Bonnaroo 2007 Review

[Dogfighter28]

Bonnaroo this year was a very mixed bag in terms of the overall experience - on the bad side, an intense drought caused lung-collapsing dust storms (i inhaled so much of it as to miss The Police when I passed out in my tent unexpectedly), the festival food was pretty bad yet pricey, and yeah, there were a lot of hippies. On the bright side, I saw some fantastic performances that will linger in my mind for a while.

Here is a top 5 ranking of my favorite shows:

1. The Hold Steady
Okay, so I was three rows back, dead center, within reach of Craig Finn, and he threw his cold Budweiser on me. It was awesome - right as the band came out, the whole That Tent went APESHIT, and the band (who are some of the coolest looking motherfuckers EVER) had shit eating grins on their faces. Finn kept thanking the crowd and dancing, and generally having the time of his life. I really can't describe how great of an energy there was. They even played a request (of a song I didn't know, but which was still awesome), and played beach volleyball across the small pit in front of the stage. This was the best show I've ever seen, hands down.

2. Tool
No surprise here - Tool were wonderful. Their light show surpassed all my expectations, and their sound was incredibly immense - the guitar rattled my ribcage, and the bass drum sounded like a gunshot straight to my heart. I was almost in the pit, in front of the soundstage on the right, so I could see Maynard's shadowy figure dancing to creepily. It was a really surreal thing to see. Maynard was very funny with his stage banter - "So, uh... I guess you're all high on the marijuana, huh?" *crowd cheers* "Or maybe, the LSD, huh?" *more cheers* "You're all under arrest!" *laughter*

3. Tortoise
I had dabbled with this band previously, but their live set blew me away. It was very special, because the band said almost nothing the whole time besides a thank you at the end. Some songs had two drummers, and they actually made excellent use of this instead of it becoming a gimmick. This was the first set I saw that made me thankful for having come to Bonnaroo. Their krautrock-esque post rock was dancable and epic at the same time. The crowd gave rapturous applause throughout their set, and even called them out for an encore, which is pretty mind boggling considering it was in a tent in a busy time slot at a festival.

4. El-P
I didn't know hip hop shows could be so great until I saw this one (Aesop Rock played before him, and was almost as good, by the way. I just chose El Producto because his stage show is much more appealing). His band came out wearing camo, the lights went dark (revealing the creepy red I'll Sleep When You're Dead album art) and the DJ started playing Gary Jules' "Mad World" cover (from Donnie Darko, you might remember), after which El-P blasted into a tight, lightning fast set including the songs "Tasmanian Pain Coaster", "The Overly Dramatic Truth", and "Poisenville Kids No Wins". At one point, he got the crowd jumping like crazy, which sent a smothering dust cloud into the air. It was painful to breathe, but I wished he would have played longer.

5. Wilco
Wilco is a very subtle band, and so is their live show. They started off with some cuts from Sky Blue Sky and eventually got more and more rocking, climaxing with a SPINECRUSHING "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" from A Ghost is Born. The crowd wasn't too sure about the band at the start, but slowly but surely came to their side. Halfway through, Jeff Tweedy got more friendly after being silent, asking the crowd how they were doing. He also pointed out how awesome it was that a guy was holding his crutches up and fist pumping at a rock show. The band were supposed to be done after "Spiders (Kidsmoke)", but the crowd cheered them to an encore of "The Late Greats" and "Heavy Metal Drummer".

Other full sets I saw:
The National - They put on a pretty good show, though a lot of their songs were extremely similiar to one another.
The Roots - They were pretty great, just missing my top 5. They did a great cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War". This is a great group to see live.
Aesop Rock - Like I said, he was really good, but his show was bare bones - him, his DJ, and Rob Sonic kept the rhythm going pretty well. This was a pretty hoppin party, actually.
The Slip - pretty decent band. They had some fairly good jams during their set, and the crowd really liked them.
Annuals - i was up front for them to get a spot for the Hold Steady, and it was worth it - but my god, this band fucking sucked. Its like emo music from Pitchfork or something.
The Flaming Lips - I was really dissapointed with the Flaming Lips. It saddens me to say that, because they are one of my favorite bands. Their show was good and all, but they played under-tempo, Wayne babbled about politics about half the set time (they only played like ten songs in two hours), and the crowd was absolutely dead (this was at midnight on the third day). The best part was their impromptu 10:30 pm soundcheck of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" - it was awesome. I think it was just unfortunate that everyone was burnt out. I'd go see these guys at a show in a smaller venue and it would probably be the best show ever.
Wolfmother - I was SO FUCKING HOT. I just sat and listened. Pretty average Led Zeppelin ripoff band, nothing too offensive though.

