Bonnaroo! - Part One (Thursday and Friday)

I took a road trip down to Manchester, TN from Wednesday afternoon until Monday night. Manchester is home to Bonnaroo which is home to my heart. Cheesy? Maybe. Amazing? Yes. Everyone must go to Bonnaroo. Brave the weather, get 10 shades darker, expand your consciousness, let go of your creepy inner self, get swept up in ridiculous parades in a place that resembles Six Flags on acid, meet crazy, interesting, funny people, and do a lot of other stuff that I didn't. But go to Bonnaroo. (The actual concert descriptions aren't terribly interesting but they do give you some flavor for what I heard)

Thursday
MGMT 8:30-9:30pm
Vampire Weekend 11:30-11:55
Lez Zeppelin 12:00-12:15am

unremarkable, perhaps because I went to the wrong shows. I caught most of the MGMT set, which was average and poor sound quality, and some of the Vampire Weekend show, which wasn't so bad. In fact, I liked them a lot more live than on mp3. Neither band is recommended for further listening until you're heavy into a strange blend of top 40 and college radio. I left VW early to check out Lez Zeppelin (all female cover band with or perhaps without lesbians), who I heard was supposed to rock pretty hard. I managed to get there right at the beginning and was immediately disappointed. Although I know that Robert Plant (also at roo) has a fairly high pitched voice, the female lead here had WAY too much of a feminine voice. It didn't work for me at ALL. I left after hearing about 2 songs and crashed.

For this first day, I was pretty lost. I didn't understand the venue layout, how to use the guide, or how to handle a huge festival in general. The people I was with initially were not the concert types (and more of the TN cornholing types.. you can look up cornhole if you want, but its a waste of your time. these were the most boring cool people ive ever met.. also one of them couldnt read properly) so that may have led me to miss Superdrag, Battles, Grupo Fantasma, The Sword, and Dark Star Orchestra.

Friday
Fiery Furnaces 1:15-2:15pm
Les Claypool 4:15-4:45
The Raconteurs 5:00-6:30
MIA 6:30-7:45
Chris Rock 7:45-8:45
Metallica 9:00-10?
MSTRKRFT 12-1:30am
Tiesto 1:30-3:00
Super Jam 3-3:30
The Disco Biscuits 3:30-4

By far my favorite day at Bonnaroo. There was a main factor that really elevated my mood but I won't talk about that here. I kicked off the day with the Furnaces (psych pop), a decent concert but not terribly compelling. Their remake of blueberry boat into something completely different from the album version was pretty disappointing. Watching the Furnaces meant missing Jose Gonzalez but that man seems like he'd be a festival snooze. However, Bonnaroo was doing this thing where they were crowd surfing cardboard cutouts of the artists throughout the audience as the artist played. This freaked out the furnaces and they said that the cutouts had to be destroyed. One of my friends ended up with the cardboard head of the female lead and made a mask out of it which he proceeded to wear backwards on his head throughout the festival. It was creepy. Next, I had meant to see Minus the Bear or Teagan & Sara (or even Stephen Marley) but having switched campsites so that I was no longer with the girls I had come down with or the TN kids, I instead met up with my new group - greg tidwell and his buddies from school and Philly. We ate some stuff and headed over to Les Claypool, whom I had no interest in. I would have rather seen the beginning of the !!! show but instead I saw Claypool, the bassist of Primus, try to sing in a V for Vendetta mask while laying down some incredible bass lines. His voice is like acid rain but the instrumentals were good. The day really took off when I hit the Raconteurs who were at the main stage. They deserve all the sold-out shows and hype they've gotten so far. Jack White was incredible and the music rocked hard. I left right before the encore, which turned out to be Level, my favorite song of theirs. However, leaving early turned out to be a boon as we were able to get into MIA fairly easily and get a good close view. This show was no show but a rave. MIA kept the crowd waiting a bit and got a DJ to keep hyping up the crowd, building and releasing the tension at least 5 times. By the time MIA actually took the stage and this ridiculous bass beat started vibrating, the crowd was going absolutely wild. She launched into Boys, Sunshowers, Galang, etc and didnt stop once. It was ridiculous. I missed Rilo Kiley as a result, but no big deal. Next, most people headed out to see Chris Rock perform. Some of his jokes were fairly familiar but the guy was on and maybe more edgy than usual. there were jokes about hilary taking over the same room bill got BJs in, how there are either guys dating girls who spit or guys who are in healthy relationships, obama jokes, and a whole lot of uncomfortable race jokes. Metallica took the stage next. They were corny as hell ("Do you want to hear THE OLD STUFF?? WELL WE WONT PLAY IT!... NO!...NO!...NO!..NOoo WE MUST!!!!" cue enter sandman).. however, it was obviously a show worth seeing at least for a half hour or so, especially with at least 50k people watching. We then left to get ready for what would turn out to be one of the craziest dance parties i have ever been to: MSTRKFRT (master kraft). We chilled and ate some stuff and then it began. I've been searching for youtube videos to communicate to you just how insane that show was, but I guess no one had the presence of mind to record it. The shows at Bonnaroo aren't a normal concert performance - musicians really bring their best stuff to destroy your mind. I'm glad I ordered the DVD for the festival though - hopefully MSTRKRFT is on it. I danced hard and then went over to Tiesto, who was OK. not too great except for when he remixed crosses and Jose Gonzales came on stage to sing it! and then teagan and sara came up to sing their song while he put a beat on that! very cool. I ended up wandering off as my buzz crashed, catching some of my morning jacket, some of the disco biscuits (where the lead singer ended up telling a story about a super trooper and the dankest weed in the world), and the last part of Super Jam, which is basically where random bonnaroo musicians come together and just jam together.. this jam featured the lead singer from gogol bordello and Claypool. I crashed at this point.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Please disregard the spelling and formatting "mistakes." This is Ajay's style.