Jammin at Bonnaroo

"Booonnnnarrrooooo . . ." I screamed in a piercing coyote-like tone into the pitch-black Tennessee sky. My head hung triumphantly out of the window of the black overcrowded Suburban packed with tents, sleeping bags, and junk food, while cigarette smoke congested any remaining air space. Twelve hours after we had set out for bible-thumping Manchester, Tennessee, my friends and I naively thought that our journey was just about over. It wasn't.

Only after an appalling 15 hours of additional traffic did we finally pull into the campsite in the northeastern corner of the expansive cow pasture that was to be the home of the second annual Bonnaroo music festival, undeniably the most hyped concert event of the summer. Even the word Bonnaroo derives from a Creole slang term that means "good time" (or so they say), and it had proven to be an apt title one year earlier when concert organizers planned the first outdoor jam session. When first announced, word of the super-show spread rapidly on scheduled acts' websites, and every available ticket was snatched up in 20 days, with little advertising and no assistance from internet giant Ticketmaster. When the last band wrapped and the final concert-goers packed up and returned home for a much needed shower, it was estimated that 75,000 fans had witnessed the event. It didn't take the promoters long to realize they had stumbled onto musical paydirt. It's not often that an outdoor festival is immediately placed in the same category as Woodstock, but the comparisons abounded, and for me that meant one thing--I was there.

Although we were admittedly a little shaken and sleepy by the time we arrived, we were not any less determined to undertake our pre-agreed upon objectives for the weekend: 1) to see as much and as wide a variety of music as humanly possible and 2) to "not die."

The creators of Bonnaroo had both of these intentions clearly in mind; as for keeping us all alive, they went out of their way to make our 'concert going experience' somewhat comfortable. They provided food that wasn't awful, mist tents that offered some kind of escape from the 95-degree plus heat that tore into us all weekend and recreational activities other than drug use; from arcade tents to full-sized old-school jungle gyms, this place had it all. Yet these novelties only set the tone for the headliner of the festival: the music, of course. At Bonnaroo, an eclectic barrage of musical acts came at us like a herd of antelope, or maybe a pack of wild boar, and honestly, none of us seemed to mind being trampled.

Unlike Ozzfest where heavy metal rules eternal, or at the rain-spoiled Field Day Festival where down-beat electronica-meets-Radiohead (literally) prevails, Bonnaroo had no winners or losers, no one-uping, no decipherable musical species; just 68 diverse acts playing all day, everyday.

Groups like Nickel Creek played foot-stomping bluegrass and legendary funksters The Funky Meters laid down thick, melting grooves. While the Allman Brothers ripped through the high, harmonic slide guitar riffs that made them famous, one of hip-hop's finest specimens, The Roots, grounded out clear rhythmic brilliance just a thirty second walk away. Scratch master, Kid Koala, opened for Neil Young and DJ Z-Trip opened for The Dead? Huh?

The Sunday morning predicament was trying to decide between the gods of jazz oddity Medeski, Martin and Wood or the gods of just plain odd, The Flaming Lips. In a fit of indecision, I simply stood in between them, and sporadically, I swear John Medeski's mad scientific Wurlitzer chords corresponded perfectly with Lips' singer Wayne Coyne's beautifully disturbed crooning. I would call the moment spiritual, but then you'd probably laugh in my face. So I'll go with "spiritualescent."

After the end of the three days befittingly concluded by The Dead, I abandoned that farmland blissfully exhausted, yet thrilled by what I had just experienced. Where the dirt road gave way to the highway, a local Manchester man stood next to a huge white crucifix with a sign attached that read, "Rock & Rollers are Disciples of Satan."

He warned me that my "music-loving antics" were going to send me "straight to hell!" I just told him that for an experience as grand as Bonnaroo, an eternity in hell would be well worth it.