Partial sets I saw:
The Black Angels - Very run-of-the-mill stoner rock. It sounded like Kyuss, only really boring.
The New Orelans Klezmer Allstars - one of the surprises of Bonnaroo. They played a jazz-jewish-fusion or something, and everyone was dancing their asses off. One of the most memorable moments of Bonnaroo occured here, when they told us to join hands and do a sort of ring-around-the-rosie jig (all thousand of us or whatever). I grabbed a girls hand and found out she was wearing a cast on it - OWNED!
Hot Chip - I expected a bit more party out of these guys. They were okay, but the singer was laughable, and there are much, MUCH better dance bands - see LCD Soundsystem.
Dr. Dog - a pretty average jam band (a genre which I always try to avoid) that put on an above-average show. This was a nice was to get out of the heat at least and still have a good time.

Thats it! It was the best of times, and the worst of times. Dust-induced asthma attacks, epic lightshows, nasty Italian sausages, Craig Finn's beer in my face, dirty hippies, and some straight up post-rocking. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go cough up dust and blood for about an hour.

[Shapan]

hot chip isnt a dance band imo. they're altogether too mellow to be placed along the same lines as a !!! or lcd soundsystem

im dying to see wilco live

what, you didn't go watch the police?

[Dogfighter28]

Originally Posted by Eiki

what, you didn't go watch the police?

i was literally incapacitated, dude. it was terrible. besides, its almost unanimous that their set was boring and uninspired. a stock performance. its obvious they are just doing a money grubbing reuinion tour.


BTW: HERE IS A TORRENT OF THE TORTOISE SHOW
http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=507438
have no idea of the quality, downloading now.

i was just kidding about the police show (hence the rolling eyes). i wonder if i would have even bothered to check them out even if i wasn't incapacitated. that sucks for you though dude, hope it gets better soon.

i might check that torrent out but would you recommend the performance to someone that doesn't really know the band at all?

[Dogfighter28]

yeah i would recommend it, i'd only heard one Tortoise album before and wasn't completely enthralled (though it was pretty good), but live they were incredible.

[KrazeeStacee]

Oh I will definitely have something to put here...but I've been up for 24 hours straight and I'm ready to finally sleep in my own bed.

Ryan - sorry we couldn't meet up! I guess with all the people trying to call the networks were just all jammed up. Whenever Mark tried to send a text message to you, it took about 15 tries before it sent...and I don't even think you got them till way later. Hope you ended up getting in to see David Cross, he kicked some ass. We went to the 11:45 show or whatever. Hope you had a great time! Are you coming in for Lolla?

Oh and we were camped at Austin Powers...the absolute furthest campsite from Centeroo. Took us about 30-45 minutes to walk there, which we did at least twice a day. But really, I can't complain because there was no noise, no herds of people walking by, no bright ass fucking lights shining all night and very little dust! It was kinda worth the walk.

[KrazeeStacee]

Originally Posted by Dogfighter28

Bonnaroo this year was a very mixed bag in terms of the overall experience - on the bad side, an intense drought caused lung-collapsing dust storms (i inhaled so much of it as to miss The Police when I passed out in my tent unexpectedly), the festival food was pretty bad yet pricey, and yeah, there were a lot of hippies.

Uh, if it weren't for those hippies you probably wouldn't be going to Bonnaroo, mister.

I was sceptical about the crowd at first because of all the shitty indie bands there but it was actually nice. We probably met a lot more hippies than we did the last time we went, and even a lot of the indie scenester kids were really nice and kept the vibe going. It seemed a lot more like this year people were really taking care of each other again and that's what the whole festival is about, really.

The food is always crappy and pricey. Plus I'm sure the crappiness had a lot to do with the dust - I didn't eat anything in Centeroo if I could help it because even smiling gave me a mouth full of it. But then again, that's why it's a good idea to bring your own food. We had burgers, steaks, pork chops, hot dogs. We even had enough to feed some of our neighbors.

The dust was horrible though, really - my poor boyfriend's got a sinus infection or something from it. I keep coughing up dust every now and then. =\

[KrazeeStacee]

Well I'm still awake anyway, might as well have another smoke and try to give a short summary/review.


Apparently we saw Tortoise. I never really got into this band much but Mark likes them and I guess I was dancing and getting into the live music - but I honestly don't remember ANY of the show. I even took 2 bad pictures. Between the heat and the pot...I dunno man.

