Our Bonnaroo so far has ranged from hot and dusty by day to delicious dancing at night. All of the Academy volunteers are doing such a great job, so I have been able to connect with the music, and to these fine souls, I am forever grateful.
The first day of Academy tent workshops seemed surprisingly slow, but this morning, after around 500 people took a yoga class, we had our best crowds yet for theater and painting classes.
Walking around this wild place, I have this to testify: Love to the Clean Vibes people, who provide phenomenal waste recovery infrastructure of a miraculous scale. Litterbugs decorate the grass with plastic at night, and in the morning, Clean Vibes folks sweep the field. They say separation is easier when they do it. Apparently, some inebriated folks don’t understand how to use a recycling bin
A short update of shows so far:
My first show of the festival was an abbreviated version of the Sideshow Bennie experience with Miss Lollypop’s burlesque on the Solar Stage. A fellow traveler from the activist community questioned the relevance to Planet Roo of some of their shtick—like a game of “strip darts”: where the lovely lass threw darts at Bennie’s back, and when she missed, she discarded clothes.
At night, the Black Angels turned up the feedback and fuzzed the freaks with a loud nd lusty contact buzz. Still at “This Tent,” Mute Math provided a passionate sonic surprise, and we found our dancefloor down front.
Leaving Mute Math early for the National, we were disappointed that the show had not begun. What band shows up 30 minutes late for a 60 minute Bonnaroo set? I still stayed for some, and as much as I love this group, it didn’t quite gel as well as it could have.
From Mute Math, I traveled to the tightly packed Troo Lounge for a sweaty, skanking, high-ranking reggae jam with my new best friends called Dubconscious.
During the day, this lounge has tables, and since no one bothered to clear the floor, some of us ended up topless on table tops, shaking our asses and waving our fists. This worked until we worked the table into the ground, in crashing cacophony. Not phased, the people crowd-surfed the table and many chairs out to the perimeter without losing a beat. Amazing. Later, some of us did our best reggae mosh into the final minutes.
Easily, my favorite show far, with Mute Math ranking a close second. The Dubconscious folks allowed me to announce their Academy panel from the stage.
Eli, one of my Academy colleagues and dancing buddies, raced me across the fields to catch some Tea Leaf Green at “The Other Tent.” I danced until ravenous and tired and ready to stroll back to camp for a late-snack and needed sleep.
This morning, I already had my morning music fix with the first few songs of Drops of Water on the Solar Stage, including my favorite, “Forever Wild.” That's the amazing Ashley Ironwood singing above!
Back to work and play until its time to try to post again tomorrow morning!!
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