The headliners: Pearl Jam and… Metallica. Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? Hold on, I’ve got to get the phone. It’s 1992 and they want their grunge rock back. I like Metallica a lot, but when you look at the rest of the lineup, they look like an old tank among hybrids and bicycles.
On the other side of the musical spectrum, you’ve got Allman Brothers, Willie Nelson, Bluegrass Allstars, Darkstar Orchestra.
To the lineup’s credit, it’s pretty diverse. Kayne West, M.I.A., Ladytron, and Ghostland Observatory will be RIDIC.
Thanks to ThatGrrl for sending me the link, and I love what she wrote– “And the comedy tent doesn’t suck, either!”
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Tagged as: Concerts, Music, Not Virginia
What?!! No Zepplin?!! Did the mighty Capshaw fail to persuade?
Bonnaroo jumped the shark 3-4 years ago. It was the best festival out there for the first few years. Now it is terrible. The crowd is one of the worst I’ve ever seen at a music festival (and I have been to plenty). It used to be a mostly 20 and 30 something crowd. It’s now full of teenagers looking to get wasted, experiment with drugs that don’t understand, and bum/steal from people who still go for the actual music. Shakedown used to be FUN there. Now it’s sketchy as hell.
Metallica is great, but I believe they are completely against some of the hallmarks of the music that made Bonnaroo great. I wonder if they’re going to shut down the taper section for their show.
I think Petty is a great choice for a mainstream festival headliner, but Jack Johnson, the other headliner, is a terrible person to fill that other slot. Jack used to play nice little afternoon sets on side stages. He does not belong on the main stage at 8 PM.
I miss Bonnaroo so much. I loved it so much when I used to go. The year that the grids came out and I had no hard choices to make (meaning there were never two great bands playing at the same time), I knew it was over. 10LF, All Good, Waka, and Langurado have stayed successful using the same formula year after year. Why Superfly thought Bonnaroo needed change so dramatically is a mystery.
By the way, ticket prices have almost doubled! It’s insane. I think I bought my first Roo ticket for something like $115. Now, it’s $270 with the fees ($30 in fees, including a “facility fee” despite the fact that they now own the farm).
There will be a really crappy Led Zep tribute band there. The media misread the line up and thought Lez Zeppelin was Led Zeppelin.
Superfly, a group that was born out of JazzFest in Nola, runs Bonnaroo. Coran is involved, especially with ticketing, but Superfly is the organizer.
The Zep rumors were definitely flying fast and furious around this festival. Nuthin’ doin’. Although they booked something called “Lez Zepplin.” Feel free to speculate on that one! But there are some hidden gems on the list, IMHO. Aimee Mann. Ben Folds, solo. Teagen and Sara. Jack Johnson. David Cross and Janeane Garafolo in the comedy tent. They also tend to add a few acts, prior to the festival, so there’s still hope for a little more in the offering.
Hey Upstart, has the Nola Jazz fest retained its integrity? I haven’t been in forever.
The problem with the line up is that most of those artists can be seen pretty easily. I’d say the interesting ones are Plant & Krause (unless you live down south, it seems as though you won’t be seeing them come near you) and The Bluegrass Allstars. Seeing Derek Trucks and his wifey play together again might be nice, but it’s not all that rare.
@upstart - did you ever go to all good when it was at wilmer’s farm in brandywine? it turned into the same thing you described regarding bonnaroo; a sketchy drug market with no security and a lot of pills, powders, and hallucinogens. i think they also had some music, if you could still feel your face.
i saw a guy get jumped by a group of kids who beat the crap out of him, stole his money (he was selling nitrous balloons) and his truck, and then tried to run him over on their way out. that was my last trip.
I’d forgotten about Plant and Krauss. They’d be pretty great. But I completely agree that Jack Johnson is not headliner material.
Damn straight, it has! The actual festival at the fairgrounds is as great as it ever was. All those fun stages dedicated to different genres are still there. The two main stages have always been for more mainstream acts.
The night time shows done by Superfly aren’t as numerous since Katrina, but I’d say last year was as good as the year before the storm. There’s clearly an effort made to keep those up to no good out of the French Quarter and other areas where night shows are taking place. I had hear that the area around Frenchman’s Street had gotten really rough, but when we went to a show down there, it was as lively and fun as ever.
The crowds were understandably smaller after the storm, but they were close to “normal” last year.
Go to the French Quarter Festival instead of Jazz Fest. Better weather, better food, and not in a race track. Why you’d travel all the way to Louisiana to be cooped up in an ugly field, sweat like a stuck pig, and eat tourist food, I don’t know.
