree with me). And my biggest disappointment was
Father John Misty (also known as J. Tillman), who was ATROCIOUSLY cheesy and
melodramatic. I love his music,
but he has no business dancing like he’s Jim Morrison on acid. HE’S A FREAKING FOLK SINGER and needs
to get over himself. I walked
out.
Ok,
that’s quite enough about that.
Probably, that’s more than enough. And I still didn’t say it all. But therein lies the nature of
Bonnaroo.
I hug you all. xo
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