Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival 2015: Fourth Time’s the Charm!
Friday on the farm was still cool enough to rest. Security was being very strict with water going into Centeroo and made a poor decision by having everyone dump their liquids before going in. This created a huge mud pit before the security checkpoint. The first half of my day was spent enjoying the non-musical aspect of Centeroo. I especially liked this year’s colorful fountain, which was designed by Andrea von Bujdoss of SuperFresh Design. High fives were still going strong, and I noticed a lot more people in costumes today. Since Deadmau5 would be making an appearance later that night as the first EDM headliner to play the What Stage, the Mau5 heads were everywhere! People were willing to endure the heat to support Joel Zimmerman with their own spin on his iconic mask.
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I somehow ended up at the Solar Stage for a Q&A hosted by the Redbull Academy with Big Freedia, a bounce DJ from New Orleans. Aside from being a great producer/DJ, Big Freedia is also known for his show on Fuse as well as being active in the gay community. He shared some of his struggles while rising as a gay producer in New Orleans. The Q&A quickly turned into a twerk fest when the interviewer played “Ya’ll Get Back Now.” Everyone including Big Freedia himself got up and started shaking their stuff. The way they danced, you’d have thought it was going to be their last opportunity to dance all weekend!
Rustie was next on my schedule; I’d been looking forward to this set for some time now. Unfortunately, this was the set that I was most disappointed in. The sound was awful, and it sounded like he was just playing sub bass for twenty minutes. Even with earplugs on, it was too much to endure, and I didn’t want to miss some of the bigger acts on account of my ears hurting.
I left Rustie early and met up with friends to get good viewing space at the What Stage for Brittany Howard and her fantastic band, The Alabama Shakes. Their sophomore album “Sound & Color” was released a month and a half before Roo, which was plenty of time for me to obsess over it. In my opinion, they’ve really perfected their sound and released a flawless album. This was their big return to Bonnaroo since they performed in This Tent. They started their set with the smooth song “Future People” and went on to perform every song on their new album except “This Feeling.” Brittany Howard was magical and hit every note with ease. During a break between songs she told the crowd, “There ain’t a place I’d rather be. This is where I get to be with my family, man.” I really connected with this set and have to say that they were my favorite band of the weekend.
Kendrick Lamar was the first headliner to play the festival this year. This would be his third time at Bonnaroo but his first time headlining. I’ve caught every single one of those performances. Not only was his headlining slot different than previous years, this time he brought a band that he’s been touring with. From the minute he came out performing “Money Trees,” he owned the crowd. When he got to the chorus, he mostly stayed quiet and let the crowd shout every lyric for this favorite from Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. For the first half of his set, Kendrick performed popular tracks from his debut album before finally getting into songs from the critically acclaimed To Pimp A Butterfly such as “i,” “Alright,” “These Walls” (with a much acclaimed guest appearance from Anna Wise) and “King Kunta,” and closed out with “I Am.” It was a big improvement from the previous times I saw him but still could use a little bit of work. Kendrick does this thing when performing where he raps a few words at a time and pauses before saying a few more words. It puts you off when you just want him to rap the verse in a similar manner to how it was recorded on the album. Regardless, he put on a solid headliner-worthy performance which proved that the organizers knew what they were doing when they chose him to headline this year.
The next few hours would be spent jumping from set to set with my friends, catching a few songs from each act we wanted to see. Run The Jewels played first after Kendrick Lamar. El P and Killer Mike walked on stage proudly to Queen’s “We Are The Champions.” Killer Mike’s arm was in a sling, but that didn’t effect his ability to perform one bit. They opened their set with the self-titled track “Run The Jewels.” The visuals on the LED behind them combined with all of the bright flashing lights and the DJ’s ridiculous scratching skills brought so much energy to this set. The crowd jumped higher and cheered louder with every song, even chanting “RTJ” while making the group’s logo with their hands. Killer Mike told the crowd, “Me and El have been all around the world, but it’s good to be in a place where you can get some grits and a god damn Waffle House is open.” I’m very proud of how far these two individuals have come. Not only are they great lyricists, they are very outspoken about problems in our community and care about what’s going on. El P embraced the crowd and told everyone that when they entered the tent, a gigantic invisible thirty-six-inch chain was put around our neck and we were now official members of the RTJ family, which comes with privileges. He gave such an incredible speech that I feel the need to share it with you verbatim, but I warn that it does contain foul language.
