via the girls of bonnaroo
After several failed attempts over the years, I am finally making the trek to Manchester, Tennessee for this year’s annual installment of Bonnaroo. The festival, now in its eighth season, has shed its stigma of catering predominantly to jam bands; recent years have seen performances by the likes of Metallica, Radiohead, Kanye West, Tool, and many others. This year’s lineup boasts one of the most impressive/eclectic rosters of the festival season; a newly reunited Phish will headline Friday and Sunday, with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band holding down Saturday evening.
One of the main things I noticed when mapping out my schedule for the weekend is the vast amount of New York-centric artists performing. It’s great seeing these artists in our cozy little borough of Brooklyn, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to see them step it up for some of the largest audiences they’ve ever performed in front of. Among these acts that I’m looking forward to include David Byrne, TV On the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, and Dirty Projectors.
On top of seeing some phenomenal music, one of the questions I intend to answer over the course of the weekend is this…what is the difference between hippie and hipster? Is there one? I’m pretty sure it’s a fine line, but with festivals like this, it all seems a little grey. I will admit, I cut my teeth in the jam band scene from the late ’90s on, before packing up and moving to Brooklyn in 2006…as a quasi-veteran of both scenes, it’s going to be very amusing. The (former?) inner-hippie in me couldn’t be more excited for Phish, but the Brooklyn kid in me is stoked too.
Grizzly Bear – Knife (Girl Talk Remix)
Animal Collective – Bleed (live at 9:30 Club)
of Montreal – At Night Trees Aren’t Sleeping
Now that we have festivals like Coachella that have given them a platform in which to be heard, it will be interesting to see how they go over at Bonnaroo; especially if Phish’s devoted following come out in full force. Will they even emerge early in the day to see some of these bands that they may have never heard? If so, will they dig it?! Maybe Girl Talk’s late-night set in the dance tent will prove to be the great uniter of the whole festival, who knows.
These are precisely the things I intend to find out. Without further ado, here’s my tentative schedule of events for Bonnaroo…in my subsequent review of the weekend, I will report back as to what actually went down. Oh, and if you want to follow my Bonnaroo adventures on Twitter, feel free to follow me @spencerkeasey.
Thursday:
Janelle Monae
White Rabbits
Hockey
Chairlift
Passion Pit
Friday:
Dirty Projectors
Animal Collective
Yeah Yeah Yeahs/Grizzly Bear?
TV On the Radio (maybe a little Al Green too?)
David Byrne
Phish
Public Enemy
Girl Talk
Saturday:
Booker T and the DBTs
Bon Iver
Of Montreal
Wilco
The Mars Volta
Bruce Springsteen
Nine Inch Nails
MGMT
Sunday:
Erykah Badu
Merle Haggard/Andrew Bird?
Snoop Dogg/Band of Horses (DAMN that’s tough)
Phish
Spencer Keasey Scanlon
lame choices for the most part, how could you pass up the beastie boys? or al greens full set , or galactic??? wisen up young festival goer.. sorry for beiing mean
SEE TOBACCO!
erykah badu is a goddess, and animal collective will for sure be catching that set.