I’ve come down pretty hard on some aspects of Bonnaroo, but one thing is undeniable: there are 80,000 people here, in the middle of nowhere, camping and listening to music, and there’s almost no violence, hostility, or even frustration being expressed. The mentality of the crowd is overwhelmingly positive and accepting.
I fully admit that I’m approaching the festival from the perspective of someone outside this culture, so I might not always be as charitable as I could. But the friendly, supportive nature of the whole affair says something quite remarkable and positive about human nature.
CONTINUED >>
Gov’t Mule
Walking backstage at a Gov’t Mule concert is like sneaking into the toughest biker bar in Alabama. I haven’t seen that many rough- looking, three hundred pound guys with ponytails since I left Alaska. The road crew, the band and the fans all seemed cut from the same cloth: a bunch of tough mofos with Camaros in their front yards, and the music was exactly the kind of gnarly roadhouse chicken- fried rock that makes you want to bust a Bud longneck on the bar and take on a guy wielding a pool cue. Thank heaven.
Gov’t Mule is the real deal, (singer/guitarist Warren Haynes was in the Allman Brothers), but this was no revival act. Now that ZZ Top is a cartoon, playing county fairs and wagging their beards, and Lynyrd Skynyrd is close to doing the same thing, it’s nice to hear some boys play Southern rock like it stands for something. You could almost taste the frog legs
CONTINUED >>
Flaming Lips
After the Police finished there was a mass exodus to the other side of the festival grounds for the Flaming Lips. There were no video screens on this stage, but to the Lips’ credit they obviously blew a wad on their lighting and special effects rig, sparing no expense to make the show a madhouse. And a madhouse it was.
Wayne Coyne is one of the most intelligent men in music, smart enough to know which part is serious and which part is fun, and he obviously works feverishly to ensure that the crowd has the time of their life.
CONTINUED >>
The Police
I’m not sure who was clamoring for a Police reunion. I mean, I’m sure it sounded like a great idea to a lot of people, but why would the Police themselves agree to do it? When they broke up it was the perfect gesture. They were as big as they were going to get, they hated each other, boom: the end. Brilliant.
Now they’re back together and touring, but why? I don’t think they like each other any better, and unlike Zepplin or the Beatles it’s not as though their legend only grew in their absence. I wanted to understand the reason, because I wanted the reunion to be important and good. I didn’t want it to feel gratuitous or phoned-in. Because I like the Police. When they opened with "Message in a Bottle" (played too fast!), I sprinted across the festival to get close.
CONTINUED >>
Ween
I’ll confess up front that I cannot possibly understand Ween. For years they seemed like an elaborate prank, like eventually they’d say, “Ha! We were just kidding the whole time. We’re actually Yale cultural studies majors trying to determine how ludicrous a band could be and still have a following, and we’ve determined that there is no limit. Thanks for participating.”
They’ve been mating Frank Zappa’s scatological humor with everything from jazz to country for, what, 20 years? I get the impression that fans of Ween could listen to no other music but Ween and still have a fairly good grasp and appreciation of most musical styles. Likewise, you can listen to no Ween at all, as I have done, and still survive to adulthood undamaged.
CONTINUED >>
Franz Ferdinand
Most guitar players spend an inordinate amount of time and money trying to get their guitars to sound “fat.” It’s one of the reasons there are some many different types of guitar amps and effects pedals, each claiming to “fatten” tone. The problem is that the guitar is an intrinsically whiney, squeaky, high-pitched brat of an instrument, and when it’s amplified it can become downright painful.
Franz Ferdinand has embraced the essential truth about the guitar, building their sound around the natural “chink chink” of the unaffected instrument. And although they kick the treble like fencers clashing foils, far from sounding harsh it actually reads as “fat.” Who knew?
CONTINUED >>
Ben Harper
I remember when Ben Harper’s first record came out thinking that this was a talented guy who was on to something different. He was playing rootsy slide guitar music, but taking it somewhere different, somewhere pop and cool.
I listened to that record a lot, but as the years wore on I was disappointed by his subsequent releases, which tended to feature the rootsy blues mixed with cheesy soul. Eventually he became a staple of the college jam circuit, just playing it safe and by the numbers, despite the fact that he was a guitarist who could do just about anything he chose.
CONTINUED >>
Xaxier Rudd
Now this was some serious “world music.” Xaxier Rudd is a handsome white kid from Australia who learned to play the diggeradoo and took it on tour.
He sat on the stage surrounded by a command center of wooden instruments, reminiscent of a Hollywood set designer’s take on the captain’s chair of an alien spacecraft, if the movie starred John Travolta in dreadlocks and yellow contact lenses. Three diggeradoos, numerous gourds, shakers, gongers, dingers and flibbity-jibbitys, plus some different drums and a few guitars, all within arm’s reach.
CONTINUED >>
The Hold Steady
These fellows have a rabid popularity that leaves me deeply conflicted. Although their live show is undeniably full of energy, full of engagement, and full of whimsy, their music is full of s--t.
I mean that admiringly, since most of rock and roll is similarly full of s--t, (Jim Morrison was 100 percent full of s--t). But after a song and a half, I’d lost track of the number of total rip-offs in their tunes, so much so that their set played like a medley of the greatest hits of the E Street Band, Bad Company, Foreigner and Styx. As played by your uncle’s friends.
CONTINUED >>
Fountains of Wayne
This band gets saddled with the “power pop” label (which has a slightly disparaging undertone to my ear), but they are an absolutely perfect American rock band.
In the interest of full disclosure I should note that their drummer, Brian Young, played on my band’s first record, but to mitigate that fact I can say that I hated the video for “Stacy’s Mom,” making me again an impartial judge.
CONTINUED >>