I’m going. I do agree with Upstart that Bonnaroo has strayed. Of course, I hate dirty hippies and their dirty music, so I don’t mind. I am kind of annoyed that all the big summer festivals are all looking more and more alike. Coachella has a lot of overlap with Bonnaroo, and I bet when the Lollapalooza lineup is released, it’ll look the same too. Maybe in 2009 we’ll see Lollabonnachellapaloozaroo.
I think that was the Phili crowd that brought that element to All Good. They were definitely out in force two years ago when STS9 and Disco Biscuits were booked to play…the sketch factor is high with those bands, in my opinion. But that year, there were so many dealers that it was a buyer’s market and I think that made many of them give up on that festival. Last year was extremely pleasant and it seemed like there were more cooks and artists on Shakedown than tough guys.
If you’re afraid of drugs, you probably wouldn’t go to a music festival of this sort in the first place. But, for the most part, people at All Good can handle themselves. In 2004, when two teenagers died of ODs at Roo, it seemed like Bonnaroo had gone way beyond the sketchiness of other festivals.
I like hippies and “hippie music” and Bonnaroo was a jamband fest for the first few years, but it is in no way a hippie fest anymore. It’s primarily indie rock.
Back in 2002, I imagine the only overlap between Roo and Coachella was The Flaming Lips. The fact that there is so much more overlap these days is proof that Bonnaroo sucks for many of us who loved it in the early years.
So funny that there’s such a difference between year one and, say, year five of a festival.
parlie, I went to All Good. Sounds about right.
BTW, on the topic of New Orleans, Tony Bourdain did a fantastic episode on the city this week on his show, “No Reservations.” My parents lived in New Orleans…until Katrina. I’d have to say that the people Tony interviewed were absolutely the perfect folks to talk to: Chris Rose, a journalist who has come to be the guy who speaks for those who stayed behind; a restaurant critic (whose name esacapes me; my dad knows him) who has been key in helping bolster the revival of the food industry there; a third generation shrimp fisherman who left the law to do what he loves and finds himself fighting red tape as much as the dwindling fish supply; a guy who builds houses in at risk communities; chefs at a training restaurant, set up to give life skills to people who might otherwise be in prison; and Emeril, who spoke mainly about the difficulty of trying to help hundreds of restaurant workers, post-Katrina. Replays again tomorrow at 1 p.m. Highly recommended. For those who don’t know Tony, he’s a sarcastic, wise-cracking chef with a really big heart. Very funny guy.
What channel?
Whoops! Sorry. Travel Channel. So you’ll need that. Comcast Channel 50 is where I watch it.
Thanks, ThatGrrl. I love Bourdain, who I remember hearing say he aspired to be the culinary equivalent to Hunter S. Thompson, and I love Nola. Seems like a great combination!
I like him, too. He’s quite adventurous and really gets to the heart of food and culture.
i think we’re talking about two different all goods. same production company, but the original festival was held at a place called wilmer’s in southern maryland. this was in like 1996-1999 or so. it was, as has been said, a lot of fun for the first few years. i’m not really “afraid of drugs,” but when you’re surrounded by 3,000 people on acid and everybody keeps trying to sell you crank, it keeps you on your toes.
i have recently found an awesome festival that’s managed to retain an air of innocence and safety, but if you think i’m telling the internet about it you’re out of your mind.
Bourdain is my TV boyfriend. Hard to believe that within the past year or so, he’s gotten divorced, remarried, had a kid and stopped smoking. A nonsmoking Tony is completely bizarre. At least he’ll never stop drinking, barring liver failure. Which, considering how much he does drink, seems to be within the realm of possibility. He actually does Jager shots on the Nola show. Heh.
I guess I should rephrase. I don’t mind, and it actually works to my favor, that I have one more festival option this year, with Bonnaroo going full-on “indie” (using the term loosely, as I don’t really understand what it means now). My wife went to the first Bonnaroo and really enjoyed it. I would not have.
I just don’t see how Bonnaroo isn’t shooting themselves in the foot. The first few years, they drew people from all over the country. This year, there is very little reason for anyone to trek across country, as a closer festival will probably incorporate all the same acts. I guess by moving to a more mainstream focus, they just greatly expanded the pool of potential attendees.
It’s too bad. I’d much prefer to be there with people into the music rather than a bunch of people looking to spend the weekend getting fucked up.
All Good has moved around a bit. First I heard of it, it was held in Fredericksburg here in Virginia. Walters Productions runs it and I think they’re out of Maryland, so it’s not far fetched that it would have taken place there for a while. They moved to West Virginia probably in the last five years or so. It’s a beautiful location and there’s a very large Cville contingent that goes up there there.
