Bonnaroo 2008. Perhaps the only place on earth where the Raconteurs open for Chris Rock, Metallica plays heavy metal to legions of Phil Lesh fans, and Kanye West gets pelted with glowsticks for delaying his performance. Over 70,000 fans found their way to central Tennessee this past weekend, lured by the promise of musical diversity and the “anything goes” attitude that saturates this four-day festival. We slept in tents, dressed ourselves in sunblock, shelled out $7 for the occasional shower, and enjoyed the widest swath of music this side of Glastonbury. This is our story, as told by a sunburned journalist whose ears still hurt from the Pearl Jam show.
THURSDAY
After spending the entire afternoon at our campsite, we wandered into the central hub of Bonnaroo — cleverly titled “Centeroo” — to check out the opening bands. Bonnaroo’s venues consist of several tents, open-air stages, cafes, and miniature bars, with the biggest venues flaunting names that are wickedly confusing to sleep-deprived crowds. There’s the monstrous What Stage, the Which Stage, and a trio of sizable tents: This Tent, That Tent, and The Other Tent. It’s like something out of an Abbott & Costello skit, although the joke isn’t quite so funny at 1 a.m., when you’re wandering around in search of the Sigur Rós gig and find yourself watching Lupe Fiasco instead.
What Made Milwaukee Famous took the stage first at This Tent, playing a 45-minute set of solid power pop tunes. Despite the setting sun, a combination of humidity and lingering heat turned the tent into a small greenhouse, with frontman Michael Kingcaid exclaiming “I thought we had it bad in Texas!” as his Austin-based bandmates churned themselves into a froth behind him.
Things sped up from there, with MGMT, Battles, Nicole Atkins, and the Felice Brothers all turning in confident sets that evening. Nicole Atkins’ gorgeous chamber pop earned wild applause and several catcalls (including the frequent “You’re too hot to play guitar!”), while the Felice Brothers’ rootsy rock channeled the boozy swagger of Bob Dylan and the Band. Vampire Weekend played to a packed house around midnight, but it was Lez Zeppelin — an all-female tribute group to Led Zeppelin — that turned the most heads, with vocalist Sarah McLellan giving a new dimension to Robert Plant’s sex appeal.
FRIDAY
As temperatures climbed into the mid-90s, the Drive-By Truckers walked onto the Which Stage at 12:30 p.m., armed with an array of guitars, organs, beards, and beer bottles. Jason Isbell hasn’t been with the group for 14 months now, but the Truckers’ two new additions — pedal steel guitarist John Neff and legendary Muscle Shoals organist Spooner Oldham — are more than adequate replacements. Veteran member Mike Cooley looked as cool and collected as ever, casually smoking a cigarette while dueling with Neff on guitar solos, and bassist Shonna Tucker swigged from a bottle of Jack Daniels before taking the microphone for a performance of “Home Field Advantage.”
While Janeane Garofalo dispensed jokes in the Comedy Theatre and Les Claypool conducted a Q&A in the Cinema Tent, the Swell Season prepared themselves for a wildly successful show in This Tent. Glen Hansard took the stage first for an acoustic performance of “Say It to Me Now,” followed by an hour-long performance alongside his girlfriend, pianist/actress Markéta Irglová, and assorted members of the Frames. The music veered from folk to pop/rock to Van Morrison covers, with tunes from Once comprising a healthy chunk of the setlist. Hansard is an absolutely extraordinary frontman — alternately sprightly and serious, humorous and heartbroken, unchained and coolly collected — and fans of Once might’ve recognized his guitar as the same beat-to-hell instrument used in the movie. “We’ll see you at Metallica!” he exclaimed during the band’s final song, before setting down his guitar and happily dancing along with the audience.
My friends split up after the Swell Season gig, with several people wanting to catch Willie Nelson and others salivating at the thought of M.I.A.’s impending set (which, it turns out, might have been her last performance ever). I decided to check out Rilo Kiley, given the likelihood of Jenny Lewis eventually ditching the band in favor of her burgeoning solo career. Three cuts from Under the Blacklight comprised the band’s opening punch, with Jenny Lewis prancing around in a pink jumper and Blake Sennet refusing to take off his sunglasses (they never came off, not even when the guitarist climbed into the audience during “With Arms Outstretched” or headbanged throughout the bridge of “Portions for Foxes”). Rilo Kiley sounded great, and extra points go to the band’s auxiliary touring member, a multi-talented lady who sang harmonies, played guitar, banged out some keyboard parts, and contributed a surprisingly spot-on trumpet solo during “It’s a Hit.” Who was she? What is her name? Why is she so phenomenally good? If anyone knows, please pass along the info.
Next up was Chris Rock, who worked a predominantly white audience without batting an eyelash. The crowd was gigantic — easily 50,000 people, the majority of whom stood up once the comedian took the stage — and Rock’s combination of racial and sexual humor was a refreshing change from loud, raucous music. That quick breather didn’t last long, however, as Metallica’s set started just 30 minutes after Rock wrapped things up. James Hetfield seemed moved by the festival’s good-natured hippie vibes (“Who cares about you?” he roared mid-set. “Metallica, that’s who!”), and bassist Robert Trujillo looked like a larger-than-life character from the Guitar Hero series. The loud, bombastic set concluded around midnight, just as rain began to fall.
