Bonnaroo beginnings.

June 18, 10:59 AMMusic Festivals ExaminerMatthew Samson

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Welcome back Bonnaroo.

I have very fond memories of Bonnaroo. I attended the festival from 2003-2005. During that time, I couldn’t help but notice how the festival was changing. The independent spirit was waning during those years, as corporate entities saw an opportunity to make money, and wanted in on the action. There were murmurs amongst the Bonnaroo faithful a few years back, talking of how the festival was to be sold to a larger company. We all wondered about the treatment our favorite festival was in for. So, after a four year absence, I headed back to Tennessee to see some old friends, and to check up on the now and future king of American festivals.

I left for Tennessee late Wednesday night. My traveling companion, who had never been to festival in his life, told me that he heard gates weren’t opening until 7 am Thursday. This is what the festival says ever year, and every year they go back on it. Once again, gates opened sometime late Wednesday night. It didn’t matter for us though. The thirteen hour drive somehow became a 15 hour ordeal (it always does) through Tornado producing storms in central Illinois. Should we have pulled over and waited for the storms to pass? Probably. Bonnaroo, on the other hand, waits for no man. Camping at the festival is assigned on a “first to arrive” basis, so we were working against the clock. Through absurdly dangerous driving conditions, we marched onward to Tennessee. Although I’m not really sure why we were so determined.

Unlike festivals like Rothbury, who added Keller Williams and a late night Disco Biscuits set, Bonnaroo put forth a relatively weak Thursday lineup this year. I don’t mean to offend any of the bands that played that day. It was just the fact that I had never heard of any of them, and while I acknowledge that discovering new acts to part of the magic of the festival, I still feel that there has to be some incentive to get people in the gates early. Part of me wished that I had spent more time concentrating on the road, as I silently went over all of the random roadside attractions that we passed (i.e. the American Gothic house, world’s largest superman statue, the St. Louis arch, Grand Ole Opry, etc.) and thought about how I might have wanted to stop and see them, if I wasn’t so committed to finding a campsite. It turns out, I should’ve listened to that little voice in my head.

Despite leaving a day early, we still ended up at one of the furthest campsites from the concert grounds. In fact, it was the furthest we had ever been. To make matters even worse, we had to hike around the VIP campgrounds, which for some reason are located directly in the middle of everything else. So if you’re not willing to cough up $600 for a ticket, the festival organizers make sure that you’ll have to walk an extra 2-4 miles every day just to get to the concert. This could be avoided by moving the VIP into the woods and giving them free access to the golf cart taxis. That would really make the whole set up more convenient for everyone. But like I said, Bonnaroo these days revolves around money.

The crowd at Bonnaroo used to be the best around, then the new organizers started to tamper with the lineups. It was Dave Matthews that really marked the shift for me. That’s not a knock against the DMB, they’re arguably one of the greatest pop music acts of the last 50 years. No, I’m talking about the fans that came to see them. It was apparent from the onset that they were not comfortable with the idea of camping for 3 to 4 days, just to see a concert. A lot of them left after the Friday night set because they couldn’t stand being dirty or sleeping in a tent. The old headliners of Bonnaroo, Trey Anastasio and Widespread Panic, have a fan base that practically live out of their cars when they go to see their heroes. Bonnaroo was, quite literally, made for them. As the jambands began to disappear from the lineup, the Bonnaroo vets became less and less interested in coming back. This was evident when I met our camping neighbors, as not one of them had ever been to a festival before. And it wasn’t two hours before I started hearing girls complain about the heat or having to pay for a shower. Blake, my travel companion, even said he was going to pay $10 for a shower on the first day. I assured him that it would be a waste of money.

One group of neighbors was cool. Two guys and two girls from Toronto, and perhaps the only people I met that drove further than us to get there. They hated jambands, and didn’t know why people that came to Bonnaroo would even want to see them. I asked what they knew about previous festivals, which turned out to be very little. They were there because they heard it was the best festival in America. To this day, I’m not sure who told them that. I should’ve asked.

After getting to know everybody, I decided that I would head into “Centeroo”, the name of the concert ground, to see what had changed. It turns out that it was exactly how I remembered it. Well, almost the same. There was the silent disco, in which people are given Koss wireless headphones to rock out to a DJ spinning in a tent while the outside world remains silent. Except now it was the Vitamin Water silent disco. I’m still not sure what vitamin water has to do with music, but they were there. Oh, and the comedy tent, who has boasted some serious comedic talent during the past few years, became the Butterfinger Comedy Sweet. The old arcade, which used to have awesome 80’s classics like Pacman, Galaga, and even a few air hockey tables was now gone. They replaced it with a tent dedicated to XBOX 360. People who didn’t know any better loved all the new attractions, but for me the innocence was gone forever. I don’t care if I get a free Xbox key chain, I want my air hockey back.

As for the music, I did check out White Rabbits, Janelle Monae, and Hockey. They were all good, but they weren’t really up to the mind blowing level of the other bands Bonnaroo had planned for the weekend, with perhaps the exception of Monae. I suppose that’s why they’re playing Thursday night instead of Saturday.

Thankfully, Bonnaroo had a few tricks up its sleeve for the weekend.