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To read about the 13th annual Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, check out Shara Clark’s post on Sing All Kinds.
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Tag: Bonnaroo
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Bonnaroo!!!!!!
The 13th annual Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, which happens to fall during a full moon on a Friday the 13th, kicks off on Thursday, June 12th and runs through Sunday, June 15th in Manchester, Tennessee.
Elton John, Kanye West, Jack White, Lionel Richie, and Vampire Weekend are headlining a massive bill that includes a number of festival first-timers and lesser-known acts as well as a handful of veterans that have become festival favorites.
Psychedelic rock band The Flaming Lips, rapper Wiz Khalifa, and EDM DJ Skrillex are making comeback appearances. In fact, Skrillex will lead one of Bonnaroo’s legendary Superjams along with Big Gigantic, Damien Marley, DJ Zedd, Janelle Monae, Chance the Rapper, and Robbie Kreiger of the The Doors.
Other acts include indie-pop duo MS MR, late-’90s indie rockers Neutral Milk Hotel, South African rap-rave duo Die Antwoord, rapper Frank Ocean, Australian rockers Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and English garage rockers Arctic Monkeys.
Two well-known Memphis acts will be making an appearance. Soulstress Valerie June is playing an early set at the modest This Tent on Saturday, and Lucero will be the opening act on the larger Which Stage on Sunday.
There’s so much more to Bonnaroo than music though. Craig Robinson (The Office, Hot Tub Time Machine) is headlining in the comedy tent. There’s a Friday the 13th costume party in Snake & Jake’s Christmas Club Barn (a club in the main Centeroo area that celebrates the holidays in June with lights, reindeer, and a creepy Santa). And Friday the 13th will be screening in the Cinema Tent, where cult classics are shown throughout the weekend.
There’s a Roo Run 5K for those who can actually wake up and run at 9 a.m. on a Bonnaroo Saturday, and a number of Yogaroo and meditation classes will be offered near the Solar Stage.
As for food, Bonnaroo is rolling out more dining options this year with Hamageddon, which we would assume is serving ham, and Baconland, where diners can sample “bacon flights with quality selections from around the country.” The Food Truck Oasis, a food truck court with offerings from across the country, will be back this year, and craft beer lovers can sample brew from all over at the Broo’ers beer tent.
- C. Taylor Crothers
The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival returns to Manchester, Tennessee next week for its 12th year, drawing nearly 90,000 music lovers to a 700-acre stretch of farmland for four days of fun in the sun June 13-16. The festival is known for its diverse bill of artists, and this year’s lineup features headliners Paul McCartney, Bjork, Mumford & Sons, and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, as well as comedic performances by Daniel Tosh, Bob Saget, David Cross, and others.
In a recent telephone press conference, actor and comedian Bob Saget, legendary punk rocker Billy Idol, and festival founder and promoter Rick Farman chatted with reporters about the upcoming festival.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Bonnaroo Comedy Theater, and Bob Saget will perform two sets there on Sunday, June 16th. “I’ve done some festivals, but nothing of this height, and I’m very excited about it,” Saget said. “Lewis Black kept asking me to play Bonnaroo year after year. He said it’s one of the best festivals he’s ever been to because it’s got so much heart behind it.”
Saget said he’ll combine comedy and music in his act, pulling material from his recent comedy specials and incorporating some new material. He’ll feel out the audience, soak in the vibe, and form his act around that. “There won’t be any synthesizer screens coming on as I tell kids what they should and shouldn’t do and don’t drink beer at the Sock Hop or whatever the hell I did on Full House,” Saget said. Though he did jokingly express concern over possible mishaps during the show: “Nobody can like accidentally slingshot some ecstasy into my mouth from the audience right, where by the end of my second set, I’m just in love with everyone?” he asked. “I might wear a beekeeper’s hat in order to keep anything from coming toward my mouth.”
English rocker Billy Idol will be performing a late-night slot Saturday, June 15th and promises to play a “party set.” “It’s around midnight, and I know Bonnaroo’s pretty famous for partying,” Idol said. “In fact, I usually go on stage pretty straight these days, but I’m hoping to get the biggest contact high of all time.”
Idol’s “party set” will include hits like “Rebel Yell,” “Eyes Without a Face,” “White Wedding,” “Dancing With Myself,” and “Mony Mony,” as well as a few Generation X songs and a new song or two. Idol said the set will be a representation of all of the music throughout his career, and fans can expect “balls to the wall” energy from his performance. He is excited to play for an audience that may not come to a Billy Idol concert otherwise. “It’s even more exciting to get to come to something like Bonnaroo and play to a bunch of crazies at 12 at night and have one hell of a party,” he said. “They throw things at me, I understand. But if they come up there and they want to fuck me to death, I understand that as well.”
Bonnaroo founder and promoter, Rick Farman, is amped for this year’s festivities and said they are offering a new program to bring more of the surrounding community to the event. “This year, we’re focusing on Nashville and offering a combined package where you buy a ticket, and you have a shuttle to get down to the festival and take you back,” Farman says. This is a way for those who are curious about Bonnaroo but don’t want to commit to the four-day camping experience to get a taste of what the festival has to offer.