We came back later for The Roots and they were terrific, I loved their brass - they had such great energy. All around, 5 stars.

Then we stayed for Tool - the whole not bringing the bags into the sectioned off area was shitty as hell, we were in there for The Roots and they didn't care then. So we stood just outside of that area.

Originally Posted by Dogfighter28

2. Tool
No surprise here - Tool were wonderful. Their light show surpassed all my expectations, and their sound was incredibly immense - the guitar rattled my ribcage, and the bass drum sounded like a gunshot straight to my heart. I was almost in the pit, in front of the soundstage on the right, so I could see Maynard's shadowy figure dancing to creepily. It was a really surreal thing to see. Maynard was very funny with his stage banter - "So, uh... I guess you're all high on the marijuana, huh?" *crowd cheers* "Or maybe, the LSD, huh?" *more cheers* "You're all under arrest!" *laughter*

Yeah Tool rocked the house for sure. I kept wondering how it was going to be, and it was what I expected, but way way better. The lasers were AMAZING. Not to mention the fact that I was on 2 hits of acid at the time anyway, but great visuals - they know how to do it. I nearly peed my pants laughing when he came out and the first thing he said was "I smell Patchoulliiiii!!!!"

Also - no mention of Tom Morello playing with them?! Uh DUH. Everyone should be jealous of that.


Okay I have to go pass out, I'll finish later.

[Dogfighter28]

tom morello is the most overrated guitarist next to jimmy page, all he does is run his guitar through numerous effect pedals and expects praise (which he gets from impressionable music listeners). his "scratching" on his guitar during lateralus was appalling.

[Shapan]

ugh stop

[redbull]

yeah there were so many "shitty" indie bands

[davin]

Originally Posted by KrazeeStacee

Also - no mention of Tom Morello playing with them?! Uh DUH. Everyone should be jealous of that.

i'll post more of my comments later....though it seems like I was at a lot of the same performances as DogFighter and Stacee.

I can't believe no one has mentioned Ween yet. There set was awesome and brand new compared to what they've been playing lately, at lolla last year, etc.

stacee -- we hauled ass and made it from the my buddy's place off canal near china town to murfeesboro, TN sam's club in 7 hours flat...same with the way back.

[Travis Meeks]

I just ate so much I nearly split my pants

[Dogfighter28]

I saw two people with Zeitgeist patches, but i was almost dead from exhaustion. It was on Sunday at Wilco - one had a yellow shirt and black hair, and glasses, and the other had gray shirt i think, and maybe had a hat on.

[TuralyonW3]

these festivals in the extreme heat and duststorms are a fucking joke

[Dogfighter28]

Originally Posted by TuralyonW3

these festivals in the extreme heat and duststorms are a fucking joke

it says a lot when i almost had lung failure and still am dying to go back to bonnaroo

don't knock it till you go

[I'm Hardcore]

Originally Posted by Dogfighter28

tom morello is the most overrated guitarist next to jimmy page, all he does is run his guitar through numerous effect pedals and expects praise (which he gets from impressionable music listeners). his "scratching" on his guitar during lateralus was appalling.

agreed

[Andy /]

I've started typing reviews on a couple different sites and have just become bored as I've done it, so I'm not gonna waste my time anymore. I'll say that musically, it was the best Bonnaroo I've seen. I enjoyed every single show I saw. If I had to pick a worst I'd say the Police, but I wouldn't rate it any less than "good". You could tell they're still getting used to playing together again, and that to Sting this was just another show, but their set was solid and I got into it far more than I ever thought I would.

Brief recap of what I saw:

Thursday:
Black Angels- I love them. Awesome.
The National- Passionate
Rodrigo y Gabriela- Fucking amazing players.

Friday:
Missed James Blood Ullmer because I slept in and, like Mark & Stacy, it took 30-40 minutes to get to Centeroo.
Richard Thompson- Everyone should see him if they can. The guy's a legend.
Gillian Welch- Fucking fantastic. JPJ came out and played mandolin on a couple tracks, and in a typical moment of Bonnaroo spontaneity, David Rawlings left the stage late in the set to see if JPJ would come back out for the encore. He did, and they all did Jackson. A highlight of the entire fest for me.
The Roots- Amazing show.
Tool- I have to admit I really got into it. I vividly remember in the first few minutes Maynard creepily stalking around on that podium of his, with his legs spread and his arms in the air, and to me it was just the coolest visual, and I think it set the stage for me to get more into the show as it went on. As soon as the lasers came out, I was immersed. Seeing Morello come out and play with them was great, too.
SuperJam- Caught only the first hour or so, saw them do When The Levee Breaks and a couple others. I saw more live Led Zeppelin this weekend than I'd ever dreamed I would.
STS9- Stopped by there for about a 1/2 hour or so and got into what I saw. Always worth checking out.
DJ Shadow- Good set, and I like how he mashed his songs together. A perfect end to the night.

