By Drew Maziasz
Thursday
We reached our campsite at about 7:30 AM and started unpacking the car, to our right our friends from Cleveland. All around us, about 75,000 other concert goers who, although preoccupied with setting up tents in 80 degree heat, were bursting with smiles and excitement. At 4 PM we ventured out to Centeroo (the actual festival area, where all the stages, vendors, etc. are located). Torrential downpours dampened everyone’s mood a bit, but it remained that people were excited, and just waiting for the festivities to actually start so that we could all bust out and get crazy. Anticipation. At 6:15 we walked back to Centeroo and the music had already began.
I caught a bit of White Rabbits, a nice indie rock group that had some wicked dual percussion breakdowns. They sounded a bit like a band called Delta Spirit who were supposed to play later that night, but didn’t end up showing, for reasons unknown to me. After White Rabbits, I watched Portugal. The Man, who were one of the high points for the weekend. They’re a bit of a prog-rock monster that somewhat resembles The Mars Volta, but with less psychedelic freakouts and high pitched screams. Portugal had 4 vocalists creating some wonderful harmonies that were a great contrast to the heavy riffs and pounding rhythms. The intensity that Portugal played with was a great way to usher in that weekend. From Portugal I wandered around for several hours and saw a bit of Passion Pit, who were fantastic. I was worried that their clean synth-pop sound wouldn’t translate well to the stage, but it sounded great. The only bad part was that I was so beat from not sleeping for 40 hours that I couldn’t stay for the whole set and started to trek back to the campsite. Passion Pit’s “Sleepyhead” was playing as I walked through the night past all the Bonnaroo crazies. And it was glorious.
