So...Bonnaroo: Day 1

Read about Day 0 (Thursday) here.
See pictures from Day 1 here.
Read the Gothamist review of Day 1 here.

I was up around 8:00 nearly sweating through my sleeping bag. It got pretty cold when I went to sleep so I was kind of bundled up, but once the sun came out, it was like sleeping in a toaster oven. Unbearable. I guess I had gotten around three and a half hours of sleep and I was supergroggy, but I came around eventually. We spoke to another couple that was camping near us for a bit about some stuff. The usual...what are you gonna see, where you from, etc.

The Canadian Guy comes stumbling back to the site around 8:30. He hadn't slept all night. Had gotten really stoned, then really lost and was wandering around the campsite all night looking for his tent. It seems pretty hard to get that lost at a campground, but seeing the whole space in the daylight made it seem perfectly possible. The place was huge. Tents and cars as far as you could see. I don't even think that picture up there really does it justice, cause I am sure there is even more than that behind the shot and off to the sides.

Anyway, we lay around and try and wake up. There are plans made to try and catch Andrew Bird first, but I need to head back to the press area to get some sort of orientation. I leave our spot around 11 and head down to what ultimately was a waste of time. It was mostly rules about the photo passes and access. I didn't have one of those, so it didn't apply to me. I quickly realize two things:

A. I have bitch access compared to almost everyone else out there. Most have a guest wristband, which gets them preferred camping and bleacher seats at the big stages, many have photo passes. A good number have "Why" laminates, which seem to act as all access passes. The Artists had these. It allowed you to stand on the side of the stage and watch the bands, among other things I'm sure. Anyway, this hardly bothered me. It was my first year covering it, I was writing for a blog, which still has a negative connotation. I was really just happy to be there tho. How could I complain?

B. everyone takes all this so goddamn seriously. I don't understand how these people are supposed to report on a festival when all they do is work. Yea, this might be the most amateur thing I've written in years, but you can't honestly cover something like this if you keep to the photo pit and the press tent. That would be like only reporting from the finish line of a triathlon. Sure, you get the result, and there are likely some telling pictures to be snapped, but what about the swimming? The biking? Who got hurt, who lost the lead when? I tripped over more stories walking to the port-o-potties in the middle of the night than these people even knew existed.I don't know how many press people there were down there, but lets say 1000. At least 900 of them will report the exact same story.  That's a drag! They should have at least some people reporting on the actual experience...the good and the bad. Not just from the sterile perspective the press are given.

So that's a big rant, and I dunno if it came right, but it just struck me right then when I was surrounded by them. As if the 400 pound dude with a $2000 camera and a special wristband that has 'golf cart' printed on it cause he's too fat to make it from stage to stage could really tell you what it's like to be at Bonnaroo.

So, as I say on Gothamist, the music during the day was really excellent. I mean, not just, yea the bands were good, but really some of the best sets I've seen these bands play. Festivals rarely get the best out of the bands, but this one, especially on Friday, got it. It was great.

Fast Forward to the end of the day. MMJ is over, and my camera battery is nearly dead. I charged my Sidekick during Tom Petty, and that was pretty good to go, but the camera wouldn't make it another day. I wander back to the press trailer and plug in my battery charger into a socket in an unused strip and leave it there for the night. From there, I make a really bad decision. I was really sore and tired. I needed to go to bed, but I decide to wander around the backstage area to a preferred campsite where they have showers. I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to be back there, but nobody really stops me so I dip into a big blue trailer and try to rinse off. It was cold, and didn't help my aching back and legs at all. A little soap someone left behind probably went a long way towards keeping me functional, however. I quietly get dressed and snuak back out. As I learned later, security at this thing really don't give a fuck. Before I got to the area where I showered, I went the other way which I guess was the artist's campground. I was all about to walk through, no problem, till I ask if this is where the media showers were. She seemed confused since the concept of media showers is pretty made up, but only when I said that did she realize I didn't belong where I was and made me go back. Lesson? You have to try really hard to not be allowed in somewhere at Bonnaroo.

That should have been the end of the night, but it didn't really work like that. I thought I had figured out how to get back to my tent real quick, but went down the wrong road and got super lost, not unlike our Canadian friend 24 hours earlier. I wandered around the main camping grounds and asked everyone I could how to get back to the giant 7 balloon. Everyone told me different things and I wound up walking around in circles till the sun started to come up. Bummer. I knew I was only gonna have a few more hours to sleep before the tent-oven started up again, and I really could have used a good night sleep. I finally found my way back, getting in bed sometime around 5:30am. Over two hours after MMJ finished up. This was not part of the plan. Of course, I can't fall right asleep, so I start to flip through the schedule to see what was up for the next day. I don't even know what I'm really looking at. Then I hear the ruffle of the Canadians in the tent next to me as they start to wake up. I hadn't seen them since right before Petty, and have no clue what they had been up to, but they were ready to start day 2 and I was trying to end day 1. I forced myself to try and sleep for a few hours, tho the thought of just staying up crossed my mind a few times. I think I got about two and a half hours of sleep before I woke up in another sleeping bag full of sweat.

Comments

[ryan97ou]

I totally agree with you on the press coverage of festivals. I have been to coachella for three years and when i read the stories i always say to myself "were you even AT this festival?" I loved how not one person wrote about the mind blowing daft punk performance. thanks for the bonarroo write up...super jealous i couldn't make it.