The Bonnaroo Music Festival

June 26, 2002 11:03 AM

The Bonnaroo Music Festival was held in Manchester, Tennessee this weekend. Did any MeFis go? What did you think?
This may have been mentioned in a post a long time ago.
posted by eraserhed (9 comments total)

Nope, too far for me. I did catch Trey at Radio City and Holmdel, though. The kids on r.m.p. were hoping for a Phish reunion at Bonnaroo but that didn't happen. As far as I'm concerned, as long as Trey keeps raging like he did at Holdmel, the hiatus is a good thing. His new band is bright and tight and a hell of a lot of funky fun.

Bonnaroo reviews and links at pauserecord.com (via Jambase).
posted by muckster at 1:23 PM on June 26, 2002

Manchester is a mere 20 miles from my house and the festival was a smashing success. Or so I heard.

Nearly 100,000 crunchy kids streamed into the tiny town to spend three days on a 500-acre farm and bake in the Southern sun. The what I'd previously considered backward Manchester townspeople were most respectful of their visitors (including law enforcement) and the same courtesy was extended by those who traveled in from all over.

This is just hearsay, mind you, since the String Cheese Incident and the like aren't my bag.
posted by brittney at 1:27 PM on June 26, 2002

I was there, it was alot of fun. Eventually all the sets from all the bands will be posted on a website and available for download and burning in a few days ( Gateway had a tent set up where they give free blank cds out and let people burn copies of the bonnaroo sets already that weekend. They also let people check email and make 20-second movies to email to friends). They also had an arcade tent sponsored by Xbox that had loads of old 80's arcade and pinball games. The music was killer too, my favorites were the two Les Claypool sets (one with Frog Brigade and one with Les, Buckethead, Brain, and Bernie Worrell jamming out) and then Ween rocking out on sunday afternoon.
posted by stifford at 2:04 PM on June 26, 2002

How was Keller Williams? He was the only one I was interested in seeing.
posted by brittney at 2:12 PM on June 26, 2002

I skipped Keller at Bonnaroo because I'm not really a big SCI fan. But I'll be seeing him here in August for the first time.
posted by stifford at 2:29 PM on June 26, 2002

I was there. Amazing festival. Many thanks to anyone in and around Manchester for your kindness and patience. Personal favorites: Ben Harper's set, Jurassic 5 and Trey's acoustic encore. Norah Jones put on a great show too, but hardly anyone else saw it as she was playing at the same time as Phil Lesh and Bob Weir on the main stage.
posted by krakedhalo at 3:00 PM on June 26, 2002

Me, the wife, and baby went. Bela Fleck and his distinguished guest who I can't remember were amazing, especially when it started raining cold rain. Les was good, especially with the Bucket of Bernie brains. One great part was my discovery of Particle. I walked by during one part and it sounded like country rock so I kept going, and then a while later they just blew me away with some really interesting stuff. I'm on Furthur now getting some of their shows. I'll have to get that set from Bonnaroo.

Another highlight was getting a quasi-Dead set in. I never got to see the Dead live, so we enjoyed watching Phil and friends do all those popular Dead songs.

The festival in general I thought could have been better organized. The phish festivals (which were designed by the same guy) were always way overstocked on Portalets which was nice. Also, the staff quickly, kindly pointed where to drive and where to set up your tent -- just follow the signal cones. Bonaroo portalets were not as plentiful or as well serviced, and the traffic and coordination of parking/tent placement was pretty rough. Also, the concert ground should have been more centralized because we had a major walk. The phish festivals were marvels of coordination and cooperation though, so I may be being harsh on Bonnaroo in that respect.

And, no radio station? A radio station can really make traffic bearable and be informative. I guess Central Tenessee's spectrum is too full.
posted by mblandi at 3:08 PM on June 26, 2002

The "jamband scene" is becoming a lot more visible, organized and connected. I don't know if that is good or bad. Superfly is probably making a mint between their New Orleans presence, this, and whatever they'll expand to next.

Great music and a lot of fun, though. I criticize, but all in all it was well worth it.
posted by mblandi at 3:16 PM on June 26, 2002

I went, and had a fantastic time. Les with Buckethead, Brain and Bernie was a highlight for me too, although Ween put on the best performance of the weekend. But that's just my opinion.

Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer were absolutely amazing. I wasn't too impressed with Keller Williams, especially since I came straight from Karl Denson, who floored me. I don't like String Cheese Incident very much, anyway.

The music was amazing, and the feeling in the crowd was the best I've felt in years. Everyone seemed to be having the time of their lives. It was definitely a very cool event, especially when compared to disasters like Woodstock 99.
posted by eraserhed at 10:07 PM on June 26, 2002