“The main privilege being that anytime some piece of shit, pedophile, war-mongering war leader tries to tell you what the fuck you’re going to make of your life and what the fuck we’re going to turn this world into as we pry it from their dead twitching pale disgusting hands… Everytime a motherfucker tries to tell you that you’re not going to do the job you want, that you’re not going to marry the person you want, that you’re not going to be the person that you’re supposed to be… You can tell them to suck your motherfucking dick or whatever else it is you may have because you have a giant thirty-six-inch chain around your neck! That’s what being a Jewel Runner is all about.”
My crew and I made our way to Earth Wind & Fire, where these legends had the crowd feeling like we had just jumped into a time machine. Their synchronized dancing and songs of happiness made me wish that I was born in a different era. “Boogie Wonderland” took me back to the days where my dad would carry me as a child and dance with me in the living room. At one point they told the crowd, “To most of you, our songs are like your alphabets. Some of you were even conceived to our music.” Seeing how my father was a disco DJ and my mother really enjoyed dancing, I can only hope that she was woo’d to such beautiful music. A lot like Bobby Womack the year before, this set gave me a deep appreciation for their soulful music. I only wish that the music was louder… Maybe three times as loud as it was. Sound was a much bigger problem this year than it has ever been at Bonnaroo. I could hear everyone talking around me and kept trying to get closer so I could get the full effect. I was heartbroken when we finally got a decent spot and my friend asked if we could go see Deadmau5. Although I wanted to stay more than anything, he stuck with me through EWF so it was only fair. In retrospect, I would have liked to separate only because I heard Chance The Rapper and Kendrick Lamar came out to perform with them later.
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Deadmua5 brought ridiculous production to the festival. The dome was first introduced during Gov Ball the week before but had since gotten all of the kinks worked out. I personally wasn’t enjoying the show as much as my partners in crime were. It was very minimal/tech-y with a lot of long breaks and big build-ups with little payoff. It’s what I expected from his set though, so I made the best of it. Bonnaroo comes alive when the sun goes down. The El-wire on costumes were illuminating bright, and the glowsticks that were snuck in for the purpose of being thrown in the air during a big drop really made the experience for me. It’s impossible not to dance and have a good time when there are so many smiling faces around you. During the day, it can be kind of bothersome when people are constantly moving around you in a packed crowd trying to get somewhere, but at night, not so much. Instead, it’s an opportunity to show someone some love for the two seconds you see them in passing. Whether it be a high five or a dance move that they join you in, the love is always reciprocated.
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After losing one of our crew members to an intimate set with her pillow and air mattress, we moved on to Odesza‘s set where it was so packed that we couldn’t make it anywhere near the tent. Instead, we danced on the outskirts to songs such as “I Want You,” their remix of Beat Connection’s “Saola,” and took a few pictures with random strangers. We hit the bathroom before heading to catch the last ten minutes of FlyLo. The bathroom situation this year was probably the best I’ve seen on the farm. The flushable toilets with the workers cleaning it after every person dropped a load was god-like. Almost every flushable Porta that I entered had toilet paper and didn’t look like thousands of people used it. I can’t say the same about the urination walls though. They expected people who only use the bathroom when their bladders are about to burst to urinate in a small canal that was as thin as a pencil. The result, of course, was a lake of urine and mud, but we made it work.
Flying Lotus brought his 3D light show to the farm, which was really impressive. We arrived just in time to hear “Zodiak Shit.” The tent wasn’t as packed as I expected it to be with the crowd stopping near the sound engineers. People continued arriving after they realized that FlyLo was going to play past his set time. Although it was a smaller crowd, it was obvious that these were the die-hard fans and refused to leave the stage even after it seemed he was finished. This caused him to come out and play around with the crowd telling them to go to sleep until he eventually jumped back on the decks. It was everything you could’ve wanted when arriving to a FlyLo set.
Despite the fantastic head-nodding beats that he continued dropping, we lost another crew member to that thing we call sleep. It was down to Carlos Castro and I. We grabbed some orgasmic mini donuts by the Who Stage and enjoyed them for the remainder of Sound Tribe Sector 9‘s set. At this point, we had enough energy to enjoy the set while sitting at a table fighting sleep. A wise man told me earlier that day that sleep deprivation is almost a drug in itself, and I think I was starting to feel it. It was time to call it a night.