TheBilcourt: June 2008

Bonnaroo!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

My first trip to Bonnaroo has come and gone. As I said before, I was a little apprehensive about going. It was definitely going to be out of my comfort zone as far as the camping and not showering stuff was concerned. I am proud to say that I was completely wrong. The entire experience was so amazing and unforgettable. I honestly cannot wait until next year's Bonnaroo.

There is so much to talk about....Where to begin?!

As far as getting there, we totally avoided the 16 mile plus waiting line on the interstate. Some awesome THP officer decided to direct us to the opposite side of Bonnaroo to enter. We totally got into the campgrounds in just a fraction of the time that a lot of other people had to wait. We took 4 cars for the 7 of us. We got a pretty big plot of land for our campsite. We ended up being able to fill it with 4 large 10x10 canopies and 2 mesh canopies. We still had room after that for the portable shower and then some. That portable shower was dandy. It wasn't the greatest shower ever, but it did the trick of making you feel somewhat clean. I think in terms of how are campsite was all in all, we were pretty lucky. We had good neighbors who weren't obnoxious, we were close to the portajons(which were mostly clean and bringing your own tp and sanitizing wipes makes it better), and we were a decent walk from Centeroo,where everything takes place. I mean, things could have been A LOT worse.

Music wise....wow. just wow. It was worth every cent of the ticket cost. We got to see so many bands and almost all of them were amazing.

Swell Season- I was so excited to see them and they were so much better than I ever expected. Glen Hansard is just an amazing artist. I cannot wait until they come to the Ryman in September. Their show to me was worth the trip to Bonnaroo alone.

M.I.A.- I didn't get to see all of her show, but it was obvious to at least Jesse and I that she didn't sound that great. It was ok though. She kept saying it was her last show ever. Who knows if thats true?

Zach Galifianakis and Chris Rock- So funny! Zach's humor is just brilliant. I thought it was funny that Chris Rock goes off on "black people" tangents and yet honestly the Bonnaroo crowd is not very black at all. Funny yet awkward in some way.

Metallica- I like Metallica but I was kind of impartial to seeing them in a way. I think most of us were that way about seeing them. We were basically there because it was the first big show of the festival and there was nothing else going on at that time. They rocked our socks off though. For a band thats over 25 years old, they can still deliver big time. By them time their show was done we were just all in shock at how awesome they were. I hope to see them again some day. They just kicked ass.

Gogol Bordello- Heres a band that definitely works better live than on an album. Its a band consisting of about 9 members. They describe themselves as gypsy punk. Very fun stuff. Go to youtube and look them up. You'll see what I mean.

Ben Folds- It was my first time ever seeing him live unlike most of the people I know apparently. He was really good! He is a modern newer Billy Joel which is awesome to me. I wouldn't mind seeing him play with the Nashville Symphony here in a few months.

Avett Brothers- Still great to listen to!

Jack Johnson- There were a lot of people at this show. Definitely more than at Metallica. He was great. He always make me want to just sit under a tree and just chill. So, I sat in my chair and did just that. I think out of all of the artists I saw, he sounds the most like his album. He did a song with Eddie Vedder which was cool.

Pearl Jam- This was another show in which I was impartial to going to but I did because there wasn't anyone else really. That and they are a huge band even though I've never really listened to them that much. They were good but they played for almost 3 hours and Eddie liked to talk about dedicating songs and politics way too much. I don't regret seeing them at all. I just didn't know 90% of the songs they played, so in other words I was ready for them to be over about halfway through.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss- Its amazing how great these two sound together. Really great variations on some Zeppelin songs.

Last but not least, I come to Kanye. Kanye, Kanye, Kanye.....Where to begin with him. I was definitely excited to see his late night glow in the dark show. I think we all were. We even stayed after Pearl Jam and got to go in the pit section in front of the stage. Which was awesome, BUT everything else just kind of trumps that. Kanye was supposed to go on at 2:45a. Pearl Jam was only supposed to play until 12:15a. That two hour break would then be used to assemble Kanye's tour stage. Well, PJ didn't finish until around 1:15a. Kanye didn't start until around 4:30a. By this point, everyone was tired and restless. Keep in mind with the sun and the heat, most everyone including us had been up since around 9am Saturday morning. We had all been up around 19 hours by the time he started. It also didn't help that they kept posting notices that kept pushing Kanye's show back. First it said 2:45, then 3:15, then 3:30...People were just getting mad. People started throwing glowsitcks,TP,and water bottles at the stage(note.we were not throwing stuff). At one point some guy threw what looked like a water bottle or a big glow stick and hit Kanye's LED board. It totally messed it up big time. You could almost hear all 50-60,000 plus people at the same time gasp in shock. I just remember looking at Josh saying, "Well, hes not coming out now."

You can see the busted part of LED Board...

They ended up catching a guy who they thought did it. He did end up hitting the stage around 4:30. It was really awkward. There was never an apology for the delay nor an acknowledgement of the crowd. It was just a big production of Kanye acting like he had crash landed on a remote planet and talking to his LED board, Jane. It wasn't very glow in the darkish, and most of the big set they had built was pointless. The show lasted right at an hour and by the time he was done the sun was up. I do give him the benefit of the doubt on some things though. The music was good(even though it was like Kanye rapping to Kanye Karaoke) and I think his show works a lot better in an arena where it is really dark. It just didn't work at Bonnaroo. He should have just done a basic show and that would have been awesome enough. There are all sorts of speculation on reasons why the show was so late and why it wasn't great. I have to imagine though that it had to be one of his worst shows ever though. I know most Bonnaroo didn't like the whole situation. You could hear people saying "F*** Kanye!" throughout the day on Sunday. It was spray painted on walls. I think people were just really upset that they lost a lot of the little time there is to sleep before the sun starts baking the tents. I know we all only got about 3 hours of sleep before we were all back up. I felt bad for the Sunday artists. You could just feel that everyone was just drained on Sunday. No one was getting really excited at any of the shows. Most of the crowds were just blah. I have a feeling the Bonnaroo organizers won't ever have Kanye back(nor would he come probably) and I doubt they have a "late night" show again. Kanye should have just been a grown up and accepted his original time slot and original stage. People would have been a lot happier. Anyways, enough about Kanye.

All in all, it was an amazing experience and I am so happy that I went. I cannot wait until next year's Bonnaroo. I hope to go with another great group of people. The more people, the better! Totally worth going!

Theres alot more I could go into but I'll save it for later. Anyways, thanks for reading! Feel free to look at my Bonnaroo pics on my myspace or facebook. Also, go to YouTube. They have lots of great performance videos. Especially virtually the entire Swell Season show!

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