By Drew Maziasz
Friday
At 1pm we ventured back out to Centeroo to get our music on. The Itals were playing on the main stage. They’re a great reggae band from the 1970s, 4 piece, 3 vocalists, 2000 dreadlocks. They were the perfect band to listen to just lounging around in the sunshine, still trying to swallow all the action around. Watching white people dance to reggae is hilarious. After the Itals played we wandered over to the Which Stage and watched Gomez for a second, nothing special. The Roo Lounge was a little tiny tent that was showcasing smaller bands all weekend. Here I watched a little band called Everest. They were a really enjoyable straight ahead rock band. The guitarists had really great control of their feedback and played back and forth with each other. The intimate setting was really conducive to my enjoyment of Everest and just about all the other acts I watched at the Roo Lounge.
Next up was Animal Collective, a band I was really excited to see, but was quite disappointed in. They were playing in the middle of the afternoon so their light show was fairly nonexistent, and the sound just didn’t sound that great. Their moments with lots of spacey reverb and echo came off well, but the whole set sounded like that. It was also blazing hot, and there was really no shade at the stage. I sat back and chilled at the Roo Lounge for a little bit and heard an artist named Evan Watson play a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Izabella” that was pretty righteous. Next was a trip back to the What Stage (the main stage) to see Galactic, a band that plays some pretty wicked big band jazz. I caught them just in time to see a 25 minute duel trombone jam. The trombonist for Galactic and an artist named Trombone Shorty went back and forth and displayed some of the most intensely impressive horn playing and breathing techniques.
At 4:45, we went over to Which Stage (second biggest stage) and saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. This was another band I was hyped to see. The beginning of their set was a bit lackluster, but really picked up steam. Their guitarist Nick Zinner was quite impressive, he carried a lot of their melodies with his buzz saw guitar lines and some tube fuzz that made all the music geeks wet themselves. There was an additional player with them who took care of the synth, bass, and some acoustic guitar parts. Karen O had on a Japanese style komono with tiger print tights. She was energetic and sounded spot on vocally. King Sunny Ade and his African band consisted of a drummer, 2 percussion players, a guitarist, a bassist, a keyboardist, and 3 vocalists. They were traditional African music with some modern pop and rock elements to them. The crowd was the older intellectual type. All the people who donate to NPR regularly were watching the world music that day. After this came Al Green, a man who I needed to see because, come on, how many times does one get a chance to see a soul legend? He came out with several dozen roses and tossed them all out to the crowd. His voice seemed a bit weak at first, but after the first couple numbers he really hit his stride. The late afternoon sun was pretty intense by this point, but yes, I did see Al Green sing “Let’s Stay Together”. My life is complete.
TV On The Radio is a band that everyone from our generation should pay attention to. They’re creating a sound that is so unique and impressive that it will blow your mind. A highlight from their set was the nonstop marathon of “Halfway Home > Golden Age > Wolf Like Me > Crying > Whirlwind”. Anyone who is familiar with TVOTR knows what I’m talking about. Their sound was so thick and layered, but all the instruments came out well. Their guitar work was badass, and the falsettos between the two lead singers was spot on. I can’t stress enough how much musical overload there was going on at that festival. At this point in time I had seen probably 6 straight hours of music, and I didn’t even watch anyone’s full set. There was just too much going on that I didn’t want to miss. So from TVOTR I walked over to see Ani DiFranco, an artist I have a lot of respect for but I don’t know if I would ever go see her by herself, so I took the opportunity to watch her for probably 45 minutes or so. The crowd consisted mainly of progressive looking ladies, and their “I’m into Ani just so I can get into your pants” boyfriends. The most impressive part of her set was a Pete Seeger song she sang, which she changed the lyrics to. I took a quick break at the campsite and headed back into the monster.
As I approached the main stage, the booming bass of the Beastie Boys had me walking with some pep in my step. One of their first numbers was their old school punk anthem “Time For Living”. This was phenomenal to see people expecting “Sure Shot” and “Intergalactic” as an opener and the Beasties launched into something unexpected, raucous, and totally awesome. Another early punk song “Egg Raid on Mojo” was kicking as well, some other highlights were “Root Down”, “Three MCs and One DJ”, and a little DJ break where Mixmaster Mike showed the crowd what he could do on the turntables. “Intergalactic” got the crowd moving, I was near the back, and when those notes first erupted, a wave of energy swept through the crowd from front to back. I crept up further and further and ended up being in a fairly good position for the treat that was “Heart Attack Man”, which was done jokingly on acoustic at first. They also had special guest Nas come out and rap on a couple of their tunes. The closer of “Sabotage” ended their set with so much energy, I can’t even describe.
This was the night for many many of us to see Phish for the first time in a long time, and they sure as hell didn’t disappoint. The first notes of “Chalkdust Torture” threw the crowd into a frenzy. If you’ve never been in the middle of a glow stick war in a crowd of 70,000 people, I highly recommend it. Trey was playing with an intensity like he had to prove that Phish was still capable of doing the festival thing, this being their first in several years. Some new songs from Phish’s upcoming “Joy” album were scattered throughout the first set, with strong other showings like “Possum”, “Down with Disease”, “Stash”, and one of my personal favorites “The Divided Sky”, and this was only part of the first set. After 7 or 8 numbers I decided it was time for me to go see some other bands while I could, because Phish, after all was the headliner Sunday, and I was sure to see their entire set that night. The crowds were huge, and dancing everywhere, making transit to the smaller stages pretty difficult.
I eventually made it in time to see Crystal Castles, very close, as well. Their set started off with an ungodly amount of smoke being pumped out into the night air and hanging over the crowd like a blanket. The synth player emerged and noodled around for about 6 or 7 minutes creating wild, spacey, abstract soundscapes, barely having and melody or rhythm. Alice came out and the crowd exploded. Now I didn’t have time to accurately plan out what I would say about a lot of bands that weekend at Bonnaroo. But I came up with this to describe Crystal Castles live set, “violent, satanic, Japanese, synth porn.” And if that sounds crazy, that’s because it was. Alice for the most of the 45 minutes I watched them, spent her time crawling around on top of the crowd on all four, screaming at the TOP OF HER LUNGS, right into the microphone, sometimes while the mic was just sitting in her throat… Definitely did not disappoint, as one of those bands I, “have to see this weekend.” After Crystal Castles I quickly ran back to see what was left of Phish’s set, and much to my enjoyment approached with another personal favorite, “You Enjoy Myself” playing. This turned into “Wilson” and then the icing on the cake was an encore of “A Day In The Life.” Yes, my favorite Beatles song, done by one of my favorite bands. This was just dandy.
This was a great way to end a day that was now approaching 13 hours of music. I decided that since I still had a little steam in my engines to just explore, now this is something you could literally spend all weekend doing. So over I went to see Girl Talk for a bit. This was a bit of a cluster-f as, Gregg Gillis’ equipment kept breaking down. And the mix just seemed to be a little off. However, some highlights were a killer sampling of “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones, and some Crystal Castle samples that really got the crowd, (most of which were still in the same tent) into a diabolical tizzy. Girl Talk echoed at my back as I hit up a tent that had a small indie rock group from Seattle playing. The last musical act of the night was a homespun reggae band that had set up a PA and a small tent way in the back of the camp grounds. By this time it was about 3:30 AM, and there were a ground of twenty some listeners just hanging around, enjoying this opportunity to come down from an all around intense day. By the time I got back to my campsite it was past 4 AM. I had spent more than 15 hours absorbing music that day. It’s was gonna be a long weekend.