The festivals down in Floyd and Gore seem to be getting a little bigger these days, with bigger names signing on each year. I think there’s potential there. A lot of people are fed up with mega fests…too many people (too many school kids looking for their first experience with this or that) and so much driving is wearing people out, I guess.
People on hallucinogens don’t scare me. People on meth and heroin definitely scare me because they seem completely unpredictable and are usually desperate for more. You never see people on the prowl for their next hit of psilocybin. They’re more likely to take a nap.
Will you guys care if I don’t do a weekend preview?
Last year, the only person at Bonnaroo who I saw overdoing it at all was a guy ’shrooming at the Flaming Lips midnight show. After he collapsed and the medics helped him out, his friend told us the guy was actually running for a city council spot somewhere in New Jersey. Go Jersey. I guess.
I will say that my experience wasn’t typical. Being a little too precious for my own good, I shelled out the bucks for VIP. Flush toilets? Air conditioned bathrooms? 24-hour shower access? Bleachers for the two main stages (key, when you’re short and generally only see the back of tall heads at a concert)? I wanted it all. But that scene isn’t normal Bonnaroo. The average ages is much older in there. Campsites are larger, giving more privacy. It’s almost peaceful.
Lilith, can’t Thor take that one for you this week? Either that, or just start a thread and I’m sure there are plenty of us here who could fill it in, by posting.
I only went VIP when I went to Roo and then ventued out to the regular camps for Shakedown (though in VIP, the best of Shakedown comes to you). The regular camps are a cess pool.
I went to the first Bonaroo and swore I’d never go back. It was HOT! The toilets were overflowing, and there wasn’t enough water for everyone. I saw one guy who was clearly about to passout from dehydration go up and ask a girl who was selling water for a bottle. “1 for 3, 2 for 5″, she said. “Can’t you help a guy out? I’m desparate here and I have no money, ” he said. “Nope. Sorry” she said. So I went up to her, bought her water and gave it to him. He was grateful, she sucked. The music was good, but too packed together. From what I’ve heard, they’ve fixed some of the health, music problems, but it has definitely turned into a teenage rave of sorts. I guess I’ve just outgrown that.
I agree with most of the comments about B-roo being played out and not worth it. HUGE festivals in general aren’t my thing. The last one I went to was Coventry for Phish and I think that put the nail in the coffin on the big festivals. It’s just so hard to connect to people and meet new folks, plus you can never find your way back to your campsite once you’re effed up and if you detach from your group you may never find them again the whole weekend. A friend of mine went last year and 10 minutes after getting in “lost” his group of friends and didn’t see them again until the end of the festie.
The best festival I went to last year was the Asheville Music Jamboree. Chill scene, swimming lake, BYOB (even in the stage area), no cops, lots of cool people/connections/music jams/etc…
The only band on this year’s lineup I would really want to see is My Morning Jacket anyway, and I’ve heard viable rumors that they’ll be hitting the Pav this summer anyway.
“1 for 3, 2 for 5″ is like a cultural anthem. it can be grilled cheese, bottled water, beers, loose joints… pretty much any basic commodity fits in the 1/3, 2/5 pricing model at festivals. i’m not sure who loves the cliche more, the vendors or the clientele.
You know what perplexes me about festival bathrooms? The shit pyramid pile that sometimes forms in certain porta-potties. You guys know the ones I’m talking about. Where you open the door and the shit and paper (and perhaps used tamps and pads and possibly even a used needle or two) has already crested the bowl and formed a shit pyramid that actually is a mountain of excrement…ABOVE THE BOWL LINE!!!
Who is the guy (or girl) that actually hovers over the bowl to drop that final, perfectly pyramidal bowel movement on top of the fecal festation that has already reached the top of the bowl? I mean, really?!?!?!
WHO ARE YOU?!?!?
parlie, i just pulled the “one for 10, 2 for 15″ move on the beach here in st. martin…
I am wondering if maybe the Zep still might play. Look at the headliners: Jack Johnson, Mettalica and Pearl Jam. Is Jack Johnson really a headliner at the Roo? If it was MMJ or Phil & Friends yeah, but they are saying the 3rd headliner is JOhnson. It would not shock me if there was a late announcement.
@31 - When you gotta go, you gotta go. But if you gotta sit in shit to go, you gotta problem.
“hi, i’m tom d. i like to vacation on exotic tropical islands, you know, to get away from it all, and to use the internet in my bathing suit.”
@33, there was a story (I’m plagiarizing this from another website) about a guy who woke up in the middle of the night with horrible cramps, and fought his way through the festival weirdo darkness to get into a porta just in time to get his pants down and sit it…yeah, that’s right, the shit pyramid.
