Bonnaroo

Last weekend I went to Tennessee with various friends to go to the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. It was a lot of fun! Lots of good music, crazy people (not as many naked one as I expected), and good times. Unfortunately I could not find my camera charger and my camera's battery was just about dead, so no pictures from me. Instead I stealing pictures and videos from people.

The bands I ended up seeing were Animal Collective, Nine Inch Nails, Phish, Ben Harper & Relentless, The Mars Volta, Neko Case and Public Enemy. Out of all those, I'd say my favorites were Neko Case, The Mars Volta and Public Enemy. However I came back from Bonnaroo wanting to listen to Phish.

Here is a video I found on Youtube of Neko Case playing the opening track on her new album at Bonnaroo



She was fantastic. Part of the reason why I liked her performance so much is that her voice held up so well live. The band she played with was pretty bare bones--just bass, 2 guitars, couple of back-up singers, and a drummer. So it was interesting hearing them play some of the bigger sounding songs with more instruments being the smaller band that whey were.

I kind of saw Public Enemy on a whim. We were all watching Phish, and about an hour into their set Kat and I decided to get some food and see who else was playing. We came across Public Enemy just starting their set. They played with a live band which definitely made the music a lot more engaging and fun to listen to. This was pretty much my first Public Enemy experience too. I've heard some of their singles and what not. Lucky for me they played their entire album "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back" plus some other hits. Needless to say I now have a copy of "It Takes a Nation..."

Here they are performing Don't Believe the Hype



The Mars Volta was pretty much everything I expected. One of the most intense acts I've seen. They really get into it. The musicianship of these guys is incredible. They played mostly all my favorite TMV songs. Highlights included Goliath, Drunkship of Lanterns, and ending their set with the monstrous Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus--three of my favorites. However they were a little unprofessional. They opened with Goliath but stopped 10 seconds into it because Omar's guitar wasn't tuned. Laaaaaaaaaame. But after that hiccup the show was fantastic. Here is a video of them playing their song Goliath.



So all in all it was a fantastic weekend. I would definitely do something like this again provided the set is good, and the money is available. Not something I could do every year though.

-Jason