To say I was a bit unprepared for Bonnaroo is an understatement. I knew it was coming up, but had really given it little thought at all. I knew I had a flight, I knew I had tickets at willcall, and I knew Willcall was off site a bit, but other than that, I was pretty unprepared. Very professional, I know.
My and my roommate Colin took a cab to Laguardia and got there, no problem. I promptly passed out for the flight, woke up when we landed. This is where it begins to get a bit dicey. See, Nashville airport is over an hour drive from Bonnaroo. Nether me nor Colin know how to drive. Fortunately, we see the bonnaroo shuttle bus table and plan to take it down, except nobody knows a thing about the willcall area up there. They say the best they can do is drop us off at a Wal-Mart that's pretty close to the festival site. Figured it all couldn't be too far.
And in fairness, it wasn't that far. But the 7:30 shuttle bus left full at 7:15, and the next one didn't leave till after 8:30. By 10, we're dropped off at the Wal-Mart and the bus continues on. We have absolutely no fucking clue where we are or where we have to go. I had an address and a Google map without street names to work with.
We ask a few people, and everyone seems to be pointing along in the same direction, but nobody is sure. Told it was "a mile, mile and a half max" by the information booth at Wall-mart, we start to hike along the highway towards willcall. Figuring its only a mile, and we had a full hour before the building closes, wouldn't be a problem. we take turns carrying the duffel we shared to throw our tents and sleeping bags in. It wasn't the best idea to buy a 10 pound case of red bull at Wal-Mart before the trek, but it wasn't too bad.
We walk along the highway for about 30 minutes, well aware that we're the two biggest douchebags on the planet at this point. We must have walked almost 2 miles in that 30 minutes past car dealerships and strip malls. No Radio Station. No Jiffy Mart or Pet store, which it was supposed to be between. It was getting close to closing time, and we really weren't even 100% sure we were going in the right direction. Finally, a guy and his girlfriend are pulling out of a driveway in a convertible, see us looking miserable and ask us where we're going. We say some radio station that's supposed to house the willcall for the fest. They tell us it's pretty far up the road and offer a ride. We have no choice, really, and hop in. They are nice. Ask if we have any weed, which we don't. They seem a little bummed. A good 5 minute drive later (maybe 2 miles? after the first 2 miles) we get to the station and they wish us luck. We get our tickets and I get my press wristband and are ready to go. "It's not far, but I wouldn't recommend walking" they tell us, and get out a yellow pages for cab companies. On our 4th try, we get one that'll be there in 10 minutes. At the same time, a van of kids from Ontario pull up to get their ticket.
There were three of them. Two guys and a girl. They had been on the road for 20 hours...coming down via New Jersey to pick up the third. They are more than happy to offer us a ride into the fest. We cancel the cab, hop in the back on the floor and head in.
Security stops us as we pull into the campsite to search the van. Not sure what they were looking for, but they made the guy pour the near empty handle of whiskey into a water bottle and took a real long look at my Excedrin and chewable centrum. They wave us through, we get our admission wristbands and follow a never ending path of people with flashlights waving us through to where we will set up camp. Little did the Canadians know, they were now stuck with us for the rest of the weekend. We're not too bad tho, and they were all cool, so no problems.
We all help each other set up our tents and try and figure out our plans for the night. I get in touch with Scott and meet up with him and his Dad at the Marah show in one of the tents. They were actually really good. Glad I caught them. Afterwards I meet up with the rest of the camping group and go check out Patton Oswalt at the Comedy tent. He was pretty amazing. Turns a phrase like no one else. I swear, if I ever said like one of the things that he pulls off three times a sentence, I'd be going around repeating it to everyone I knew for a week. I was in awe listening to him. Obviously, I wasn't the only one, since after a set of mostly bashing hippies, he got a rousing standing ovation. It was pretty impressive. Hippies are pretty cool with taking a joke.
It was about 1:00am by the time he finished up, and we headed back to the tents. The Canadians found some guy who I think might have had drugs, so they went off with him. We get back, and there are three friendly girls from Michigan half laughing at us while we tried to finish putting the rain tarps on our tents. I shouted "Fuck you Engineer!" to my roommate upon finally getting mine up, thinking I was done before him, only to discover he was already long finished and sitting around a citronella candle talking to the girls. They were awesome, but kinda out of control. The most amazing Midwestern accents ever, and on top of that, seemed to only use words and phrases that emphasized their accents, like "Fanny Pack" and "Yellow Jackets." They went on and on about how they were looking forward to statutorily raping teen boys (Consensual, but statutorily, they insisted) and how they looked like lesbian cops (which is why they couldn't score any drugs.) They also peed in a bag in their tent in some makeshift camping toilet they borrowed from a neighbor back home. They were fun.
Later that night, these two guys walked by named Kanu and Something else. They claimed to be married psychiatrists from Missouri (never said where, exactly) and had thick foreign accents, but we didn't buy it. They were older and kind of creepy. Kind of took the inappropriate talk to another level and made everyone uncomfortable. After a while we got them to leave by going to bed. The other guy tried to kiss the girls goodnight or something, but they obviously weren't having it. This was sometime around 4am. After they left, one of the girls deadpanned, "I think we should be more selective who we ask for drugs." Good call.
At some point during the course of the night I broke one of the girls' lawn chairs. I felt really bad about that.
That's it for Thursday. I'll get onto Day 1 (Friday) a bit later. There will probably be more pictures too. I didn't take any Thursday.
Comments