Bonnaroo!

By Drew Millard

This weekend, I was at Bonnaroo. What is Bonnaroo, you ask? Show of hands: how many of my readers were at Woodstock? Maybe I should change the question. How many of my readers have heard of Woodstock? That’s better. Now imagine Woodstock, only with better sound, just as many hippies, almost as many drugs, no bathing, and ten stages with musical acts that run the gamut from Bluegrass to Gospel to Rock n’ Roll to Punk Rock to Country to Reggae to Jazz to Blues to Rap to Pop, with a few comedians thrown in. That’s Bonnaroo.

I know what you’re thinking. Actually, I don’t. But I’m mildly sure that one of my readers’ questions about the opening paragraph of this column would be, “So how high did Drew get this weekend?”

The answer, of course, is really high. But not on drugs, on the music! That, and sleep deprivation. Not that I didn’t hear countless conversations like the following:

Hippie 1: So the government, dude, controls the...like…media…man…and…uh (speaker coughs)…there could be, like, an entire universe in that blade of grass, dude….

Hippie 2: Well that’s just, like, your opinion, man. My favorite Dead album was Workingman’s Dead, because, like, Jerry Garcia…is totally awesome.

There were a bunch of people smoking the ol’ Mary Jane. And people were eating mushrooms. And doing LSD. I even saw people smoking opium, which I didn’t even know was a drug anymore (I’m pretty sure its last significant user was either Sherlock Holmes or Mary Todd Lincoln).

Fortunately, there were other things to do at the festival besides look at druggies, as that would have made the place Haight-Asbury in 1967. Believe it or not, some pretty high-profile bands played there. Which bands, you ask? Ever heard of Sting?
Remember the Police, the band that he was in during the early 1980s? They were there. As were the awesomely awesome progressive-metal band Tool (ask any male aged 16 to 23, and he’ll tell you all about them), and the dynamic blues-rock duo The White Stripes, whose guitarist, Jack White, just might be the best relevant guitarist of the day.

There were about ninety-seven other bands on the bill, but in all likelihood, if I listed them all, you would get bored and turn to Pam Stone’s column. So in the interest of not fighting a losing battle, I’ll just tell you my five favorite bands/artists to appear at Bonnaroo.

5. Spoon — an indie-rock band from Austin, Texas, who, if one is in high school and wants to know was being cool sounds like, should be listened to. Their live set made me feel cooler for having watched it. Their notable albums include Gimme Fiction, Kill the Moonlight, and Girls Can Tell.

4. Aesop Rock — a rapper from New York who hated his job so much that he made an album about it (entitled Labor Days) that sold well enough to allow him to quit his job, which I guess was his plan the entire time. Though I don’t like rap all that much, his live set won me over. He gets bonus points for his encore, which was completely improvised. If you like good rap music, his next album, None Shall Pass, comes out this summer.

3. Manu Chao — a French-Born, Spanish-language singer who according to Matthieu Dusselier, Frenchman extraordinaire, is as popular in Europe as John Mayer is in America, and infinitely better. He plays what is essentially a mix between traditional Spanish classical music, reggae, and straight-ahead rock, sharpened with a far-leftist political edge. During his performance, he spoke almost no English, but still managed to draw a crowd of what must have been 20,000 spectators. His next album comes out in August of this year, and judging from the fact that he’s touring in America this summer, will probably contain some English.

2. Wilco — hopefully, a few of my readers have heard of this excellent indie-rock band who, after fifteen or so years of existence (not to mention that they have roots in Uncle Tupelo, one of the first alternative country bands), are becoming somewhat of household name. Their set was consistently astounding, and featured the excellent guitar work of lead guitarist Nels Cline, a relatively recent addition to the band, and the abstract-yet-simple lyrics of frontman Jeff Tweedy. Their best album is titled Summerteeth, and their most recent, entitled Sky Blue Sky, has reached number thirteen on the charts.

1. The Hold Steady — these guys are my favorite band in the universe. They played an hour-and-a-half show that had their smallish but fanatic crowd singing along with frontman Craig Finn’s Beat Poetry-ish lyrics (sample couplet: “There are night when I think that Sal Paradise was right/Boys and Girls in America have such a sad time together.”

