Bonnaroo 2006 was an amazing experience - a great way first music festival for me - and well worth the $200-some I paid for my ticket.
Day 1: ThursdayNot much going on. We saw I-Nine at This Tent around 7:30 or so. None of us had heard of them, but they were pretty impressive - especially the singer, she had an absolutely stunning voice. Musically, I like to compare them to
Make Yourself-era Incubus, but that's not exactly right either. Their lead guitarist was very good, and he rocked the cello for a few songs as well. All in all, a good first show - not very crowded at all.
After the I-Nine show, we decided to go see Patton Oswalt and Jasper Redd in the comedy tent, however, the line was eternal and we were exhausted, so that's all we accomplished Day 1. But we heard later that a trippy hippy had walked out into the highway and was hit and killed by Ricky Skaggs' tour bus and that a naked man had climbed the scaffolding at the Dios (Malos) show and fallen thirty-some feet. He was airlifted to Nashville.
Day 2: FridayWe didn't expect the long wait at the Centeroo gates, so we were late for the Andrew Bird show. But when we got there, and slowly made our way under the tent, he was very good. Two kids next to us collapsed, convulsed for roughly thirty seconds, and then popped up onto their feet as if nothing had happened. It was scary for a moment; I thought someone had died right in front of me. Anyway, Birdman was great - he whistled a lot, which was fun - and he had flippy hair and a farmer's tan. He mostly stuck to stuff from
Mysterious Production of Eggs.
After Bird was Devendra Banhart on the same stage. He came out shirtless with his pubes hanging out. The show started off really soft and, honestly, a bit lame. But mid-way through the show Devendra invited an audience member to come on stage and play one of his own songs. The kid turned out to be pretty good and it really changed the whole show. Devendra and his band, whom he donned the Tennessee Cops, kept the spark going - busting into "I Feel Just Like A Child." Devendra started to talk more between songs and started dancing more during them. He's a much more personable and charismatic person than I ever imagined. I hate hippies, but I love Devendra Banhart.
Next up, I was coerced by my compadres to go to the Oysterhead show at the main stage. I hate jam music, and Oysterhead is a fucking jam supergroup, but everyone else was going, so I really had no choice. They were better than I thought, but still not that great. Les Claypool's pig mask/top hat/Elvis mask added some raw entertainment for brief moments. We got really close and would have had great seats for Tom Petty, but we ditched the main stage and waited four hours over at This Tent to snag front row position for the midnight My Morning Jacket show.
At this point, our backs, feet, calves, and shoulders were aching, but MMJ was totally worth it. They played for three hours and never let up. Jim James came out crouching with a lantern in his left hand and the band busted right into "Wordless Chorus." They also played a good amount of covers, including Velvet Underground's "Head Held High" and the Rolling Stones' "Loving Cup." This was the first moment that I realized how amazing the rest of this weekend was going to be - especially with the crazy amazing line up for the next few days.
Day 3: SaturdayWhile two of my pals went to see the Magic Numbers, my beat-ass sat under This Tent waiting for Dungen to come out. To my surprise, I ended up getting there early enough to lock down a front row seat. The tent got pretty crowded pretty early - you could tell a lot of the people were there to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at 2:00. But Dungen was really good. It was fun listening to them check their instruments in some Scandinavian tongue, and they passed around a spiral notebook asking fans to write down recommendations for the band's improvement. "Ta De Lugnt" was the peak of the show, and the final song turned into a twenty minute epic, in which every instrument and every foot of the stage was utilized.
I stayed put for the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah show, and you could just feel the excitement and tension building in the tent. It seemed like nearly everyone had the same thing on their mind as me, "I love the album, but I've heard the live show is hit-or-miss." But when Alec and the gang came out and broke right into "Let The Cool Goddess Rust Away" they stuck to the album sound and everyone's worries were tossed aside with twirling hands and swinging hips. Alec had trouble with his guitar the whole show until he just ditched it with two songs to go. He was visibly, and understandably, frustrated for a while, but then he just laughed it off, and eventually gave up on his guitar. It was frustrating as a fan as well, because it was easy to see that Alec's guitar was constantly on his mind throughout the show, and that this hindered his stage presence a little bit. But it was still a great show. And Robbie Guertin looked like he was having the time of his life.
