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!