Saturday
Ziggy Marley- Fun fun fun.
Ben Harper & TIC- I'd never seen them, so I skipped Ween to stay at the main stage. Seeing a lengthy jam with JPJ on Dazed & Confused made it worth it.
The Police- See my first paragraph.
Girl Talk- God, this was so great. Sean told me I had to go to this, and I am so glad I did. Another highight of the whole weekend for me.
Flaming Lips- Meh, I'd pretty much seen it all before. It's still great, but wasn't anything surprising, at least what I saw, so I left.
Gov't Mule- Caught the Since I've Been Loving You part of the set. Again, more Led Zep than I'd ever dreamed I'd hear. So awesome. I was pretty beat by then, so I left by 2 or so.

Sunday
T-Bone Burnett- He had Jim Keltner and Marc Ribot with him, so that was surprising and awesome. Great show.
The Decmberists- Only caught the first hour, but it was fucking great. Hopefully I can see them proper.
Feist- I think a little too mellow for the Roo crowd that showed up, but I liked it. In the last part of the set a fan jumped on stage and grabbed a tambourine and started playing along. The crowd ate it up, and she told security it was OK. Which was cool.
The White Stripes- Just plain great. I'm not a big fan of theirs, but I will *always* check them out live.
Widespread- 4 hours of straight jam r'n'r. Nothing terribly noteworthy (to me anyway), but a nice way to end the festival.


And yes, the dust was terrible. I, too, had a cough and dry throat for most of Sunday and Monday. But other than that, the weather was better than I expected it to be.


Stacy- yeah, I called a 3-4 times late Friday and on Saturday but it went straight to voicemail each time, so I gave up after that, figuring they died or you just wanted them off. I will be at Lolla, so hopefully we can see each other then. I'll actually be staying downtown this time, though, so unless you guys get down there for the show or something else, it might not happen. But I'd sure like to try.

[KrazeeStacee]

Originally Posted by redbull

yeah there were so many "shitty" indie bands

Dude, we stopped at a few of the tents and I think we heard Kings of Leon, Clutch maybe? and some other crappy band - if other people think that stuff is cool, whatever. But I think it's shitty and I'd rather move along to go see a good band.

You gotta have some shitty bands to fill the spots so you can squeeze all the good bands into your schedule!

[Shapan]

Originally Posted by TuralyonW3

these festivals in the extreme heat and duststorms are a fucking joke

im planning on making coachella an annual event.

it was the most amazing thing ever.

[yoshinobu's revenge]

My recap:

Thursday
Ryan Shaw - nice enough voice. boring neo-gospel, left after a couple songs
The Little Ones - good energy, surprising good pop-rock
Clutch - first real show, sounded promising but left early to get to...
Rodrigo y Gabriela - very impressive

Friday
Uncle Earl - enjoyed them
Richard Thompson band - ditto. Amazing guitarist
Tortoise - only caught a bit of their set but sounded great from what I was there for
The Nightwatchman - total total crap, wtf. what a preachy condescending prick.
Lily Allen - fun set
The Black Keys - a bit boring hard rock actually
Tool - hells yeah

Saturday
Old Crow Medicine Show - good vibes for this show. effin hot in the sun tho
Regina Spektor - lots of fun
Fountains of Wayne - enjoyable pop-rock, just what I needed at this point in the festival
Ben Harper - eh, sounded ok. i wasn't really in the mood for him, and left for
Franz Ferdinand - another very enjoyable set. also heard a bit of Ween
The Police - not bad but just not that well received and Sting was a fool for saying there were 80000 tennesseans in the crowd. and kinda dated.
The Flaming Lips - after I saw this show I didn't think it'd be surpassed for the festival. great atmosphere

Sunday - awesome day
Pete Yorn - boring, so left for...
John Butler Trio - much better!
Wolfmother - rocking, even if a bit simple/formulaic
The Decemberists - LOVED what I saw of this set but wasn't gonna miss any of
Wilco - BEST show of the festival for me. I love these guys.
White Stripes - an awesome set and a great way to wrap it all up for me.