“Over the years, we’ve really sought to diversify the ways that you can do Bonnaroo,” Farman said. Of course, attendees can stay in an area hotel or bring their own camping gear or RV, but Bonnaroo also offers on-site RV or tent rental. “It’s always been a part of our plan to try and make Bonnaroo as attractive and accessible to a variety of different audiences and a variety of different economic levels,” he said.
Farman says the inspiration for Bonnaroo comes from European festivals like Glastonbury, Roskilde, Reading, Leeds, and Lowlands. “They’ve been going on for 30, 40, 50 years and have really become iconic and part of the overall culture of the countries that they’re situated in,” Farman said. “I think that’s what we aspire to be. We’re on our way to being 12 years in. We’ve still got a lot of growing up to do, but we really believe that we’ve got a very long life ahead of us. We couldn’t be happier about that, too.”
For a chance to win tickets to Bonnaroo 2013, go here and complete a short survey. Winners will be notified via email by noon tomorrow (Friday, June 7) and must be able to pick up tickets at our office downtown.
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Bonnaroo: Going the Distance
Shara Clark and Bianca Phillips went to Bonnaroo and lived to write about it — and photograph it — in this week’s Flyer cover story.
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Holsapple at Otherlands
Great news for audiophiles and fans of classic guitar pop: Peter Holsapple is on his way to Memphis to play an intimate show at Otherlands Coffee Bar on Friday, December 14th.
Holsapple’s name may not be a household word, but it should be. In the 1980s, as the bed-headed and bespectacled singer/songwriter for North Carolina’s The dBs, Holsapple bridged the gap between Big Star’s lush power pop and the Replacements’ thoughtfully ragged barroom rock. Cliché terms like “jangle pop” and “jangly guitars” were practically invented to describe Holsapple’s sound, as well as the sound of his kindred spirits in R.E.M.
The dBs’ commercial success never matched the band’s influence, and when the group broke up in 1988, Holsapple hooked up with R.E.M., whose career was just beginning to take off. In addition to playing guitar and keyboards, he helped to write several songs on the band’s major commercial breakthrough, Out of Time.
After parting ways with R.E.M., Holsapple worked as a sideman for Hootie & the Blowfish and played with The Continental Drifters, an underappreciated superband featuring Vicki Peterson of the Bangles, as well as Robert Mache and Mark Walton of the Dream Syndicate.
Holsapple returned to North Carolina after Hurricane Katrina, and in recent years he’s regrouped the dBs for a handful of shows. Hopefully, his Otherlands set will include some vintage material as well as a sneak preview of what the dBs will be doing next. Locals Van Duren and Dan Montgomery open the show, which starts at 8 p.m., with Holsapple scheduled to perform at 10 p.m. Admission is $5.
— Chris Davis
The most underrated local album of the year? Probably World Wide Open, the second album from hip-hop trio Tunnel Clones — DJ Redeye Jedi and MCs Bosco and Rachi. Rather than just a nice change of pace from the standard-issue style of most Memphis rap, World Wide Open (like the band’s debut, Concrete Jungle, only more so) is a strong, confident record — densely musical (opening with Steely Dan, closing in Africa, supplying considerable funk in between) with smart, grounded flows and terrific backing vocals. Tunnel Clones play a Christmas show at the Hi-Tone Café Friday, December 14th. Doors open at 9 p.m.; admission is $10.
The party spills over the next night at the Hi-Tone, when Shangri-La Records will throw its annual Christmas party. Garage-rock heroes Jack Oblivian & the Tennessee Tearjerkers will headline the show, which will also feature a performance from Those Darlin’s, a female bluegrass trio from Murfreesboro. Resident Shangri-La DJs Buck Wilders & The Hook-Up will keep things moving between sets. Admission is $5 with a nonperishable food donation to the Memphis Food Bank. The Shangri-La Christmas party is at the Hi-Tone Saturday, December 15th. Showtime is 9 p.m.
— Chris Herrington
Riffs: On December 10th, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music opened a new exhibit, Otis Redding: From Macon to Memphis, in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Redding’s death. Culled from the personal collection of Redding’s widow, Zelma, the exhibit will run through April 30th. … Congratulations to Kirk Whalum and Three 6 Mafia, who were among the Memphis-connected artists to receive Grammy nominations last week. Saxophonist Whalum, currently artist in residence at the Stax Music Academy, was nominated for Best Pop Instrumental Album for Roundtrip. Three 6 Mafia was involved in the writing and producing of UGK’s “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You),” which was nominated for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. … The dates have been announced for the seventh annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, which will take place June 12th-15th in Manchester, Tennessee. … Congratulations to frequent Flyer contributor Andrew Earles, whose prank-call comedy discs Just Farr a Laugh Vol. 1 and 2, which he produced with New Yorker Jeffrey Jensen, will be re-released by venerable New York indie label Matador Records on February 19th. It’s been awhile since I’ve listened to any of this stuff, but I still recall with great glee such sublime moments as the attempt to book a Jermaine Stewart tribute band (“Bedroom ETA”) on Beale Street and a post-Bonnaroo call to a Birkenstock vendor of some sort (“You’re Harshing My Trip”). More on this in February. — CH
A couple weeks ago, I attended the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, courtesy of the Manchester, Tennessee, paper that carries my column.
