bonnaroo day 1
i woke up and kept my eyes shut because i intended on going back to sleep. i realized then that i knew i wasn't at home, but i had no idea where i was. and then i remembered. motel 6. murfreesboro, tn. bonnaroo. i figured it was maybe 8 or 9am, but i figured i'd check just to be on the safe side. shit! it was 11. it was my own fault though. i gradually began remembering the night before. i'd stay out til 3 drinking at a bar in the village square. a nice place called liquid smoke that had a good beer selection and a good jazzy hiphop band playing and no cover. i met a few murfreesboroans and played one of those free bar trivia games with a couple of them. i was mopping the virtual floor with their asses until the third and final game, when i was shown up by some nerdy-looking guys at the end of the bar. i think it was a dr. who question that fucked me. i don't totally remember. all in all a fun night, but shit. i don't even remember driving home. er walking. yeah, walking..
so anyway, i left the motel at noon (forgetting my camera by the way) and, after all the traffic crap, got into the actual festival at 1:30. so i ended up missing devotchka, who i don't really know, but i think i've been recommended them before, and apparently amanda palmer of the dresden dolls is keen on them, so that was a bit sad. i also missed most of andrew "not larry" bird's set, but at least got to hear fake palindromes so that was cool.
in my lazy sauntering over to the "this" tent, i only caught half of seu jorge's (whose name i will continue to pronounce "soy george" because i think it's funny) set. originally, i was more interested in hearing a david bowie cover or covers, but once there i realized his own music was pretty damn good too. oh, also, in real life, he looks like this and not, in fact, this.
from there i went to devendra banhart, who out-jesus christed all the jesus christ look-alikes at bonnaroo and who, if they ever make another movie about the manson killings, he will be obligated to play charles manson. compare: devendra and charles. also, devendra could perform songs from charles manson's album for the movie and so you'd have a soundtrack that could be easily hyped too.
anyway..i then went to see bright eyes. i started listening to bright eyes only recently, having learned that the aforementioned amanda palmer was into them and figuring that they couldn't be all that bad. granted, i'd heard a couple of songs before and found them not to my taste, but i'm all about giving people a second chance, so i downloaded some stuff recently and found them less unpleasant this time around. at least, i found 2 or 3 songs that i liked out of the 6 or 7 i downloaded. plus there was nothing else going on at the time so hey. they were okay. they played the 2 songs i wanted to hear- the first day of my life and lua, so that was good. and then they brought jim james on stage, so i stuck around for that, though i can't say it added much.
after that it was off to cat power. oh, i'm sorry, "cat power and the memphis rhythm band." they were going to be her backing band. about 10 minutes after the show was supposed to start, the back-up band took the stage and "cat power and the memphis rhythm band" were announced, but still no chan marshall to be seen. they started off the first song, finished that and then went into their second. i started to get annoyed because i knew of chan's tendency to arrive late (often drunk) to shows and i was dreading the idea of her not showing until halfway into the set (since the band's have allotted times to perform before another band takes the stage). but she showed up for the third song and all was well. she was dancing like crazy, even at inappropriate times and i was sure she was drunk, until she told the audience she was sober and how great that was; how great it felt. it made me smile for her, and feel really good for a human being i don't even personally know. also, she was fucking amazing.
after i left cat power, i saw a big black smoke ring in the sky. not at all wispy, like smoke, but perfectly round and dense-looking. like this. and i guess it was essentially the same thing. fire cannons. they shot out more fire and smoke some of the other days i was there, but none shot out so perfectly formed a ring as that one. it was pretty freaky-looking when i had no idea what it was or where it came from. especially when no one else seemed to notice it.
i should note that it was in the 90s that day. i went to the bathroom around 11:30, before i left the hotel, and didn't have to go again until 11:30pm. and this after 3 bottles of water, an iced chai, and a double espresso (at $1 a shot, it was the cheapest espresso i've ever seen in the US. the cappuccinos and so forth, however, were appropriately overpriced). i was sweating a lot... seriously, i was so wet most of the day that i'm not even going to try and come up with a humorous metaphor for how sweaty i was. i do, however, have to give a shout out to the crystal deoderant at this point. after all that, there was still not a scent to be found upon my person. i was literally putting the sweat from my armpit up to my nose and there was NO SMELL. that is some seriously good shit...
so i had a long break at this point and i decided to get something to eat. unfortunately, there was a lot to choose from and nothing very cheap, so i avoided making a decision and wandered around some more. i stumbled upon a stage show of a guy filling latex balloons with air and stuffing people into them. naked. he got like 10 of them in there total. crazy shit. after that i was hungry and i passed a place where falafel fumes were wafting by. i hadn't experienced such wonderful-smelling falafel like that since the 4th arrondissement, so i knew i had to get some. and i have to say, it definitely wasn't bad falafel for a music festival in the middle of tennessee.
i don't have any recollection of what i did from then until midnight, which was when my morning jacket went on. it was tough though. i had to pass up lyrics born, blackalicious, and common to see them. i'd even already seen them once, but wow, they put on such a good show and they were playing for 3 hours straight, so hey, they might play all those 42750998750349 songs from their backcatalogue that i'd want to hear live. indeed they did play a few and, whatever the case, one big holiday will always own your shit. at around late 2ish-3, they made some comments implying they would be done soon, so i went to get some water and figured i'd hear the last songs as i walked the however many miles back to my car. they finished one song during the time it took me to do so and started another, one i didn't care about, so i just left. what sucked was, on the walk back (and the subsequent treasure hunt for my car which i'd forgotten to notice the parking location of), i heard at least 2 more songs, one of which i would've liked to stay for. whatever though, i saw almost a full 3 hours of them and was beat to shit after 14 hours in 80-90+ degree weather, standing up most of the time, often pakt like sardines, and in general feeling ick. so i drove the 1/2 hour back to the motel, took a beautiful beautiful shower, and fell asleep.
