Bonnaroo

Photos by Dave Burnett

They say you can never be young again, but I’d like to differ. It took attending this year’s Bonnaroo festival to feel like I was thirteen years old again with headlining acts like Pearl Jam, Robert Plant, and Metallica.

Bonnaroo is held every year in June in Manchester, TN. With previous acts like Radiohead, The White Stripes, David Byrne, and Beck, this year the festival gurus jumped beyond their faithful ‘indie rock’ audiences and reached out to heavy metal, jam band, old school and even hip hop fans by placing an array of bands in the lineup.

There is always a carefree and anything goes mentality about festivals, which always makes me a little happy and a little nervous at the same time. Why is it that the women who shouldn’t have their tops off always do or that men find it liberating to wear skirts at such places? I think these questions will never leave me.

I was fortunate enough not to be ‘roughing it’ with the rest of the 90,000 fans by having all access pass which meant I had an unlimited amount of coconut water and meals that I leisurely enjoyed under an air conditioned tent. To be honest, these days, I don’t know if I could have done this festival other wise. My pass also allowed me to see most bands backstage, which was pretty unreal. There was nothing like sitting ten feet from one of my favorite artists of all time, Levon Helm of The Band or being up close to see hip hop sensation Lupe Fiasco’s band back his rhymes up with fresh beats. Note: if you ever want to see a tight mind-blowing band, always go to live hip-hop shows.

Speaking of hip-hop, Kanye West was (I hate to say this) completely disappointing and the audience booed him even before he took the stage. Here’s the short story…Kanye was originally scheduled during the day at 4 in the afternoon however, his Glow in the Dark Tour was not appropriate for daylight. The time changed to 2:15 in the morning on the main stage. Everyone was so excited to see Kanye. At 2:15, the audience (of about 60,000 people) were waiting patiently for him take the stage but at that time his ‘set up’ was not even close to being built! The crowd waited until 4:40 in the morning and by that time, the crowd had been heckling the production crew for over two hours while they sat waiting. Ironically, Kanye’s Glow in the Dark show was half seen in broad daylight.

Other than that I must say that I fulfilled a lot of my live music checklist like seeing bluesman BB King jam at the age of 82 and of course, seeing Pearl Jam for the first time. I really felt like I was a teenager watching Eddie Vedder gripping his microphone, his grimaced face singing songs like Even Flow and Animal with as much zealous energy like he had done more than 14 years ago and on top of that he sounded great. Time has also not touched Robert Plant, who played with bluegrass sensation Alison Krauss. The way Plant moved his hips and flipped his hair fulfilled my Led Zeppelin taste buds.

The best part for me about going to a festival like Bonnaroo is the car trip, even with gas prices soaring this summer. Driving down to Tennessee from New York City all I could do is marvel at the green farm pastures and series of Waffle Houses, Holiday Inns and McDonalds that appeared in patches along the roadside. Driving through America cruising past religious billboards and what seemed like thousands of Baptist, Presbyterian, and Jehovah Witness churches my buddies and I pondered if ‘Jesus really saves?’