Jh'ers at Bonneroo: Day 3

planetjh — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 17:19:00 GMT

Last night, as to be expceted, the Flaming Lips played one of the best performances at Bonaroo. Just after "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song," one that attacks President Bush, lead singer Wayne Coyne stopped and asked the audience "What is the meaning of all this?" A question he knows has been asked time and again at every music festival gathering since the 60's, and he acknowleged that, but he asked again, "But really, what does this all mean?"

Bonnaroo's not a happening, or anything like the baby boomers experienced (or coined, as they love to toot thier own horns.) It's a highly commercialized event. Everything has a brand name here. Budwiser, XboX, and iTunes are dominating sponsors. Planes fly over the festival pulling banners telling you of album release dates and XM radio. You are sold before you even get here.

Everyone knows this and no one cares. The kids of today need to collectively rage and Bonnaroo's the place to do it. It's main stream appeal draws a diverse crowd of people-- mainly jam band kids, indie rockers, and hip hop heads. Making it a really big party. It's not a protest, it's not a defining moment in youth history. It's just more entertainment than you can handle for four days. The whole event is taylored so there is no waiting around, ever. The vibe is elcetric, nonstop.

Anyway. There are 80,000 people here, and there are opportunities to connect with complete strangers left and right and all the music is phenominal. If there's any meaning behind this, it's just pure fun.

Last night was the pinnacle of the music festival. Andrew and I kept laughing because inside the venue--an expansive area with 11 stages all going on at once-- people were everywhere, even places music wasn't playing. Like, you'd walk up to a huge group of people gathered together and expect to see something going on, but it would just end up being nothing more than a mass of people hanging out together. Everyone was having a really good time.

Enjoy the photo's taken by Andrew Wyatt on the PJH homepage, he's taken over 1,000 so far.

Sam

Jh'ers at Bonneroo: Day 2

planetjh — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 17:31:00 GMT

By Sam Petri

Check out photos by Andrew Wyatt on the PJH homepage

There's 80,000 people here on 700 acres in the heart of Tennessee. To beat the heat lot's of girls are painting thier boobs and going toppless. Andrew has been photographing each one as they pass. This is our side show entertainment.

Yesterday on the main stage the Kings of Leon played, followed by The Roots, and then Tool. Tool was the head-lining act of the night which means when they played, no other stages had music performances, so everyone, all 80,000 people, where watching Tool.

They made the best use of the main stage by any band thus far, using six screens flashing the art of Alex Grey. They weren't allowing press photographers to take photo's, as Tool has thier own media folk, but Andrew was able to snap a great shot from the crowd.

After that there were several performances on all of the side stages including festival staples like Sound Tribe Sector 9 and The String Cheese Incident. More intersting was the Super Jam, which this year featured ?uestlove of The Roots, Ben Harper, and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. There is no doubt that bootleg recordings of this performance will be circulating on the internet in the near future.

Tonight the Police play, but all I really care about seeing is The Flamming Lips.

Local Music Scene

Jh'ers at Bonneroo: Day 3

Jh'ers at Bonneroo: Day 2