Back from Bonnaroo

Just got back in from my 3rd trip to the 'roo. Phew. Pretty wild ride. I walked/hitchhiked into the venue this year, an incredible experience that was necessitated by some unusually decent traffic management by Superfly Productions and the Tennessee Highway Patrol. A couple people in our crew had hopped out of our RV for a smoke and when the line moved up about 100 yards, we didn't think much about it. The last several miles of the journey to every festival I've ever attended, save Echo Festival last fall, has featured stop-and-go traffic for hours on end. So when the line started moving again and didn't stop for about 3/4 of a mile, we started to worry. My friend Marcus and I put some shoes on, applied some sunscreen, grabbed 3 tickets, and threw a few beers in our bags and started walking away from the show.

Several hours and a number of bummed beers from the cars around us, we rolled up to the gates in the back of a fellow Bonnaroovian's white Chevy pickup and walked the final 100 yards or so into the venue. Later on, we'd learn that our our friends were setting up shop about 1/4 mile from the gate.

I'll write about some of the individual performances later on but for now, here's who we saw:

• Battles
• Vampire Weekend
• Dark Star Orchestra
• B.B. King
• Ben Folds
• Zappa Plays Zappa
• Umphrey's McGee
• Levon Helm & Ramble on the Road
• Minus the Bear
• Pearl Jam
• Les Claypool
• Sigur Ros
• !!!
• Lupe Fiasco
• M.I.A.
• Ghostland Observatory
• Willie Nelson
• Chali 2na (from Jurassic 5) with Galactic
• Metallica
• My Morning Jacket
• Kanye Wet
• Tiesto
• Stephanie sid
• Disco Biscuits
• Aimee Mann
• Super Jam (Les Claypool, Kirk Hammett & Gogol Bordello)
• Broken Social Scene
• The Duhks
• Robert Plant & Allison Krauss
• Ozomatli
• Derek Trucks
• Gogol Bordello
• Widespread Panic
• Mastadon
• The Avett Brothers
• Stephen Marley
• Cat Power

We also caught three comedians: Chris Rock, Reggie Watts, and John Mulaney.

The sun sets on another Bonnaroo