Bonnaroo Blog 4

late Friday/early Saturday 2am

clothes are soaked, tent is not (thankfully) after a pretty steady rainstorm after Metallica's main stage set...more on that in a minute.

called in a couple of reports in to Brad this afternoon and covered most of the following during a break after the Swell Season...

Elizabeth had the quote of the day - "I've become a hippie!" She's been Bonnaroo-ized, apparently :)

had a banana for breakfast then made it just in the nick of time to join Tad live on the air for his last break from backstage at Bonnaroo during Morning on the Corner this morning.

wandering around Centeroo with Spencer from my old station in Missouri KBXR, he beat me & Elizabeth at a game of cornhole in the MLB batting cage area. we also noticed Roo-specific Pearl Jam and Metallica shirts in the merch tent. Pearl Jam's has a tree of some sort incorporated in with the Bonnaroo font, while Metallica's says, Metalliroo "Peace. Love. Horns." on it, referring to the traditional metal hand salute (index finger & pinky finger up)...funny since Spencer had just been telling us a story about horns being inappropriately thrown by their co-sponsor of a recent Death Cab for Cutie show in Missouri, the moral of which seemed to be, don't let a TV person do a radio person's job :)

while waiting for Grupo Fantasma to take the Sonic Stage (a smaller, often acoustic setting for artists who are playing other, bigger stages throughout the weekend), I ended up making $5 my name-your-own-price for a Paste magazine subscription. Not sure if print media is wise to adopt the Radiohead model,,,,

Grupo Fantasma had at least ten people on stage, a very funky mix of Latin rock. And I learned from the Roo guide that they were Prince's backup band at his recent Super Bowl halftime show performance!

Blasts of metal guitar fill the air around noontime, as Metallica's roadies can be heard from all the way across the grounds...

After enjoying a free backstage BBQ for a bit, we wandered back out into the fray, where the Drive-By Truckers were playing the 2nd biggest Which Stage. Tad notices The Corner's Operations Manager Rick Daniels and his wife sitting right near where we picked a spot to stand, so we caught up with him for a bit, while DBT's "Ronnie & Neil" (a song about Ronnie Van Zant and Neil Young not being the rivals they were sometimes made out to be) filled the air...

We had heard from Jaclyn earlier in the day that she had gotten sidestage for Vampire Weekend just with her media braclet and no special pass or anything, so we tried our luck with Jose Gonzalez. Tad & Elizabeth have media braclets, and I have a pass that says "Why?" on it that gives me priority for most shows (if the sidestage area isn't already filled up). All 3 of us ended up getting to see the show from a few feet away once a few photographers left the area right in FRONT of the stage! A very quiet but intense set delivered to a rapturous audience...and we crossed paths with Jose and his 2 bandmates later in the day and got a pic with him backstage, so that was pretty awesome too!

After phoning in a couple reports to Brad, Tegan and Sara took the stage after Jose, and they were well received, despite a few technical difficulties here and there. We were sidestage for this one, not right in front. When you're photogenic twins, photographers tend to stay a while in the pit :) After "Walking with a Ghost," we decided to move along to catch a bit of Minus the Bear, whom Tad and I agreed were kinda math rock/groovy in a good, Mute Math-sorta way....

It was onto the main What Stage area for Stephen Marley next, just in time to hear him do my fav song by him, "Hey Baby." A couple of covers of his dad's songs later (and a cool reggae version of Van Morrison's "Lonely Avenue"), and we had to refuel back in the media area...

as it's getting to be almost 4pm, Tad & I discover Rilo Kiley are doing their backstage at Bonnaroo performance and interview in one of the trailers. So as we wait to catch a glimpse of Jenny Lewis, we see Brendan Benson from the Raconteurs doing an interview with the dude from Fuse, and we interview our Warner Bros. pal David Ravikoff, who had just gotten to see Metallica the night before in front of 100 fan club members in Nashville...and good for him, because despite faithfully working some of his fav bands as part of his job (R.E.M., Raconteurs, Rilo Kiley), we know him to be a true metalhead at heart :)

So Dave wanders off, and Tad and I wander back to the perfomance area where Rilo Kiley will be exiting. Sure enough, out comes Jenny Lewis and Tad goes right up to her (just fyi, Dave didn't pull any strings or anything) and tells her we're from a radio station in VA that plays her music and could he get a picture! I was content to take photos of her walking away, so this threw me for a bit of a loop. Next thing I know, Tad's taking MY pic with Jenny Lewis! I made sure to mention we had seen her in Richmond last weekend (leaving out the minor detail that I went with Elizabeth - I would pay with evil scowls from her throughout the afternoon for that one ;), but that's about all the chit-chat we had time for, as she was wisked away.

Got to be sidestage for The Swell Season, who were excellent as always, and they did the Pixies cover they had done in Richmond recently, "Levitate Me." On the way back to the radio area, I snapped a few close-up pics from sidestage during Les Claypool's set, to pay Tad back for the Jenny Lewis encounter :) For the Which Stage, only my "Why?" pass gets sidestage access, not the media braclet. So that was pretty cool, seeing one of the world's greatest bass players from just a few feet away, esp. right during his bandmates' saw solo! Later in the evening, Tad got to check out the SuperJam, which this year they did an excellent job of keeping secret til Les Claypool came out with Gogol Bordello at about 130am...

