This is how I feel about a certain music festival that I have much love for and much experience with, but I suppose I should preface this post with the the fact that it is not meant to come across cocky or pretentious.
On a Wednesday in 2004, I found myself and a few carloads of friends driving to southern Tennessee for what would be our first Bonnaroo. It was a blast to say the least, we saw a lot of great sets and got to experience a lot of what was The Great American Summer Music Festival for 4 days under the Tennessee sun. 2005 brought another good time, with much of the same of the previous year. (I won’t go into too much detail about what shows we saw, that would take away from the point of this post.)
The basic idea was that the first two years were amazing, and I’m sure any other attendees will agree with me. Bonnaroo had a majority of strictly jam band acts, and a crowd and campground vibe that resembled that of yesteryear’s free-spirited “hippie” festival. (2 points here, the fact that the lineup was only jambands is of course debatable, and second, I have never been to a “real” Dead show, or even a real Phish show, but I’ve read and heard enough about them to make the assumption that the early Bonnaroo shows were abundantly similar.) We all had an awesome time in 2006, more mainstream acts such as Tom Petty, Radiohead, and Death Cab appeared on the lineup. The term “mainstream” is not meant to be negative, I love all three acts I just mentioned, and thought all three played awesome sets. Radiohead performed for what would be their longest live show to date and Tom Petty played a solid set featuring Stevie Nicks for a number of songs. Again, many mainstream acts at Bonnaroo play steller performances, and are definatley worth watching.
2006 saw the change from a happy hippie festival with a good campground and crowd to a more main-steam-in-the-spot-light, generic high-grossing MTV news festival. (simple argument: Bonnaroo was never out of the spot-light, early shows saw attendence at > 80,000 and obviously has always been high grossing.) My point is Bonnaroo changed, or dare I say: Sold Out. Fine. I’m sure that’s just my poor opinion. I still had fun. So it wasn’t what it used to be, so what? Okay, I’ll give it another chance. 2007, we drive to Bonnaroo, $250 tickets in hand. We know the 9 hour route by hand, and go into the show a bit nervous about what would be. I’ll burn through last year’s Bonnaroo pretty quick: it sucked, The Police sucked, they played a 50 minute show, set for a 3 hour block. Tool, one of my favorite bands of all time, sucked, playing a set that sounded like shit, and was by far the worst late-night main stage show I’ve seen at Bonnaroo, short of Steve Winwood’s 2004 Willie Nelson fill-in performance. The Flaming Lips set made me literally fall asleep, and The White Stripes on Sunday drew everyone on the grounds to the smaller main stage making it rather less enjoyable. Bonnaroo changed from a happy music hippie fest to a “Woodstock ‘99″ appeal (read: wallet chains, tribal tattoos, Clutch.)
The 2008 lineup is comical. I listened to Metallica growing up, and enjoyed it, but sorry – why the fuck are they at Bonnaroo? I can dig Pearl Jam, this is a bit strange, but they’ve been known play much like a jamband when performing live. Kayne West? Are you serious? At Bonnaroo? I can’t even stand Jack Johnson, he is the current DMB derivative that’s easy-to listen-to-while-playing-beer-pong, and he’s listed on the top line in the lineup. Still though, Bonnaroo shows some hope: Phil Lesh, The Allman Bros, Willie, Unphrey’s, B.B. King, Iron & Wine, Yonder, Robert Randolph, !!!, Death Cab, My Morning Jacket, David Cross all look promising, and somewhat resemble that of an older Bonnaroo.
The fact is, the mentioned acts are merely “great” in my opinion, and though theres more “good” bands then there are potential “shitty” ones, Metallica, O.A.R., Kanye, Jack Johnson, etc will draw some of the biggest douchiest ticket holders in all of mid-west America.
I don’t know what happened to you Bonnaroo, you’re just not the same. Who’s next Limp Bizkit? Or perhaps we’ll see Nickleback headlining the 2009 show. In any event, props to attempting to be the likes of Coachella and kudos to Superfly. 2008 should bring in record numbers in terms of profit and attendance. It is, after all, a business.
