Bonnaroo Blog 7

early morning Wednesday 6/18

OK, so it's taken a couple days to recover enough to even semi-coherently wrap up this blog...next time, I'll work through any Sunday downtime instead of watching VH1 Classic on the tour bus, because the trip back Monday is a lost cause - you're either sleeping or driving (hopefully not both at the same time :). And then you get home, and all you want to do is shower and sleep some more. And then Tuesday rolls around and you have all the real work you've been missing to catch up on...but let us go back to Sunday for a few moments, shall we...

The day started off with more blogging in the morning...wanted to make sure I got it done before my Corner on-air shift starting at about 11am. Almost did, and blogged the rest while I was on the air from Radio Bonnaroo. Had fun recapping the events up to that point with Tad & Elizabeth occasionally joining me on the air. During one break, I noticed Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie stroll by right outside the "window" of my studio, with baseball glove and hat and 3 other similarly clad men in tow. They just talked a while amongst themselves and never even threw a pitch or swung in the backstage batting cages! Maybe they had just come from playing catch in the artist backstage area, and the interview finished up in the radio area, who knows.

By the time the on-air stuff and the blogging were done, we had missed Serena Ryder at 1:30 in This Tent. Cool, Canadian singer who had a great covers cd that I believe came out last year. We would miss her again on the Sonic Stage at 5:15...d'oh!

There was a big crowd assembled at the Sonic Stage for Broken Social Scene, and deservedly so. They would close out the lineup at The Other Tent at 730pm that night...knew we wouldn't make it over there for that due to Plant/Krauss, so it was nice to catch them, esp. in a smaller setting.

It was on to Sherry's backstage area, affectionately known as The Boneyard, so we could get a closer glimpse of Matt Cameron from Pearl Jam, drumming with his jazz trio side project, Harrybu McGage at the back of the Sonic Stage. Mission accomplished, and we even got photos from the front too as the crowd thinned out waiting in the BSS autograph line...I felt like a stalker dork though, since I had chosen to wear one of my old school Pearl Jam shirts. Didn't expect to get so close to one of the members of the band!

Caught a bit of Robert Randolph's Revival (a bit more rock/funk than the pop/soul of the Family Band??) at That Tent. When they started into an instrumental version of Michael Jackson's "Rock With You," we moved along to Jakob Dylan & The Gold Mountain Rebels at This Tent, where we heard the strains of "Three Marlenas" as we walked up. Saying something along the lines of, "we like to play songs we know," Jakob seemed hesitant to try out his own solo stuff in favor of older Wallflowers songs, but that was fine by the crowd, including Superfan Beatle Bob standing in front of us sidestage. Orchestra Baobab was also playing at around the same time, and what a spot-on performance from these Senegalese legends. Oh, and we caught Susan Tedeschi with an acoustic guitar and a flute player on the Sonic Stage and got some good video of her covering Ray LaMontagne's "Shelter." But my tolerance for the flute is pretty minimal, so it was time to move on...

As the anticipation for Plant/Krauss builds, we rest in the media area for a while, missing Aimee Mann and Solomon Burke in the process. Another fact of Bonnaroo...despite your best intentions, there will be times when you just can't head back out into the fray. The lure of tour bus AC and free Subway sandwiches for dinner is too strong...and, as I think I mentioned in the car on the drive down, one of the nicest things about Bonnaroo is seeing colleagues from around the country and catching up on their cities and stations and lives. The AAA (that's Adult Album Alternative) radio community, even though each station has its own unique way of appealing to their city/audience, is a pretty small, cool and fun universe with a lot of like-minded, easy-going folks.

The VIP bleachers are suprisingly half full when we arrive a bit early for Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. I had seen Alison with Union Station on this same What Stage a couple of years ago. This show ended up being one of the highlights of the fest for me, with plenty of selections from their Raising Sand cd, obviously, a couple Zep covers ("Black Dog" and "Battle of Evermore"), a couple selections from their recent history (a rendition of Plant's "In the Mood" was spectacular, and the O Brother Where Art Thou? song "Down in the River to Pray" was chill-inducing). Plant seemed especially exicted to be not only at a festival like Bonnaroo ("it feels pretty good up here!"), but in a state like Tennessee, where so much of the music he had been recently discovering had come from (thanks to his backing band, led by T Bone Burnett, pointing out to him that "there's some great white American music too"). Another highlight was shown on the big screen a couple times during the set - probably the oldest person we saw at Bonnaroo, which got a rise out of the crowd, because despite her short stature and age (70s?), she was right down in the pit, smiling and clapping along. As the crowd thinned out a bit towards the end, Tad & I went down much closer to watch the encore while Elizabeth went over to the Which Stage to catch the end of Death Cab for Cutie's set. Only got a one-song encore though, and it was kind of an odd choice - some old rave-up by the Nervous Fishermen, or something. An odd note on which to end a set that featured such good singing, playing and song choices throughout (even T Bone got to do a song).