/end bonnaroo day one.
so anyway, i left the motel at noon (forgetting my camera by the way) and, after all the traffic crap, got into the actual festival at 1:30. so i ended up missing devotchka, who i don't really know, but i think i've been recommended them before, and apparently amanda palmer of the dresden dolls is keen on them, so that was a bit sad. i also missed most of andrew "not larry" bird's set, but at least got to hear fake palindromes so that was cool.
in my lazy sauntering over to the "this" tent, i only caught half of seu jorge's (whose name i will continue to pronounce "soy george" because i think it's funny) set. originally, i was more interested in hearing a david bowie cover or covers, but once there i realized his own music was pretty damn good too. oh, also, in real life, he looks like this and not, in fact, this.
from there i went to devendra banhart, who out-jesus christed all the jesus christ look-alikes at bonnaroo and who, if they ever make another movie about the manson killings, he will be obligated to play charles manson. compare: devendra and charles. also, devendra could perform songs from charles manson's album for the movie and so you'd have a soundtrack that could be easily hyped too.
anyway..i then went to see bright eyes. i started listening to bright eyes only recently, having learned that the aforementioned amanda palmer was into them and figuring that they couldn't be all that bad. granted, i'd heard a couple of songs before and found them not to my taste, but i'm all about giving people a second chance, so i downloaded some stuff recently and found them less unpleasant this time around. at least, i found 2 or 3 songs that i liked out of the 6 or 7 i downloaded. plus there was nothing else going on at the time so hey. they were okay. they played the 2 songs i wanted to hear- the first day of my life and lua, so that was good. and then they brought jim james on stage, so i stuck around for that, though i can't say it added much.
after that it was off to cat power. oh, i'm sorry, "cat power and the memphis rhythm band." they were going to be her backing band. about 10 minutes after the show was supposed to start, the back-up band took the stage and "cat power and the memphis rhythm band" were announced, but still no chan marshall to be seen. they started off the first song, finished that and then went into their second. i started to get annoyed because i knew of chan's tendency to arrive late (often drunk) to shows and i was dreading the idea of her not showing until halfway into the set (since the band's have allotted times to perform before another band takes the stage). but she showed up for the third song and all was well. she was dancing like crazy, even at inappropriate times and i was sure she was drunk, until she told the audience she was sober and how great that was; how great it felt. it made me smile for her, and feel really good for a human being i don't even personally know. also, she was fucking amazing.
after i left cat power, i saw a big black smoke ring in the sky. not at all wispy, like smoke, but perfectly round and dense-looking. like this. and i guess it was essentially the same thing. fire cannons. they shot out more fire and smoke some of the other days i was there, but none shot out so perfectly formed a ring as that one. it was pretty freaky-looking when i had no idea what it was or where it came from. especially when no one else seemed to notice it.
i should note that it was in the 90s that day. i went to the bathroom around 11:30, before i left the hotel, and didn't have to go again until 11:30pm. and this after 3 bottles of water, an iced chai, and a double espresso (at $1 a shot, it was the cheapest espresso i've ever seen in the US. the cappuccinos and so forth, however, were appropriately overpriced). i was sweating a lot... seriously, i was so wet most of the day that i'm not even going to try and come up with a humorous metaphor for how sweaty i was. i do, however, have to give a shout out to the crystal deoderant at this point. after all that, there was still not a scent to be found upon my person. i was literally putting the sweat from my armpit up to my nose and there was NO SMELL. that is some seriously good shit...
so i had a long break at this point and i decided to get something to eat. unfortunately, there was a lot to choose from and nothing very cheap, so i avoided making a decision and wandered around some more. i stumbled upon a stage show of a guy filling latex balloons with air and stuffing people into them. naked. he got like 10 of them in there total. crazy shit. after that i was hungry and i passed a place where falafel fumes were wafting by. i hadn't experienced such wonderful-smelling falafel like that since the 4th arrondissement, so i knew i had to get some. and i have to say, it definitely wasn't bad falafel for a music festival in the middle of tennessee.
i don't have any recollection of what i did from then until midnight, which was when my morning jacket went on. it was tough though. i had to pass up lyrics born, blackalicious, and common to see them. i'd even already seen them once, but wow, they put on such a good show and they were playing for 3 hours straight, so hey, they might play all those 42750998750349 songs from their backcatalogue that i'd want to hear live. indeed they did play a few and, whatever the case, one big holiday will always own your shit. at around late 2ish-3, they made some comments implying they would be done soon, so i went to get some water and figured i'd hear the last songs as i walked the however many miles back to my car. they finished one song during the time it took me to do so and started another, one i didn't care about, so i just left. what sucked was, on the walk back (and the subsequent treasure hunt for my car which i'd forgotten to notice the parking location of), i heard at least 2 more songs, one of which i would've liked to stay for. whatever though, i saw almost a full 3 hours of them and was beat to shit after 14 hours in 80-90+ degree weather, standing up most of the time, often pakt like sardines, and in general feeling ick. so i drove the 1/2 hour back to the motel, took a beautiful beautiful shower, and fell asleep.
/end bonnaroo day one.