I can’t really go into much more detail about how awesome The Hold Steady was, other than to say that you really, really need to buy their newest release, entitled Boys and Girls in America, and then send it to me.

Also, since many music fans know and love the Police, I’ll also tell you how their concert was and why it’s not worth spending $500 to see them on their supermassive reunion tour. They’re not that great. Of course, they play the songs competently and almost way that the audience wants to hear them, but they don’t do anything else.
Don’t believe whatever hype you hear, because somewhere along the way, the Police forgot to bring the manic energy that made them great in the first place. To perhaps cater to the Bonnaroo audience, the Police introduced a slower, funkier breakdown in each of their songs, which just didn’t work, probably because every time one of those breakdowns appeared, it was just after the final verse and lasted approximately three minutes, and sounded the same every time. Sting apparently never got the memo that said jamming wasn’t supposed to be rehearsed. Anyway, if you go see them regardless of what I say, it’s none of my business, but I will leave you with a final thought: even at 55, Sting still looks like he could whip my butt.

Goodnight Polk County!

Graduation in the Modern Age

By Drew Millard

Author’s note: By the time the Tryon Daily Bulletin publishes this column, I will be hours away from my high school graduation. This is a big deal in every person’s life, and all of my fellow graduates — myself included — have our unique thoughts and opinions on the moment in which the state of North Carolina deems us fit to enter the real world. Unfortunately, only the top five students in the senior class actually get to give speeches telling their perspectives on how everything has gone. I’m not in the top five, but I have a lot of things to say about our impending graduation, so naturally, I’m going to use today’s column as an opportunity for publishing what is tantamount to my graduation speech:

You know, time has a funny way of sneaking up on you. For four years now, I’ve been thinking that I’d be stuck in high school forever, but now, as I try and gather my thoughts on graduation, it hits me that these four years have gone by way too fast.
This senior year of high school has literally been the best year of my life. I have had more amazing experiences with my fellow seniors than you can shake a stick at, and I know that I don’t just speak for myself when I say that. However, we have to cherish those memories, because things are about to change.

It’s hard to realize that our lives, which were really based around being in high school, are about to change completely as we’re thrust out into the real world. For some of us, the structure that high school offered, letting us know that every day we had somewhere to go where not a lot of work was necessarily done but we still knew that we had a purpose, that structure is gone. We no longer have Mr. Greene to inspire us, Mr. Campbell to impart his wisdom upon us, or Mrs. White to strike fear in our hearts. I think that I speak for us all when I say that I am thoroughly afraid of that woman.

But while that notion that we’re leaving our comfort zones is frightening, not one of my fellow seniors can tell me that they aren’t even just a little bit ready to move on.

The exciting thing about the next step is that we can do, within reason, whatever the heck we want. And we will, whether that means moving out of the house, going to college, getting a job, or sitting around the house playing videogames and watching reruns of South Park.

There will be, after graduation, very few people left to tell us what to do. Now that, my friends, is exciting.

We are on the cusp of unlimited potential. The world is just waiting for us to go out there and tame it. On the other hand, when we wake up tomorrow, we will all feel pretty much the same. Graduating high school does not make you an expert in every field known to mankind, not that we wouldn’t like to think so. These days, a high school diploma doesn’t get you much. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. In life, there are no benchmarks for success. There will be ups, downs, and in-betweens, and the only thing we can do is embrace the challenge.

Now, I’m going to thank a few teachers and faculty members who have helped me immensely along the way. Mrs. Kathy Brown, Mrs. Dawn Forward, Mr. Buck Preston, Coach Lennox “Rock” Charles, Coach Will Pack, Coach Steven Pack, Mrs. Mary Feagan, Coach Jeff Wilson, Mrs. Betsy Copolillo, Mrs. Bessie Goodwin, Mrs. Tawana Weicker, Mr. Jerry Suarez, Mr. Robert “Douggie Fresh” Campbell, and Mrs. Laura White: you have all, whether you know it or not, taught me countless lessons, not just in your subjects, but in life, and I wish now that I had done more in my time as a student to show how much you all have meant to me. So thank you.

In conclusion, I leave you with a piece of Campbell wisdom: “Respect the ladies.” Always remember that, friends. Always.

Here ends the speech, as at this point, I will be thrown off the stage.