Bonnaroo

More Than Just a Chance to Get Really High

originally published July 2, 2008

When Michelle Gilzenrat, music editor extraordinaire at Flagpole, asked me if I’d be interested in covering Bonnaroo, I immediately jumped at the offer. Who wouldn’t want to spend four days baking in the hot sun, sleeping in ankle-high grass, interacting with people who they normally wouldn’t sit next to at a restaurant and paying upwards of $2 for a bottle for water? But something about the notion of enduring this abject misery for those bands, those lovely, lovely bands made me excited to go and willing to put up with all of that discomfort.

Before going, a few of my more conservative friends began scouring the Internet for apocryphal horror stories about festivals past, inundating me with stories of riots, rapes and Limp Bizkit. It was a daunting idea at first, braving the outside world and letting go of the reigns for a few days, but upon arriving I knew I was in good hands.

Bonnaroo felt (and still feels all these weeks later) like a giant theme park, right down to the Ferris wheel as you walk through the gates of the festival. Even in the camping area there was someone there to help you at all times. It was enough to make even the most skittish of attendees (that would be me) feel right at home - if home were a 700-acre farm in central Tennessee populated by frisbee throwing jocks, women who walked around in a bathing suits constantly, and was headlined by Metallica.

Even though the infrastructure was fascinating, the real stars of the weekend (as I mentioned earlier) were the bands. Day after day and night after night, I experienced music that shattered my preconceived notions about bands and opened my eyes to new artists. Vampire Weekend proved that they were more than just a sharp dressed group of musicians with hipster cred by dazzling fans on Thursday, the festival’s opening night, while Lez Zeppelin (an all-female Led Zeppelin cover band) rocked too hard to just be considered a cover band. Metallica played a greatest hits-laden set that enthralled my inner 13-year-old metal head in a way that has never really happened, and Pearl Jam instantly brought back the following summer, when I traded in my black t-shirts for a sensible flannel shirt. It was 1993 all over again, and I was in heaven.

But as good as the headliners were, the daytime performers were even better. Days at Bonnaroo were spent taking in bands, and hearing artists that I’d always wanted to see but couldn’t justify the travel or the cost of the ticket. Les Claypool’s brand of hyperactive funk rattled my brain, while Stephen Marley turned me from a passive reggae fan to the most awkwardly white Rastafarian you’d ever see for two hours. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings wowed the audience by channeling James Brown, and Athens’ own Drive-By Truckers showcased their versatile sound and tugged on heartstrings with an emotional, set closing version of “18 Wheels of Love.” Dweezil Zappa brought his tribute act to Frank Zappa’s music and wowed the crowd with air tight musicianship and a smart-assed delivery that was a welcome break from some of Bonnaroo’s more serious acts.

The breakout performance of the weekend was My Morning Jacket’s three-hour show that served as a rallying cry to those people who had any doubt that it is one of the best bands around. The band effortlessly shifted from Neil Young inspired guitar heroics to hypersexual funk reminiscent of Prince. As the torrential rains poured down upon the audience and the mud below started to gather, My Morning Jacket and the crowd dug in. It was going to be a long night, and they were going to provide the soundtrack.

The true revelation of Bonnaroo was the audience. Despite my initial trepidation about the makeup of the crowd, the festival was populated for the most part by people seeking a good time, killer weed and all points in between. There were moments, such as the celebratory glow stick battle during My Morning Jacket’s set where the audience and the performer combined into a single entity. This was Bonnaroo, where the audience is as much part of the show as the artist.

Much press has been given to Kanye West’s main stage antics in Bonnaroo’s wake, and every bit of the criticism was well deserved. On a weekend where the feeling in the air was to sacrifice a little comfort for the greater good of the festival, West’s refusal to play early in the evening or while another artist was playing on another stage (Phil Lesh & Friends’ set on another stage was reportedly shortened to accommodate West’s demands) and his hour plus delay in taking the stage created a rift between the audience and the performer that quickly turned into a chasm. As the sun rose on Sunday morning, West’s “Glow in the Dark” performance reached a nearly Spinal Tap level of absurdity. In a festival devoted to all types of live music and performance, West was exposed for what he truly is: one egomaniac standing on stage alone rapping to prerecorded music.

Despite the one blemish, Bonnaroo proved itself to be a near perfect weekend of music. There was enough there to satisfy the hardcore hippie in all of us and the inner city slicker who demands to not be uncomfortable. It was four days of music, four days of laughter and in a way four days of the way things should be: people living together and doing mass quantities of drugs in order to gain sense of utopia.

And that’s not a bad thing, is it?

Jason Bugg