Headstash

Top 10 Moments And More From Bonnaroo 2012

Photo Credit: Marc Shapiro

Bonnaroo has changed. It’s obvious to everyone who remembers the days when Widespread Panic and The Dead would headline multiple days supported by bands like The String Cheese Incident, The Disco Biscuits and members of Phish during their hiatus. That hiatus was the impetus and opportunity Bonnaroo needed to position itself as one of the most important musical gatherings of the last decade.

Born from the spirit and community of the jam scene, Bonnaroo has grown to become a fully mainstream event that taps into every imaginable genre, cultivating the best musicians and artists for a weekend of monumental collaborations.

Fans of the older, headier Bonnaroo have certainly felt the growing pains. From rumors of MTV buying the event to an explosion of mainstream acts (and fans) across the board, the look and more importantly, the vibe is different.

[FIND complete lineups, ticketing information and analysis via our 2012 Festival Guide.]

Photo Credit: Marc Shapiro

But this is nothing new. Over the last half-decade each lineup has brought a more diverse lineup, and not surprisingly, a more diverse crowd. “Bros” gawked and stared at patchwork-clad heads grooving with their LED hoops and relished at the opportunity to see the hippie in its natural habitat.

Bonnaroo is still the single greatest festival event in this country if not the world – but it is no longer a jam festival. The sooner you accept that the sooner you can embrace the event for what it’s become: a world-class musical gathering that exposes the best musicians in the world to eager new fans.

Keep in mind that Bonnaroo is perhaps the only festival that is uniquely positioned to bring you the best of the mainstream (Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers) alongside the best of the jam scene (Phish, Umphrey’s McGee) as well as scores of other talented musicians who fall somewhere in the middle of (and sometimes light years from) that spectrum.

Generalizations aside, here are the top 10 moments from this year’s Bonnaroo Music Festival:

1. Country Phishing. Trey gushed about the opportunity Bonnaroo provides artists to meet and collaborate with other musicians. In true Bonnaroo fashion, the preeminent jam band in the country invited country legend Kenny Rogers to join them early during the first set for a rousing sing-along of Roger’s “The Gambler.”

2. Thom Yorke is a tease. Before launching in to their new track “Supercollider,” Radiohead’s Thom Yorke coyly teased the crowd saying, "This song is for Jack White. We saw him yesterday. A big thank you to him, but we can't tell you why. You'll find out soon enough." Jack White’s Nashville, Tennessee based Third Man Records is only a short drive away from Bonnaroo. Perhaps there’s collaboration in the works.

3. Reggie Watts cares about melanoma. Multi-talented beat boxer, vocalist and comedian Reggie Watts wandered Centeroo, offering Bonnaroovians various degrees of sunscreen protection from his handy SPF tool belt.

4. Legendary infamy. New-grass superstars The Infamous Stringdusters threw down a chilling cover of the Garcia/Hunter classic “He’s Gone,” as well as a fantastic tease of The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood”

5. Big Umphrey’s, Gigantic McGee. If you’re Umphrey’s McGee and are currently in the middle of a two-set late-night banger, how do you make sure your sleep-deprived fans don’t wander back to their campsites during set break? Simple. You invite Dom Lalli and Jeremy Salken of Big Gigantic up to perform a mini-set while you head backstage to grab a drink. The sax-led duo belted out a few of their hits before Umph returned to the stage to form a wild super-group for a couple tracks.

6. Dawn of the Umph. The heavy-metal inspired jammers powered through two unbelievable late-night sets that saw covers like AC/DC “Thunderstruck” and a reggae version of Pink Floyd’s “Breathe” alongside their classic original, “Wizard Burial Ground,” drive the band to the early sunrise.

7. Fit for the Flea circus. The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ eccentric, 50-year-old bassist walked across the stage on his hands before gushing about the sense of peace and inspiration he felt during Bonnaroo. It just goes to show that Bonnaroo is as exciting for the musicians as it is for the fans.

8. Parading through the grounds. Reminiscent of Bonnaroo’s earlier years when groups like the Preservation Hall Jazz Band would parade through the campgrounds in true N’awlins fashion, The Alabama Shakes were joined by Rhys Darby (of Flight of the Conchords fame) in leading a soulful march to the infamous fountain where Jansen Skivvy and The Soul Rebels played the night away.

