The majority of the bands I wanted to see at Bonnaroo were on Saturday/Sunday, but I still had a great time on Friday, especially since I got to experience Bonnaroo in the daytime. So we woke up around 9 or so due to the heat. The neighbors of ours that we actually got to know happened to be to the east of us and they had both a tent and a canopy in order to keep the sun off of it. They angled their canopy to help block the sun for us as well, but by 9 am the sun was already beating down on us. Plus we also had a rain fly on the tent just in case, so that added to the heat as well. It was fucking hot in there.
But yeah, so we do our morning business and all that and I loaded up my day pack for a day of Bonnaroo. This was one of the coolest parts of Bonnaroo for me, having a backpack and knowing that everything I would ever need for the whole day was there. More and more I'm beginning to appreciate the idea of having all of your belongings on your backpack and with you at all times. I still dunno if I could backpack through Europe...but it's becoming a consideration.
The first band we saw were the Kooks. Honestly I don't really remember much about them except that Vickie (the friend I went to Bonnaroo with) wanted to see them, they were British, and they were pretty decent.
The next band we saw was Two Door Cinema Club, another band Vickie wanted to see that I hadn't heard of before. In actuality however, I had heard one of their songs before, this one. They were pop-ish, fun, and I enjoyed them a lot. They were a pretty decent dancey band, though I didn't hit my stride with boogeying until Saturday night. It took me a bit to get into all, though the friends I was with mattered as well. At this point I was just with Vickie, which was fun and all but when Nerps showed up things got even more fun :) For those of you who don't know, Nerps are people from my theater troupe in college, the New Revels Players, or NRP, hence Nerps.
Anywho, then we saw Avett Brothers, who were also on the main stage. I had heard good things about them, and they didn't disappoint. They're compared to Mumford and Sons sometimes, and I agree to a certain extent. They were a bit more bluegrass/country, but I still enjoyed them a great deal. They also played a fairly long set, most bands were only an hour but they were slotted for an hour and a half which was nice.
Oh a short note
We went to Feist next, and I didn't actually know it was basically just this woman singing. She was really good though and talked to the crowd a lot which I liked. She was asking people in the front to sing one note and people in the back to sing another. And then she went, "And if you don't want to sing that note, well then chose your own note I don't mind!" She was just very earnest and kind and I liked her a lot.
Then we stayed at that stage to watch Foster the People which most people know by their song Pumped Up Kicks. They were also pretty good but I didn't know any of their other songs so I was just standing and swaying a lot hahaha. They had a pretty sweet light show though, and of course ended with Pumped Up Kicks.
By this point it was pretty dark and there was still the headliner for the night to head to. And Friday's headliner was Radiohead. Now I have to preface a bit (wait, Tim giving some back story? Shocker I know) but I haven't really listened to them very much. I don't have any of their music but have definitely heard their stuff before. I know that in terms of the music community, their reputation is impeccable. Their monsters in the industry and are critically acclaimed and have been for like two decades. That being said...they're really not my thing. They were good, no, great in concert. Their light show was mind blowing. They played an amazing set. I knew all of these things and appreciated them, but didn't particularly like them. I can't remember what random class I read this in, but it went something like this: There are three different types of people in this world, people who see good art and love it, people who see good art and appreciate it for what it is but do not necessarily like it, and people who see good art and hate it. I feel like we should all try to be the first or second types of people. I butchered the quote, but you get the idea, I'm the middle kind of person when it comes to Radiohead.
The crowd was packed all the way to the end of that part of the grounds, which I'll ballpark around half a mile or so. If I jumped and looked behind me, I couldn't see the end of the crowd. Like I said the set was amazing but just not quite my kind of music.
So after Radiohead Vickie and I were actually pooped. Getting out was a clusterfuck but meh what should we have expected right? We headed back to the tent, had some food, and passed out. I had brought ear plugs because I'm a light sleeper, and they were godsends. I had read a few lists/guides on what to bring to Bonnaroo and they all pretty much had the same items on them, so I brought all of the ones I knew I would need and a few I wasn't sure I would need.
Well I as might as well talk a little bit about what I brought to Bonnaroo now that I'm on that topic. It's not like I'm gonna list all of my shit out, but just some of the important things I feel were especially helpful. First off, a tent. If you ever go to Bonnaroo, bring a tent. You can sleep in your car if you want to, but it will be miserable unless you have a large enough car to put a sleeping back down in. I also brought a decent amount of food, but could have brought more. I would have needed another cooler, but it still want have been far cheaper. I ended up bringing a cooler with dry ice in and it and frozen water bottles on top of the block of dry ice in order to keep everything else cold. Then I had four pb and j sandwiches, four sandwiches with provolone, salami, and ham, some pasta, chicken and broccoli (to be eaten with the pasta), pistachios, hunter's mix (which was basically trail mix but without sweet things, and with sesame sticks and other salty things), Cliff bars (blueberry and chocolate, both of which were very good), pita chips and red pepper hummus, Stella Artois, and Supper Club (both beers). As for water, I had a full 24 pack of water bottles, my 1L nalgene which I let Vickie borrow, and I had my hydration pack which was basically a Camelbak (a pouch of water that fit in my backpack) that held 3L of water (100 oz).
