Tennessee Sucks in the Summer

Well not really, but so says the title of a song by Ryan Adams. In preparation for my trip to Manchester TN this past weekend, I hoped to make a CD with songs that containted Tennessee in the title. I only came up with three: the aforementioned Ryan Adams song, "Tennessee Jed" by the Grateful Dead, and "Tennesee" by Arrested Development. 3 songs does not a CD make, and so it didn't really happen.

But Bonnaroo 2005 did happen. Patrick, his pal CJ, and I departed for TN on Wednesday evening and arrived in TN, and the awaiting festival traffic jam, at about 9:30am. Lucky me, I was stuck with the driving from northern Illinois until Nashville. So, for the ungeographically inclined, I drove for about 7 hours. Through the night. While Pat and CJ slept. Thanks guys.

Our wait in the traffic jam wasn't too bad. When I went in 2003, I was in traffic for 8 hours, moving most times at a snail's pace. 8 hours for about 12 miles. Damn, that's a lot of cars.

It was a hot, hot day on Thursday and after we set up our tent, we spent most of the afternoon sweating. Pat assured us that it was only going to get cooler as the day went on. That was at 1:30. It didn't get any cooler. Thursday night we caught a young folk guitarist named Brett Dennen. If you like the concept of a guy and his guitar... you'll probably like Brett Dennen. I did.

Friday found me listening to Joss Stone, who (although I was leary to admit it) is pretty soulful. The true reason why I was at her stage was to get a good position for Jurassic 5... who were great. I thoroughly enjoyed their show. After them, we caught Herbie Hancock. It was stellar. John Mayer is now a member of his Headhunters 2005 ensemble, and Mayer's got some serious guitar chops. After Herbie, we sat in on the end of Bela Fleck's set and then headed back to our campsite. Dave Matthews was performing at 8, but who cares... we skipped him. It had started raining as the afternoon progressed and earlier in the day we had removed our tents' rain-flies and stretched them between the tents to provide some shade. In our haste to get to the concert... we absent-mindedly left the flies off of the tents. Due to this, our campsite was pretty wet. We made some changes to our setup, including moving the car to find dry ground, and fell asleep. We didn't wake up until morning... which was unfortunate, since I had wanted to catch three groups, Brazilian Girls; Saul Williams; and The Mars Volta, and their late night sets. Instead of taking in their music, I spent the night being rained on, literally. There was a fault in our new setup and my head was strategically placed in a spot where the rain was able to seep in. Fun? No.

Saturday was a good day, despite the constant showers. We caught Ozomatli, a group I can't recommend enough. Then we stopped by a performance by Mouse on Mars... they're a German group and not good. After them, we caught Xavier Rudd, an Australian multi-instrumentalist who really rocked. While he performed, he had an Australian flag behind him (the Aboriginal Flag, not the Union Jacked version) and at one point he pointed to the flag and said "This is the flag from my home, Australia. We've got another version too, but that one stands for Colonial Opression..." I doubt if most of the crowd really knew what he was talking about, but since I've been to Oz, I was enlightened. I cheered him on. After Xavier, it was Particle and then Keller Williams, who is really good and he's just one dude. He had instruments set up all over the stage and he would move from one to the next and record loops. Then he would play it all together and have a song. Sweet.

After Keller we moved to the Cinema Tent (Air-conditioned, dry area where movies showed all weekend) to get out of the rain. We watched Mike Tyson fight some big Irish guy (McBride). Tyson was knocked out and subsequently said that his heart and passion aren't in boxing any longer and he was retiring. I should point out that throughout the whole interview, I couldn't take my eyes off of the huge tattoo on Tyson's face. He's insane. After midnight, we watched a late-night set by Trey Anastasio. At one point Trey and his band were joined by Bo Bice, and together they performed "Panama" (I laughed at the song and sang the correct lyrics). After Trey was De La Soul until 4:30 am. Then we retired to our tent (I've forgotten to explain the layout of Bonnaroo. It's a 600 acre farm. We were camped a good 2 miles from the Center-Roo, where all of the music was performed. The walk from our tents to Center-Roo took a long time. We didn't make more than one trip a day.) after being at the Center-Roo for 17 hours.

Sunday was dry and cloudy. A nice change from the sunny or rainy weather up to that point. I heard Amos Lee, Citizen Cope, Bob Weir and Ratdog, The Word (North Mississippi All-Stars + Robert Randolph + John Medeski), SuperJam (Questlove of The Roots, Herbie Hancock, and a guitarist and bassist who I didn't recognize), and finally Widespread Panic. It was a good day to wrap up the festival. We hit the road for home at about 10pm. I took the wheel at 12 and once again drove through the night until 5:30am. We stopped in Milwaukee to hang out with Pat's brother, took a Brewery tour where CJ convinced our Tour guide that I was visiting Wisconsin because I was a cheese fanatic. Eventually we got on I-94 and headed home. I drove the entire way from Milwaukee to Rochester and then from Rochester to Dassel. It was horribly long and I was so tired (between Rochester and Dassel, I drank 3 20 oz. cups of coffe, ate 3 snickers bars, and drank 4 16 oz bottles of water. The combination of simple sugars, caffeine, and the unbearable need to piss kept me awake. I pulled into my driveway at 3:30am. I spent most of today sleeping, waking only long enough (@ noon) to piss and then returned to bed.

I'm sure this was uninterestingly boring to read, but for those who might get this far... thanks for caring.

The new show on NBC "Hit Me Baby One More Time" sucks.

Counting down the days until the Farm Party...