In two weeks, after days of stifling schoolwork, elation will pang through my veins like an ice cube dropped down the back of a T-shirt as I crawl out of my tired automobile and embrace the warm Tennessee sun beneath the fertile farmland found in Manchester, which is home to the vast site known as Bonnaroo.
Bonnaroo, America's biggest music festival, and arguably its most popular, attracts roughly 80,000 to 100,000 people a year to camp, commune and listen to today's best music on six different stages. A kaleidoscopic array of musicians and performers flock to the 500-acre farm alongside an equally interesting batch of spectators to share in an experience unlike anything else offered in an increasingly conservative society.
Street performers run rampant alongside hippies, hipsters, students, adults, children, beasts, artists, poets, musicians, freaks, shadows, Haight-Ashbury rejects, merchants, dope-peddlers, animals, the naked, the clothed, the stoned and the sober. It truly is a rock 'n' roll circus as it offers sights and sounds to delight both your eyes and ears.
Bonnaroo was originally rooted in a jam band base. However, through the years, it has increasingly weaned away from this stamp. This year it seems to have come to a head with such acts as the Kings of Leon, The Decemberists and The Black Keys highlighting the docket. However, because these are only three of roughly 98 musical acts, this fact is more readily seen with headliners Tool, The Police and The White Stripes.
Nevertheless, with Bonnaroo signing two of the summer's hottest tickets ' The Police and The White Stripes ' this change of face could be a more favorable countenance. The Police coming out of retirement is an exciting event as this trio has created some of best new age rock in the past thirty years while simultaneously facilitating the emergence of other noteworthy groups.
The White Stripes are also emerging fresh from a hiatus and if their set will be anything like their newest heavy single, Icky Thump
from their new album, then their performance will scatter the brains of anyone within listening distance.
Other acts include The Flaming Lips, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, Wilco and Widespread Panic. With music being performed from noon until four in the morning, the price of the ticket pays for itself as traveling to see this many high caliber performers would not only burn a hole in your pocket but leave a scar on your leg in the shape of Benjamin Franklin. 17
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Collin Minnis