Dude said he took a bath in Lysol afterwards. Worst ever.
@ #21
He does Jager shots!!!! For Real?!? OMG! He’s out of control! Imagine, a chef drinking shots!
@33 Miami Paper, the Nashville daily paper, “The Tennessean,” quoted someone from Superfly in saying that the lineup was much further along than in previous years. Said not to expect as many late additions as we’re used to. I really doubt Zep would be a late add. You’d want to open with that draw. If they couldn’t get it by now, dollars to doughnuts, they won’t later. Biggest reason: additional cost. Price of tix are set in stone. Additonal acts cut from the bottom line. Small acts probably fit into whatever else they’ve set aside. They wouldn’t set aside enough for Zep on the hope someone could make it happen, if they haven’t by now.
@37 evenstar, I meant it more within the “Tony always has to drink whatever the locals drink, sense.” So, the fact that he drinks Jager was only mentioned to show that he’s continuing his own grand tradition. He drinks shots in every. Single. Show. I just thought it funny that the shot of choice in Nola was Jager. Of course, he was drinking after hours with a bunch of restaurant staff…
The bonaroo festival has some acts I wish Jazz fest had. Sharon Jones and the Dap kings are the best thing I seen in Cville for awhile.
As to those think that French Quarter festival is better than Jazz fest are mistaken. It’s smaller but that does not mean better in this case- most of the acts that play the FQ fest you can see on any weekend in New Orleans any way. The fact that anyone could call what is served at the fair grounds as “tourist food” is sadly misinformed- I have never been to a festival that does food better at that volume. Jazz fest has many charms that bonaroo does not- I’m not saying that Bonaroo isn’t great just that Jazz fest has amenities that are unavailable in the Tenn. countyside. The night life in New Orleans and it’s food just blows away most other cities not just other festivals. Nice hotels vs. camping- nuff said. The late night concerts at Tip’s and the Funky Butt. The art, smaller stages of lesser known acts. What Bonaroo does have is a more flexible lineup of artist- there is, understandably, a local artist bias at Jazz Fest.
Jazz Fests biggest problem is the beer selection- the best beer you can buy is Foster!
Hey! What’s wrong with drinking Abita, when you’re in New Orleans?
Hmmm, bit of a snooze for my money. My Morning Jacket and Drive By Truckers excite me, but not enough to head to Tennessee.
Abita is great - they just don’t serve it at the Festival Fairgrounds and you can’t bring it in. It’s Fosters or some Miller product- they do have very tasty teas however.
You are kidding. You can’t get Abita at the fairgrounds? That’s just wrong. Unbelievable.
i’ll be going to langerado.
better bands, nicer setting. chiller and swankier- way less “to-do”.
This year Langerado is being held at Big Cypress, former site of Big Cypress.
i know
Miami Piper are you a “Miami Native”?
no, I just love the Miami Piper
I’m not going, but I would def. check out lez zep if you do go. I’ve heard very good things, in particular, that the drummer rocks. And besides, the concept is awesome. Especially if you can pull it off.
Whoa, why isn’t evenstar rubbing it in our faces that he/she was right? Hellloooo?
And Bonnaroo rules, y’all. It just does.
I’m far too polite, gracious, and modest.
Meh-tallica.
Sorry. I can never forgive those guys for going from making records like Kill ‘em All (referring to record execs) to being the record industry’s biggest cheerleaders.
Speaking of Roos past, saw a 2004 Bonnaroo “documentary” on one of the movie channels the other day (I think Sundance, in the 150s on Comcast). It’s called “We Have Arrived.” Pretty good concert vid. It’s no Last Waltz, or even the Dead at Winterland, but it’s got some great footage of Dave Matthews and Friends (a band I’d love to see tour again), Gillian Welch, Mule, Trey Anastasio Orchestral and more. Worth checking out.
“In the 60s I made love to many, many women – often outdoors in the mud and the rain – and it’s possible that a man slipped in. There’d be no way of knowing…”
Estaban Colberto is quoting Creed from The Office, Season 3, “Gay Witch Hunt”. Thanks Google.
[…] Park it yourself Metallica breath [Bonnaroo 2008] […]
i love jack johnson which is strange normally i dont like that kind of music. idk its like the only music i think is actually beautiful you know. difficult to explain but i suppose its opinionated. also is it really that it isnt as good as it used to be. i want to go this year but yea for 200+ i wanna bloody make sure im not gonna be fending off punks.
tagaccat@gmail.com i wont be back on this website anyone please email me ive got some questions about it anyways. thanks