Immediately after CYHSY, we headed over to the main stage to catch Beck and then wait for Radiohead. I'd heard about the Beck puppet thing, but it was nothing like what I'd imagined. The puppets were live and on stage with the band, and performed every song word for word, and guitar solo for guitar solo. The puppets even sat down and ate when the band sat down and ate. Beck's set was super dancy and very, very fun. He covered the Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize?" and a Radiohead song that escapes me at this point.
Radiohead came out at 8:30 with the same set I'd seen pictures of from their MSG shows - the one with the shattered glass screens glowing with odd camera views. Thinking back, the show is a blur. An intense, enormous, glorious blur. I remember they played a lot of new shit, and I remember thinking for at least an hour "When are they going to play 'Everything In It's Right Place'?" until they closed with it. I remember "The Bends" and I remember Thom doing his freak-out dance. It's slowly coming back to me now that I type this, but I remember thinking the whole time how bitchin' the entire thing was.
Day 4: SundayWe made sure we got up on time to catch Be Your Own PET, and then just relax at This Tent to see Stephen Malkmus and then Sonic Youth. BYOP were, as expected, high energy and high angst. Jemina Pearl came out with an autographed Billy Idol muscle-tee and and new wave bob hair cut. She violently shook her shoulders and the rest of the band jumped, staggered, and rolled around the stage. About mid-show, Jemina was looking for some water - hers had disappeared because some B-Roo worker had done some crowd pleasing and tossed her extras to sweaty fans. She walked over to get some from the bassist, but his was gone too, so she whipped the empty bottle across the stage in frustration. Next she spotted the drummer with some water. Now here's where things get fuzzy. I don't know exactly what happened, but this is where Jemina and drummer Jamin Orrall get into a little skizzy - I theorize that he was reluctant to give the bottle to Jemina. The show continues but after twenty five minutes, Jemina converses with Jamin, and then mutters into the mic, "Well, I guess we don't have anymore songs." But that didn't happen. After some awkward silence the band played "Fill My Pill" and Jemina screamed the chorus ("You're under my skin/you're under my skin!") at Jamin to open the song. It was an unsettling moment, but it was soon forgotten because guitarist Jonas Stein leaped off stage and began playing in the dirt of the photo area before climbing the fence and playing
while crowd surfing. The crowd, of course, went crazy, and off went Jemina before her band stopped playing.
In between BYOP and Malkmus was Fat Possum's Deadboy & The Elephantmen. I'd heard a few tracks, and really enjoyed "Ancient Man," which they played. Deadboy had a really good grunge voice and the show was pretty tame. I wasn't expecting them to flip like BYOP, but they really just stood there, and the tour bassist look completely lost the entire time.
Oh man, then there was Malkmus. The songwriter for my favorite band ever came out at 4:00 and killed it the entire time. "Pencil Rot" and "Baby C'mon" were crowd favorites, and "Freeze the Saints," "Mama," and "Loud Cloud Crowd" were breath-taking. Performance-wise, he looked much like when I saw him last summer in Detroit - comfortable, swaying, and joyful. His improvisational guitar solos were probably the best part of the show in my mind. There were times when you'd think "Stephen, where are you going with this one?" and then he'd turn it inside out and wow the shit out of you.
Sonic Youth were up next, and I'm going to tell you right now that this was the best show of the entire weekend. I know they're fifty and all, but Kim Gordon still dances like a twenty-something, and Thurston Moore still looks like a tall, awkward, mop-headed seventeen year old. They pretty much played all of the new album,
Rather Ripped, including the show opener, "Incinerate." At one point, Thurston, perhaps to remind everyone that this fifty-year-old was still an art punk, began to rub his guitar against one of the rotating stage lights. He moved on to the large monitor on the side of the stage and then, grabbing his guitar cord, swayed the guitar back and forth, grinding the strings against the edge of the stage. It was such a great show; I'm still reeling from this one and Radiohead.
Oh! Look who it is! Mr. Malkmus came out and joined The Youth for a song. And yes, that is Pavement's Mark Ibold on bass - he played the entire show.
If the line-up next year is as good as this year's, I can't imagine myself not going.