The rain didn’t stop. It flooded my tent, soaked my sleeping bag, and rendered my secondhand raincoat useless. I changed into flip-flops and trudged through the mud to My Morning Jacket’s late-night set, which lasted four hours and took its selections from the band’s entire catalog. “We’re being cleansed!” exclaimed Jim James, as water fell upon his giant Stetson hat and billowing cape. James’ costume was a temporary thing, an addition that helped augment the band’s “funk set,” which consisted of a very good Kool & the Gang cover and some other soulful nuggets. The show wrapped up around 4 a.m., at which point I returned to the campsite and shacked up inside my friend’s dry minivan.
SATURDAY
The rain finally stopped in the early afternoon, and we headed off to catch some Rancid-styled punk at the Against Me! show. The sizable crowd ate it up, howling along to lyrics about Condoleeza Rice while the bandmates thrashed around in a flurry of sweat and black t-shirts. The rest of the afternoon was spent hopping from show to show, sacrificing the enjoyment of watching an entire set for the enjoyment of watching many, many bands. Highlights: Gogol Bordello’s interesting (if not absurdly comical) take on Eastern European rock, Abigail Washburn’s mixture of American folk traditions and Asian influences, the Avett Brothers’ messy bluegrass/rock, and the two sign language interpreters at B.B. King’s concert, both of whom worked hard to convey the blues through hand gestures and body movements.
While wandering over to This Tent to catch the end of Iron & Wine’s set, we overheard Ben Folds’ decision to retire his cover of “B*tches Ain’t Sh*t.” “I’m tired of walking down the street with my kids,” Folds explained, “and someone says ‘Oh, there’s that bitch guy!’” He played the song one last time, just for good measure, complete with three-part harmonies and lively piano noodling. Dr. Dre would’ve been proud.
Back in the Iron & Wine tent, Sam Beam and company were busy getting their jam on. Songs like “Woman King” were stretched past their original boundaries and turned into swirling bits of farmhouse psychedelia, but the biggest standout was the band’s moving encore: an acoustic rendition of “The Trapeze Swinger.” Beam’s voice and fingerplucked guitar brought the crowd to a standstill for eight minutes, making for one of the most poignant and remarkable moments of the entire festival.
Pearl Jam’s headlining set lasted for nearly three hours that evening, with Eddie Vedder doing his best to incite the 65,000 (or so) attendees to push for political change. The audience was sun-baked and thoroughly exhausted by the afternoon’s festivities, though, and Vedder’s messages came across much better in his songs: “No More,” “Hard to Imagine,” “Corduroy,” “Betterman,” “Severed Hand,” and numerous other hits and rarities. There were no pyrotechnic displays like Metallica’s show (and puffy Mike McCready doesn’t look quite as cool nowadays as Kirk Hamnett), but Pearl Jam still reminded everyone of their unyielding staying power, which has helped keep them afloat years after their Seattle contemporaries threw in the towel.
This brings us to Kanye West, who was originally scheduled to perform at 8:15 p.m. on the sizable Which Stage. A week before Bonnaroo commenced, however, Kanye finagled his way into an early-morning slot (2:45 in the goddamn morning) on the monstrous What Stage. So much for any of us getting any sleep. This also meant his show time conflicted with many other rap performances on the Bonnaroo bill, from Lupe Fiasco to Jurassic 5’s Chali 2na.
So Kanye West was already facing an uphill climb by the time 2:45 a.m. rolled around, and Bonnaroo attendees began to boo loudly when West didn’t appear on-time. The minutes crept along… 3:00…. 3:15… 3:30… The Jumbotrons flashed various updates, promising the sleepy crowd that Kanye West was indeed up next, but the stage remained largely empty. 3:45…. 4:00… 4:15…. Chants of “Kanye sucks!” riffled through the crowd while piles of glowsticks were thrown onto the stage, many of them hitting the fancy pieces of Kanye’s stageshow. The rapper finally appeared at 4:29 a.m., never once mentioning his extended absence or apologizing for the delay. Sunlight began to sneak along the horizon forty minutes later, turning Kanye’s laser show into nothing more than an expensive, semi-invisible mess. He promptly cut the show short without any explanation, although the fact that an airborne glowstick had damaged one of his onstage flatscreens (nice shot, whoever that was!) might’ve had something to do with it. Kanye climbed down a ladder and exited the stage, leaving everyone else to strike up more choruses of “Kanye sucks” before grudgingly heading off to bed.
SUNDAY
Bonnaroo came to a close on Sunday, with most of the bands wrapping things up before 8:30 that evening. Jakob Dylan introduced his audience to mellow selections from his solo album, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss sang their way through a standout selection of swampy folk songs, and Death Cab for Cutie performed for the festival’s largest contingent of young teenaged girls (all of whom knew the words to “I Will Follow You into the Dark” by heart). Ben Gibbard was charming and shockingly skinny, which only served to drive the females into further hysterics during selections from Narrow Stairs, Plans, and earlier efforts. Widespread Panic then closed the night out, bringing Bonnaroo 2008 to an appropriate conclusion with extended, improvised solos that lasted nearly as long as the time it took to exit the traffic-congested festival grounds.
Photo Credit: Sandy Jaszczak
Nearing on the two-year anniversary of 
CMJ was a headlong rush of dingy basement venues, an endless parade of bands with trumpets, cloth-eared soundmen and lots and lots of facial hair. While sitting and soaking my feet in a hot bath and reflecting upon the days gone by, a few things stood out:
CMJ is fast becoming one big, blurry memory, but here are a few moments — in no particular order — that haven’t completely evaporated yet.