I missed Kings of Leon, SuperJam and The Hold Steady, other than that tho I'm pretty happy about it all.

The heat was close to unbearable on the weekend when combined with the dust. The Sweetwater Blue beers were delicious tho. The food was middling.... both pizza places i tried were really good. Also one burger place was awful and one was actually really good. The funnel cake was ordinary and the "chinese/thai" was the worst i've ever tried. Corn dogs were decent as were the pretzels. The sausage dogs were ordinary.

[KrazeeStacee]

Originally Posted by davin

i'll post more of my comments later....though it seems like I was at a lot of the same performances as DogFighter and Stacee.

I can't believe no one has mentioned Ween yet. There set was awesome and brand new compared to what they've been playing lately, at lolla last year, etc.

stacee -- we hauled ass and made it from the my buddy's place off canal near china town to murfeesboro, TN sam's club in 7 hours flat...same with the way back.

Hey I'm getting to Ween! I only got as far as Tool! I hadn't ever seen Ween live and WHAT a great time that was. I was so happy everyone got to sing Bananas and Blow - and Buckingham Green sounded soo sweet live. I really liked that they jammed everything up, I didn't expect them to do that.

I don't know where that is but that sounds far - you do mean on foot, right? You people on foot, although very environmental, are fucking nutty. I'm not in that kind of shape...not yet at least.

[Dogfighter28]

Originally Posted by KrazeeStacee

Dude, we stopped at a few of the tents and I think we heard Kings of Leon, Clutch maybe? and some other crappy band - if other people think that stuff is cool, whatever. But I think it's shitty and I'd rather move along to go see a good band.

You gotta have some shitty bands to fill the spots so you can squeeze all the good bands into your schedule!

The bands you listed suck, maybe you just have shitty taste in picking out new music?

The standout performance was an "indie" band, The Hold Steady, who in reality are a straight up face melting barroom rock and roll group, old fashioned style. I feel sorry for people like you who stereotype and miss so much.

[KrazeeStacee]

Originally Posted by TuralyonW3

these festivals in the extreme heat and duststorms are a fucking joke

Yeah what dogfighter said - we went through hell and back but we had an amazing time. Shit, Mark's laying in bed now with a sinus infection or something and I haven't been able to sleep since I woke up at 10am yesterday morning. But it was worth it, no doubt. Live music is amazing, outdoor live music is even better - and seeing some of your favorite bands all on one day, you can't beat that. In one day alone I saw The Roots, Tool, Aesop Rock and DJ Shadow.

Besides, Wakarusa's heat was way worse than this - and as long as you take care of yourself, you can survive. The party starts once the sun goes down anyway.

[Shapan]

you guys are weak

the hold steady are terrible.

[KrazeeStacee]

Originally Posted by AndySlash

Stacy- yeah, I called a 3-4 times late Friday and on Saturday but it went straight to voicemail each time, so I gave up after that, figuring they died or you just wanted them off. I will be at Lolla, so hopefully we can see each other then. I'll actually be staying downtown this time, though, so unless you guys get down there for the show or something else, it might not happen. But I'd sure like to try.

That's fucked up cuz my phone was on and fully charged the whole time - didn't see one missed call. Service was just all kinds of fucked up down there I guess.

But yeah we may go, we're toying with the idea and seeing if we can possibly get a hook up for cheap tickets through someone Mark knows, I think. I'm sad that we had to miss Ben Harper for Ween so we want to make it up by going to see him at Lolla.

[KrazeeStacee]

Originally Posted by Dogfighter28

The bands you listed suck, maybe you just have shitty taste in picking out new music?

The standout performance was an "indie" band, The Hold Steady, who in reality are a straight up face melting barroom rock and roll group, old fashioned style. I feel sorry for people like you who stereotype and miss so much.

Hah, I don't wanna fight about it dude...you like your music, I like mine - we both obviously had a spectacular time so the Bonnaroo people are doing something right.

Okay, I'll be back to finish my list shortly.

[wHATcOLOR]

how amazing could lasers possibly be

[Andy /]

Originally Posted by KrazeeStacee

That's fucked up cuz my phone was on and fully charged the whole time - didn't see one missed call. Service was just all kinds of fucked up down there I guess.

I just looked- it was Mark's cell I called. He must've texted me last because I just hit send on that message every time I tried to call after that.

My fault- I should have thought to try both, and actually have had left a message. I just figured I'd try later, then never did after the third or fourth.