John’s Crawlspace

We got back from Bonnaroo on Monday morning, but I had to work Monday night, and I’ve been too exhausted to post about it until now. Like I said before, this was my first music festival, but I ended up having an amazing time. Due to scheduling conflicts, I didn’t get to see every band that I had hoped to see, but I did catch a good number of them.

We left for Bonnaroo from PA around 11:00 Wednesday night. Around 1:00 AM, the van was shaking like crazy, so we decided to stop and see what was going on, and it turned out that one of the tires was all shredded up. We managed to get to the nearest truck stop (which was in West Virginia, I believe) and call Triple A. Alex’s van did have a spare, but we couldn’t find a manual, so we didn’t know how to remove it from underneath the van. Since Triple A was taking a long time to show up, some random trucker offered to help. He got underneath and started going crazy on the van, going back and forth between the van and his truck to get tools and etc. He did manage to remove the spare from underneath the van, and then the dude from Triple A finally showed up. When he looked underneath the van, he told us the guy had ripped the spare right off the underside of the van. He removed the shredded tire and attached the spare, but we couldn’t attach the shredded tire to the underside of the van because the guy tore it all up, so we had to somehow fit that tire into the already ridiculously packed van. He recommended that we use the spare for fifty miles at 55 MPH – But we ended up driving on it for about 6 hours, going at least 65 MPH – Until we found a garage that opened at 8 AM Thursday morning that had a compatible tire on-hand. Anyway, enough about that.

We arrived on Thursday around 1:00 PM (after going through the security and everything) and we found our spot and setup our tents. We were all pretty exhausted, so we hung out at the camp site and met some cool people. The first band didn’t even start until 5 PM, but we didn’t head to Centaroo (where all the main stuff goes on) until 9:00 PM to see Cat Empire, which was awesome. Afterwards we all kind of got split up, and I went and saw Patton Oswalt, who was awesome. We were all pretty exhausted from the ride down, so no one stayed up too late that night.

Friday morning the sun came blasting into our tents around 7:30 AM, and from that point on it was impossible to sleep (it was like that every morning). Pretty much everyone around us emerged from their tents by 8:30 AM or so for the same reason, and the screwdrivers and grilling began. I wanted to see Andrew Bird at 1 PM, so after some beer pong and exploring the enormous camping areas & Shakedown Street(s), we headed to Centaroo and caught part of Andrew Bird’s set. After some more exploring we headed over to the main stage (“What Stage”) to see Steel Pulse, who I had never heard before but enjoyed. After Steel Pulse, Oysterhead played. I had been waiting to see them, and they played an awesome set. For those of you who have never heard of them, Oysterhead is composed of Phish guitarist/vocalist Trey Anastasio, Primus bassist/vocalist Les Claypool, and The Police drummer Stewart Copeland. If you’re a fan of Phish or Primus, they’re definitely worth checking out. You can download a decent quality version of their Bonnaroo set here or here. After Oysterhead came Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. We had a good spot near the front for this (we kept our Oysterhead spot), but since Tom Petty was one of the biggest names at Bonnaroo, the majority of the people attending showed up to see him, so it was ridiculously packed. To give you an idea, roughly 80,000 people attended this year, and I’d say at least 75% of them came to see Petty. Alot of the people were pretty hammered, and some dude peed on the back of my leg, which was pretty sweet. Later that night, I caught part of My Morning Jacket’s set, but being out in the hot sun all day was exhausting, and I crashed around 1:30.

Saturday morning we were woken up by some people blasting reggae music at about 6:00 AM. We did the usual hanging out/walking around until around noon. I went and caught some of the Magic Number’s set, which was alright. After that we saw some of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Gomez before heading to see Beck at the main stage. Beck’s show was pretty good, although it seemed a little half-assed. Radiohead played at 8:30 and we decided to not even bother trying to get near the front, and instead opted to bring blankets and get a roomy spot near the back where we could be comfortable and still enjoy the music. Radiohead played a great set, and everyone enjoyed it. I’ve never seen so many glowsticks in my entire life. Saturday night was my favorite night at Bonnaroo. After Radiohead, we went back to the tent area and chilled for awhile, before coming back to Centaroo to see some of Dr. John & Dumpstaphunk. Then we headed over to “Superjam”. In the schedules, it wasn’t announced who would be playing, and it turned out that Trey and Mike Gordon from Phish played, along with some other people that I didn’t recognize. Superjam ended at 3:00 AM, and those of us that were still awake (tons and tons of people) headed over to “The Other Tent” to see Sasha’s late night set, which lasted until around 6:00 AM, at which point we headed back to our tents and attempted to sleep. I’m not really into techno/electronic stuff, but it was still fun, it was more or less a huge rave.

Sunday morning I woke up still exhausted from the night before, and caught some of The Street’s set (though I’m not a big fan), some of Matisyahu, all of Atmosphere’s set (which was awesome, even though he didn’t come out for an encore), and we saw some of Phil Lesh & Friends before we left. All in all, I had an amazing time, and I would love to go to another festival like this. What other ones are out there? Fill me in! You can check out some more Bonnaroo videos here.

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