We were not well-prepared for the night. I woke up freezing around 4:30 a.m. I draped some towels over me to capture some warmth, and somehow managed to fall back asleep until three hours later, at which point it was boiling inside our tent, even with our battery-operated fan. Although I was up early, the line for the showers ($5 for early birds, by the way) was way too long. So, like probably 90% of the other festivalgoers, I forewent a bath and instead trekked back to the festival for music and the food trucks for lunch.
Tune-Yards
Our first act of the day was Tune-Yards, who apparently like their name to appear in print with random capital letters thrown in (I’m resisting such silliness, as you can tell). However you punctuate it, Tune-Yards is a band I’ve been hearing about for awhile. My friends have described them (it’s really a “her,†as Tune-Yards is basically a solo project of Merrill Garbus) as experimental folk music, which is about right. She reminded me of Paul Simon and The Dirty Projectors. Very tribal-sounding beats and melodies. Garbus builds her songs using loops onstage, often starting with her distinct vocals. Now, that trick isn’t as impressive as it was when I first started seeing it in the early 2000s, but it works especially well with Tune-Yards because her songs are comprised of rhythmic elements anyway, and watching her re-construct those layers individually is neat.
The Infamous Stringdusters
We left Tune-Yards about halfway through her set in order to make it to a band a jam-band aficionado friend of mine recommended: The Infamous Stringdusters. Hailing from nearby Nashville, Tennessee, The Infamous Stringdusters are a bluegrass string band with jam-band sensibilities. The Infamous Stringdusters were fun to listen to live, and attending their mid-day set afforded me a glimpse into the jam-band scene at Bonnaroo. There were plenty of interestingly dressed individuals at the show, including one adult male dressed in an American flag onesie with especially short shorts and some kind of American-flag-themed whip. Hula hoops abounded as well (and by the way, kudos to the body coordination exhibited by some of those hula hoopers). The music of The Infamous Stringdusters was perfect background music as we sat and chatted. They also did a great cover of “He’s Gone†by the Grateful Dead.
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
Ah, Sharon Jones. I saw her at small club in Birmingham, Alabama back in 2004. It was one of those special nights where I went to the venue on a whim, by myself. There were probably only 30 people there. I spent the first five minutes of the show on the phone trying to convince my friends to come out. Sharon Jones was amazing. She absolutely killed the performance that night (and every time I’ve seen her since). Sharon Jones is the real thing. Her band is the Dap Kings, one of the best soul backing bands around (they backed Amy Winehouse on some of her work). They typically dress in suits and sunglasses, and like all truly great soul backing bands, they exude coolness by not doing much onstage. Instead, the singer—the star of any great soul show—is the one who brings the dazzle.
And Sharon Jones brings the dazzle like few others. She is charismatic, and moves well for a women who (I think) is in her 60s. Ever since I saw her back in 2004, I’ve been a fan of her and her band (most of the Dap Kings are in a group called The Menahan Street Band, which is an amazing, instrumental group). Incidentally, I also had the good fortune of interviewing Sharon Jones, and she was an amazing interviewee. Charming on the phone as well as on the stage. At Bonnaroo, it was more of the same. Sharon Jones rocked the largest stage in the park, making it feel almost as small as that stage back in Birmingham.
St. Vincent
After Sharon Jones, we retreated to our swelteringly hot tent to try to relax for a little bit, thanks to our four hours of poor sleep the night before. When we came out to the festival again, it was for a great artist: St. Vincent. St. Vincent, AKA Annie Clark, has an interesting story. She got her start performing in the Polyphonic Spree as a guitarist and singer in a band that had something like 30 members at the same time. She was then in Sufjan Stevens’ band before fully going out on her own in 2007. St. Vincent has an interesting songwriting style. Her songs aren’t in the traditional rock format of verses and big, identifiable choruses interchanging. Instead, St. Vincent’s song structure mirrors her pensive, reflective lyrics. At the risk of sounding like the ill-informed music critic who compares a female songwriter with other obvious female songwriters, St. Vincent’s songs remind me of Kate Bush with an octave pedal and fuzz bass. And by the way, she can shred on the guitar. She put on an impressive performance and was charming on stage.
Rodrigo y Gabriella and C.U.B.A.