Jaclyn at around this time, meanwhile, was shooting great pics sidestage at The Raconteurs, whom Tad, Elizabeth & I managed to miss, instead opting for resting from the day's wandering and the free sandwiches that had been delivered to the backstage radio tour buses may have had something to do with it too. Next thing we knew, it was getting close to Chris Rock time, so we mosied on out to catch a bit of Willie Nelson, Rilo Kiley and M.I.A. on the way.

In what was billed as one of the biggest, if not THE biggest crowd to witness a comedian, Chris was introduced by Lars and Kirk from Metallica. He started off very funny, and then it seemed like I had heard a lot of the jokes for the 2nd half of his set. Plus, for a crowd of 40-some thousand (at least), the laughter didn't seem all that loud at times...more like a lot of light chuckling, I guess...And there was no relation to Bonnaroo at all, really...like, why was he here, no hippie jokes, just kind of a standard Chris Rock set that he could've done at any comedy club anywhere. Weird. And he only had an hour slot, which seemed short, but I guess was about right as the anticipation grew for Metallica.

Chris returned the favor and introduced Metallica, albeit 15 minutes after their supposed 9pm start time. Tad & Elizabeth only lasted a few songs, especially when the world's lamest mosh pit (3 well-built shirtless dudes running into each other) began right near us. Somehow we timed our entrance into the What Stage area perfectly, right when they were allowing people to go into the area closest to the stage. So we ended up seeing Chris Rock and Metallica from the equivalent of maybe 20 or 30 rows back...we'll have to try that timing trick tomorrow for Pearl Jam :)

Very mixed feelings about Metallica's set...it was my first time seeing them, so I don't really have anything to compare to. But I thought their reputation for long live shows preceeded them, and made them a good fit for Bonnaroo (if, as many thought, nothing else did). And like James Hetfield said at one point, something to the effect of, you're here for great live music, and so are we, so let's do this! They seemed very appreciative to the crowd...no stinky hippies jokes or anything...and they bashed out an all-oldies set, including a few from "Kill Em All" even...The mellower moments were nice respites from the lame mosh dudes ("The Unforgiven," "Nothing Else Matters"), and luckily these guys weren't the type to try to mosh/crowd surf even when a ballad is being played. So back to the long live show thing...their alloted time was 9-11:30. So they went on 15 minutes late, and then were done by 11:20, the last 5 minutes of which they spent smiling at the crowd and throwing picks and soaking up the applause of what seemed to be a mostly-pleased crowd (from what I overheard those around me saying as we exited), despite a major technical glitch in the last song ("Seek and Destroy") where the audio went out completely for a good 30 seconds. But going back through my 20-year history as a fan of the band, I couldn't help but be disappointed. ...And Justice for All was my Metallica album...listened to it over and over as a 14- and 15-year old...listening back to it recently for the first time in a long time, I was struck by how its themes of war and justice and freedom were not only perfect for the late-80s Bush era, but even moreso for our current one. And let's face it, Kill Em All is great, but they wrote that when they were what, teenagers? And they have all these new songs you know they are just itching to play live...why not throw us a bone and show us how the new stuff holds up to the old favs? THAT's what Bonnaroo is about to me...pushing the envelope a little bit. It seems they're in this mode of reclaiming their old glory, which is fine, but claim your current glory too, ya know? Why are you still relevant? They pretty much are a genre unto themselves, which is why so many people love them, but I dunno...I guess I wish Hetfield had had more to say than he did ("let's hear you, Bonnaroo?" "are you still alive out there?" and fist pumping, "heys," which always freaks me out in a fascistic way...) Plus the whole show was a bit like watching people play Guitar Hero. A very fun game to play, I'll be the first to admit, but not so much when you have to watch other people do it. Ironic that I think they've just inked a deal for an all-Metallica version of Guitar Hero! It's like their awesome precision doesn't leave room for any kind of improv or surprise, which I guess is what the spirit of Bonnaroo comes down to for me. I thought maybe ONE new song might've been the way for Metallica to accomplish this, and I'm sure they're understandably worried about youtube footage or whatever, but still... or maybe that's the problem translating metal to the Bonnaroo experience - getting aggression out by noodle-dancing and smiling and singing along to songs about positive change is totally different from doing so by pushing and shoving. While still very sincere, metal just by nature elicts totally different emotions that, for me, works when I'm in the car by myself and I can turn the radio up to 11, but not so much when I'm surrounded by my fellow humans, most of whom are the reason I have these feelings of aggression in the first place - lol! As Chris Rock said, "don't hate the player, hate the game"...And this is NOT about the 3 lame dudes attempting to get their mosh on, it's about the feelings certain kinds of music represent...or something. I guess I'm saying, whatever happened to clapping and pogo-dancing? There was virtually none of that tonight...sad but true, indeed....

My Morning Jacket's midnight set is exactly the cure for my metal doldrums, and even after we return to the tent after getting poured on waiting to find out who the SuperJam might involve, we can still hear the strains of MMJ from the Which Stage as they go well-past the 2-hour mark with their mix of funk/country/rock/soul...yes, that's more like it, Bonnaroo :) Can't wait to see how differently Eddie Vedder handles the What Stage crowd tomorrow...