The strains of Death Cab's "I Will Possess Your Heart" wafted through the air as we made our way out of the What Stage area and onto to That Tent for Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi's Soul Stew Revival. Really good set from them - always amazing to hear Susan sing, and I had never seen Derek Trucks before - his plucking style of slide guitar playing without a pick is awesome to witness...not sure if they planned on playing a long set anyway or if it was due to the crowd response, but they were still playing when we got off the Ferris Wheel at around 930 (they were only scheduled til 830). Took a picture from the highest point at Bonnaroo (literally, anyway :) atop the Ferris Wheel and then caught a bit of Widespread Panic at the What Stage, after which it was back to the tent to start packing up for the long ride home...6am will come especially early tomorrow!
Oh, and we did get a call from the tour bus area that the Celtics/Lakers game was close late in the 4th so we took a quick break from cleaning up to witness the Lakers barely hang on in Game 5.

And we did actually manage to hit the road by a little after 7, with the Cracker Barrel about an hour away being our incentive for getting a move-on. Surprised any of us were able to stay awake after that several-course feast, but Tad did an excellent job driving the first half and I took the 2nd half, while Jaclyn helped split the drive with Amy from The Tide Radio in Williamsburg. She was heading the same way as us, so we figured we'd help out so she wouldn't have to drive the whole way herself.

So, another Bonnaroo in the books, and some final thoughts (or things I may have forgotten to mention) have crossed my mind the last couple days...

--that was my FIRST time seeing Pearl Jam for free...I know, I know, whoop-de-doo, but when someone like me who goes to free shows quite often, and has PAID to see a certain band (who hardly ever does free tickets) 13 times, and then finally after all these years gets to go gratis, that was pretty darn cool. So those folks who won PJ tix for VA Beach from the Corner should feel especially lucky, I guess is what I'm saying...free PJ tix are hard to come by! And I guess being in the fan club and buying tix through them to get better seats and avoid service fees has something to do with it too, for me anyway.

--the SuperJam this year was a bit odd, in that it was kind of a jam, but wasn't really that Super (Les Claypool and Gogol Bordello). I guess no matter who they got, it would be hard to top ?uestlove, Ben Harper and John Paul Jones doing Zeppelin songs last year :) But it reminded me of something I've noticed at the other 2 Bonnaroos I've gone to...I don't know if scheduling is too tight and bands have to get in and get out or what, but I was trying to think of any "spontaneous" collaborations or special guests I saw...Eddie Vedder came out with Jack Johnson for one song...Kirk Hammitt came out with My Morning Jacket for one song...there had to have been others, but it just seems like, if I was that great of a musician in that setting, I would want to SuperJam with as many people as I could! I guess it's probably understandably a pride thing, too, with each artist wanting to prove their "Bonnaroo-worthiness" on their own, without help from an "all-star." Just throwing that out there...

--I only needed my earplugs once the whole weekend (for Metallica)...such great soundsystems regardless of the size of the stage! Of course the one time I remember to bring them, I hardly need them :)

--the My Morning Jacket stories we heard the next morning after their almost-4 hour set were pretty sweet...when I'm back in Illinois this weekend withOUT pneumonia, I guess that will have to suffice for not staying through the rainstorm for that long :)

--and other regrets...i've had a few...too few to mention ;) but i will anyway :) not seeing the Raconteurs, Serena Ryder, Solomon Burke, Zappa plays Zappa, The Coup or going into the New Orleans area (wonder how much money they raised for Katrina relief with their $5 "cover charge" for the Somethin' Else tent?) But we did see Jack White backstage for a couple seconds after his Radio Bonnaroo interview/performance, and we saw Solomon Burke's velvet throne up close in the Boneyard thanks to Sherry, so again, it's all timing and pacing yourself and the yin and the yang of Bonnaroo...

--i have no idea who the headliners could be next year to top this (for me personally)...Radiohead and DMB would be solid picks, but they've both headlined here before...Tad's still rooting for the Jackson 5 reunion...maybe they'll branch out into Green Day or Coldplay territory next year...Beastie Boys have yet to play Bonnaroo, I'm pretty sure...and once Chinese Democracy comes out this year (yeah, right!) and flops, what better place than the middle of Tennessee for that G'n'R reunion tour to start! I'm just sayin'...the Phish reunion would be too big for Bonnaroo and a band like U2 or the Stones doesn't need to play a festival, because the monetary incentives could never be enough. The Led Zep thing could still happen I guess (Plant sure seemed to enjoy himself this year)...ah well, let the speculation begin!

Thanks for reading my mostly off-the-cuff ramblings this past week...hopefully it brought the equally ridiculous and sublime world of being backstage at a major music festival home in a relatable way! The Corner Crew is humbled and honored to have been part of Bonnaroo '08!