Bonnaroo is an amazing series of concerts on a 700-acre farm between Nashville and Chattanooga. It is like an annual Woodstock, where hippies and hipsters go camping and watch top bands play for four days. I did not camp, however, because camping outdoors involves the outdoors, and in my opinion, the outdoors is best left outdoors.
I was initially told that Bonnaroo is a made-up word that means nothing, just like “lollapalooza” or “congressional ethics.” Later, I found out that “bonnaroo” is Cajun slang for fun. And it was.
There were lots of kids with nose rings and tattoos. Many were wearing bathing suits that they should have reconsidered. In fact, although I am steadfastly against more government, I really think some of these people should have to apply for a permit to wear a two-piece. Bill Clinton could chair the committee to review applicants; he’d like that.
One person died, and I am sure countless kids had to be untangled from making out with another joyous soul wearing a nose ring. There was more sex going on than Paris Hilton’s last night before jail. (I bet some attendees are checking their crotches this week, just hoping that itch is only a bug bite.)
As you might imagine, the Birkenstock crowd was there with booths supporting all their social causes. As best I can figure, they like to “raise awareness” in hopes that someone else will actually do something about the problems. It is apparently more noble to be an activist for grand-scale issues such as the environment than cleaning up your own campsite.
Anytime young music fans get together, there will be drugs. And the drug use at Bonnaroo was so open that if a kid was arrested with pot in his system, he could probably have asked for it back.
Drug vendors on foot offered a wide array of pot, coke, and acid for reasonable prices. Capitalism at its purest. Drugs were sold at a more competitive price than the prescription drug benefit Congress gave us, because at Bonnaroo, drug dealers were forced to compete on prices.
The way dealers at Bonnaroo operated is that when they walked by, they said the name of their product. You heard the word “pot” said by a passerby. If you wanted to buy said product, then — unlike our government’s drug purchases — you engaged the vendor in price negotiations. (And as with most of my purchases, the conversation began with: You ain’t no cop are you?)
Being one of the oldest people at Bonnaroo, I didn’t get many offers to buy drugs, although I was a little nonplussed when one dealer walked by and whispered, “Geritol.”
They also registered voters at Bonnaroo. Organizers assume the young people they register are going to vote for Democrats since most of the participants probably get their political views from the drummer for Third Eye Blind. This is the same drummer who rails against 10-cents-a-gallon profit for the oil companies yet has no problem selling his band’s T-shirts for $35 a piece.
One vendor said that he was for Hillary Clinton because Hillary would fight global warming. I told him that he might be onto something, since there is nothing about Hillary that is the least bit warm.
Another activist told me he was going to vote for Dennis (“Munchkin”) Kucinich because of his strong environmental stance. He kept citing the fact that some scientists say the oceans will rise four feet because of global warming, which explains why Kucinich is fighting it so hard: He would probably drown.
In the end, I must admit I really enjoyed Bonnaroo. I would advise other fortysomethings to try it. On one hand, the festival made you feel old, yet the vibrant and infectious carefree atmosphere made you feel young and rejuvenated.
And it reminded me that while getting old is inevitable, acting old is optional.
Ron Hart is a columnist and investor in Atlanta. He worked for Goldman Sachs and was appointed to the Tennessee Board of Regents by Lamar Alexander. His e-mail: RevRon10@aol.com.
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To the ‘Roo
Since we’re dispensing road-trip ideas in this issue, here’s another one to consider: Manchester, Tennessee. The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is back, running from Thursday, June 15th to Sunday, June 18th, and, for those days anyway, Manchester isn’t just the place to be in all of Tennessee but, for music lovers, the place to be in all of North America.
The festival’s music lineup is impressive, ranging from headliners Radiohead and Beck (pictured) to Cat Power and the Memphis Rhythm Band (who recorded at Memphis’ Ardent Studios last year), Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, My Morning Jacket, and even Brazilian Seu Jorge (who sang Bowie songs in Portuguese in The Life Aquatic).
If you O.D. on music, you can always head over to the “air-conditioned cinema tent” to catch films like The Shining, This is Spinal Tap, and Real Genius or watch sporting events such as the NBA Finals and the World Cup. You can also see comedians Lewis Black and Patton Oswalt at the comedy tent, or visit the Solar Stage, which will feature everything from buskers to break dancers to speakers on global warming.
There’s a campsite, so take your sleeping bags and tents (or RV if you have one). Just gauge your threshold for a weekend’s cohabitation with 90,000 grubby folks, and if you can stomach it, you could do a lot worse than spending your weekend in Manchester.
Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, June 15th to June 18th. Tickets are $184.50. www.bonnaroo.com