9. Weekend fuel. Who says Thursday night, is a warm-up? Sometime after the Mardi Gras revelry, Taiwanese-American chef Eddie Huang drove his food truck around Centeroo throwing out sandwiches to hungry Bonnaroovians.

10. D’Reappearance. Bonnaroo’s super jams are known for being the stuff of legends. Collaborations like 2007 in which Led Zeppelin’s bassist John Paul Jones, Ben Harper, and The Roots’ ?uestlove came together for a sultry, rock-inspired throwdown, or 2011’s soulful jam session with Dr. John and The Black Keys’ Dan Aurebach come to mind. This year’s edition did not disappoint. Organized by ?uestlove, R&B superstar D’Angelo emerged after 10 years of hibernation to stand behind the mic.

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Photo Credit: Marc Shapiro

Magical Moments – a personal account by Marc Shapiro

I had never experienced the magic of a Phish glowstick war until seeing the band close out Bonnaroo this year.

Sunday was quite a magical night. As Phish jammed with telepathic tightness, two friends and I crawled around on the ground collecting glow sticks to prepare for the next big moment or peak. And it was hard to choose with such an incredible Phish set, full of big moments.

When Phish was done, it was hard to accept that the music was over. Luckily, it wasn’t, as we stumbled upon New York-based band Fundimensionals playing in a vendor tent on Shakedown Street. Not only did they keep the jammed-out dance party going until 5:00 a.m., I also became somewhat a part of the show.

Photo Credit: Marc Shapiro

I saw that the percussionist had a djembe he wasn’t using, so I hopped on it with his permission and jammed on and off with the band for a good hour or so. I was getting cheers from the front row – like I said, magical.

It was the perfect end to a four-day musical playground – a festival where you could catch 15 bands in one day if you really wanted to.

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We knew we had arrived when Rubblebucket played on the Solar Stage Thursday afternoon. Their horn-infused mix of dance-pop and Afrobeat really got things started. The energy at the stage was incredible. They sent robots into the crowd to dance and the trumpet player crowd surfed with his horn, playing a bit while the audience passed him around.

Horns and female vocals became a theme of the weekend. Tune-Yards’ amazing vocal range was coupled with two horns and her tribal looping techniques.

Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings funked up the main stage with their old-school soul sound and St. Vincent provided some of the festival’s only face melting from a female guitarist.

Photo Credit: Marc Shapiro

One the great things about Bonnaroo is catching music you didn’t expect to see. I found myself overwhelmed by the amount of international music I heard. There was African music, Latin music, Afro-Cuban music and more. And most of the bands were huge with backup singers, horn sections and auxiliary percussionists.

Bonnaroo was full of many only-at-Bonnaroo moments, several of which came in the form of cover songs. Festivalgoers heard Flogging Molly play Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and The Punch Brothers cover Radiohead and Beck.

Even Alice Cooper hopped on the cover train, nodding to Pink Floyd via “Another Brick in the Wall” in a segue from “School’s Out.”

Only at Bonnaroo could a huge P-Funk fan like myself stumble upon a one-off collaboration featuring original Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell playing jazz interpretations of Sly and The Family Stone songs with a New York-based jazz band. That set was billed as Steven Bernstein’s MTO Plays Sly (featuring Bernie Worrell).

Photo Credit: Marc Shapiro

The best part of the musically overwhelming weekend was that every single band, from the smallest stage to the largest, absolutely brought their A-game.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers played some of the tightest improvisational sections of the weekend. They even busted out some seldom-performed songs from their catalog, including the funky “If You Have to Ask” and riff-rocker “Suck My Kiss” from 1991’s classic album “Blood Sugar Sex Magik.”

RHCP bassist Flea was clearly into the Bonnaroo spirit and spoke excitedly between songs about catching Radiohead, Santigold, Dumpstaphunk and an eclectic variety of other acts. After a blazing two-hour set, he left the audience with a plea to support live music, whatever it may be.

To me, that’s what Bonnaroo is all about: supporting the collective artistic community and helping create those one of a kind moments that could only happen in Manchester, Tennessee in June.

 

 

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