We caught the last little bit of Rodrigo y Gabriella’s set because we wanted to get to the big outdoor stage (the so-called “What Stageâ€) early to get a decent seat for Radiohead, the headliner of the evening. Rodrigo is good at the acoustic guitar and he plays it fast sometimes. They sound like a Latin Yngwie Malmsteen to me. And honestly I’m a little over bands covering songs by bands you wouldn’t expect them to cover—it’s a bit gimmicky. Rodrigo y Gabriella covered “Stairway to Heaven†on one of their albums, and live at the end of their set they went into metal mode and covered AC/DC. But, the crowd seemed to dig them, and admittedly, they are good at what they do.
Radiohead
I was a big Radiohead fan all throughout college. I saw them on the *Amnesiac* tour at Red Rocks in 2001, and at that time the show was the best I’d ever seen. Storm clouds were rolling quickly down the mountain and past the Red Rocks venue and then bursting over the city in the distance. The atmosphere was electric and the band was fantastic. The show is still one of my all-time favorites, even though I haven’t really followed Radiohead since *Amnesiac*. I bought *Hail To The Thief*, but had sort of moved past the band by that point (although “A Wolf At The Door†is one of my favorite Radiohead songs. I also got into *In Rainbows* mostly because I thought the name-your-own-price thing was such a cool idea and I wanted to help make it work for the group.
But, I still have a lot of respect for Radiohead and the way they’ve done things over the years. I don’t fault them for growing musically; in fact, I applaud it. It’s just that the direction they’ve been going in takes them farther away from the kind of music I regularly listen to. All of that aside, first and foremost let me say that Radiohead’s light show at Bonnaroo was amazing. So many great colors behind the group, with creative camera work. This was my first Big Show at the big stage at Bonnaroo, and it was slam packed. The colors on stage were almost matched by the sheer number of glow sticks in the audience. I cannot overestimate how many glowing objects there were in the audience. Gloves, hats, sticks, clothes, etc. And people enjoy throwing the glow sticks too, often in large bunches, which is—frankly—cool to watch. Speaking of cool to watch, there were also dozen of these floating lantern things around. Basically, it’s some kind of special candle in a paper lantern that causes it to float away in the air. And as soon as they become airborne, all of these laser pointers would be directed at them, giving them an extra glow.
Radiohead’s set featured a couple of new songs that seemed in keeping with their recent music, as well as songs from their most recent albums. They did play some *Kid A* tracks and “Karma Police,†among others, from older albums. They closed with “Paranoid Android†which was fucking awesome. Radiohead, I think, do it right—mixing in some of the older stuff into their set, while debuting new songs to an audience that appreciates them.
One final note about the crowds at Bonnaroo, particularly at night. I remain impressed with the welcoming atmosphere at festivals like Bonnaroo. These jam-band kids are truly unique. In the heat of the day, barely five minutes went by without some festivalgoers spraying the other festivalgoers with water in an effort—more of a gesture really—to keep others cool. Similarly, at night, jam banders—if they think you are in an altered state—are really eager to entertain you with their glow sticks. Sort of like they’re thinking, “Hey, tripping buddy, let me heighten your high by making weird color trails with these glow sticks. I do this for you because I enjoy it when people do it to me. Enjoy your trip.†Really, I can’t think of another audience that exhibits that mentality.
That being said, 80,000 people is a lot of people to cram into any venue. We were on the left of the stage at Radiohead, and exiting back to the right of the stage took us 30 minutes. People were laying down, passed out, or sitting down. It was dark so we would inevitably step on somebody. When there’s that many people, it’s hard to appreciate the majesty of something like a good musical performance, at least when you’re also not close to the stage. You wind up watching the performance on a big screen because you can’t see the band very well on stage, while people around you talk and jostle around you, trying to make their way to the bathroom or beer stands. As I mentioned before, though, Bonnaroo is not even necessarily about the music—the music is secondary to the experience of being at the festival. I should mention, by the way, that all bets are off if you’re in a chemically-altered state of mind—if you are, you are clearly having an experience that is also not about the music (your experience is about the drugs being informed by the music).
No matter how well run a festival is, there will always be crowds, and Bonnaroo, thanks to its sheer size, handles the crowds about as well as any festival could, and probably better. After Radiohead, we went back to our tent and reorganized our sleeping arrangements to better keep us warm. Into the wee hours of the night, music sounded in the distance. Kids these days and their lack of sleep.
More on Bonnaroo Day 3 tomorrow.
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