My hydration pack was a lifesaver. I probably drank 2-3 full ones a day. I was unbelievably happy that they had water refilling stations. Things could get a bit hectic around them, especially between noon and later afternoon, but there were enough of them where if you saw one teeming with people, moving on to the next one would probably mean a less crowded station.
Sunscreen. My god sunscreen. I'm also very, very glad I brought some. And it was SPF 75 sport level ultra sweat-proof shit. I was re-applying every 1.5-2 hours and never got sunburned, besides a tiny bit of redness on the left side of my neck. I did return to Madison sporting a sweet tan though.
Okay, more on Bonnaroo later. I still have to write about all the stuff that happened yesterday here in China.
Lates!
We went to Feist next, and I didn't actually know it was basically just this woman singing. She was really good though and talked to the crowd a lot which I liked. She was asking people in the front to sing one note and people in the back to sing another. And then she went, "And if you don't want to sing that note, well then chose your own note I don't mind!" She was just very earnest and kind and I liked her a lot.
Then we stayed at that stage to watch Foster the People which most people know by their song Pumped Up Kicks. They were also pretty good but I didn't know any of their other songs so I was just standing and swaying a lot hahaha. They had a pretty sweet light show though, and of course ended with Pumped Up Kicks.
By this point it was pretty dark and there was still the headliner for the night to head to. And Friday's headliner was Radiohead. Now I have to preface a bit (wait, Tim giving some back story? Shocker I know) but I haven't really listened to them very much. I don't have any of their music but have definitely heard their stuff before. I know that in terms of the music community, their reputation is impeccable. Their monsters in the industry and are critically acclaimed and have been for like two decades. That being said...they're really not my thing. They were good, no, great in concert. Their light show was mind blowing. They played an amazing set. I knew all of these things and appreciated them, but didn't particularly like them. I can't remember what random class I read this in, but it went something like this: There are three different types of people in this world, people who see good art and love it, people who see good art and appreciate it for what it is but do not necessarily like it, and people who see good art and hate it. I feel like we should all try to be the first or second types of people. I butchered the quote, but you get the idea, I'm the middle kind of person when it comes to Radiohead.
The crowd was packed all the way to the end of that part of the grounds, which I'll ballpark around half a mile or so. If I jumped and looked behind me, I couldn't see the end of the crowd. Like I said the set was amazing but just not quite my kind of music.
So after Radiohead Vickie and I were actually pooped. Getting out was a clusterfuck but meh what should we have expected right? We headed back to the tent, had some food, and passed out. I had brought ear plugs because I'm a light sleeper, and they were godsends. I had read a few lists/guides on what to bring to Bonnaroo and they all pretty much had the same items on them, so I brought all of the ones I knew I would need and a few I wasn't sure I would need.
Well I as might as well talk a little bit about what I brought to Bonnaroo now that I'm on that topic. It's not like I'm gonna list all of my shit out, but just some of the important things I feel were especially helpful. First off, a tent. If you ever go to Bonnaroo, bring a tent. You can sleep in your car if you want to, but it will be miserable unless you have a large enough car to put a sleeping back down in. I also brought a decent amount of food, but could have brought more. I would have needed another cooler, but it still want have been far cheaper. I ended up bringing a cooler with dry ice in and it and frozen water bottles on top of the block of dry ice in order to keep everything else cold. Then I had four pb and j sandwiches, four sandwiches with provolone, salami, and ham, some pasta, chicken and broccoli (to be eaten with the pasta), pistachios, hunter's mix (which was basically trail mix but without sweet things, and with sesame sticks and other salty things), Cliff bars (blueberry and chocolate, both of which were very good), pita chips and red pepper hummus, Stella Artois, and Supper Club (both beers). As for water, I had a full 24 pack of water bottles, my 1L nalgene which I let Vickie borrow, and I had my hydration pack which was basically a Camelbak (a pouch of water that fit in my backpack) that held 3L of water (100 oz).
My hydration pack was a lifesaver. I probably drank 2-3 full ones a day. I was unbelievably happy that they had water refilling stations. Things could get a bit hectic around them, especially between noon and later afternoon, but there were enough of them where if you saw one teeming with people, moving on to the next one would probably mean a less crowded station.
Sunscreen. My god sunscreen. I'm also very, very glad I brought some. And it was SPF 75 sport level ultra sweat-proof shit. I was re-applying every 1.5-2 hours and never got sunburned, besides a tiny bit of redness on the left side of my neck. I did return to Madison sporting a sweet tan though.
Okay, more on Bonnaroo later. I still have to write about all the stuff that happened yesterday here in China.
Lates!
You should check out more Foster the People. I'm a fan. Honestly, if I ended up going to Bonnaroo they would have been the band I was most excited about :).
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