Bonnaroo in Review
Yah, the title rhymes. If you didn't notice it, you're a doosch bag.
Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival 2006 was one of the finest weekends I've ever had. You simply cannot compare anything to the uncomplicated joy of sitting in a field, drinking beer with old friends, and listening to live music. I wish it were a week long, rather than a few days, and it's a major bummer to be back in Buffalo and back in the office.
Now without further adieu
I give you
Bonnaroo in review ...
The Cast:
The Paragon of Masculine Prowess - Michael Sherry
The Savage - Mike Mumbach
The World's Most Fearsome Pirate - Ryan Rosiek
The Spastic Kid - Jared Sanson
The Chaperone - John Fraser
He Who Loves Fresh Fruit - Jeff McNaughton
Harry Potter - Adam Fierle
The adventure began, for me, Thursday morning when I ventured into the madness of aerial travel. I deftly, albeit grumpily navigated the swirling crowds of tourists and security personell and managed to ultimately seat myself on the plane which promptly hurled itself at several hundred miles an hour through 25,000 feet of atmosphere toward Charlotte, NC. Almost incredibly, it arrived safely where I was picked up by the Savage in his slick new fire-engine-red Pontiac Solstice convertible. Not a bad little way to get around, all things considered. I spent the next two hours hiding silently in Mumbach's room while he went back to work - seems he neglected to tell his young, female roomate that he had a guest coming, and I was not keen on having her call the police on me. It was a long, quiet two hours - I felt like a CIA operative or something.
Alas, Mike returned after what seemed like an eternity, and we set out to accomplish the evening's business, which was to shop, exchange cars with Mike's co-worker, and then eat, drink, and be merry. The first was accomplished relatively quickly with but two hold-ups - the first to locate and purchase hippie soap (we wouldn't be showering for three days), and the second to load up the Savage-mobile which is less than accomodating on the subject of grocery space. We had to fit $130 worth of shit in a trunk that might have easily fit a bag of apples, but not much else. We "got 'er done", to use the parlance of our times, and sped off to exchange the Savage-mobile for a more sizable and camping-friendly Four-Runner SUV. Seeing all the beer we had, the owner of the SUV muttered "fuckin' New Yorkers" and we laughed mightily. We found a place to eat, requested a seat outside, and then skirmished uncomfortably as the southern waitress insisted my liscense was fake. Nevertheless, she scampered off and returned with my draft beer, a strange brew I had no previous experience with called "Stella." It was crisp and refreshing, and I drank of it with pleasure and refreshment, and ordered more and more over the next two hours so that I might continue quenching my thirst. The Eternal Mumbach ordered cigarettes for us, which was another local custom that blew me totally out of the water, and we smoked greedily.
We hit the road at approximately 12:15AM - the plan was to arrive in Knoxville at 4:00 where we would be meeting the Pirate, the Spastic Kid, and our Chaperone for the weekend at 6:00. We were to spend the two hours inbetween either sleeping in a parking lot or slugging coffee at an all-night diner. We listened to RHCP "Stadium Arcadium" as well as the comedy station on Satellite Radio, and we kicked it old style. When we hit Knoxille, Sevier, the road we were to meet on, turned out to be a network of backroads that split and turned in every direction, and we were baffled. We drove around for a bit and finally called the Chaperone, who, much to our surprise, was also driving around Sevier at that very moment, two hours early. We met them at the all-night landromat across from the Bale Bond Brokerage, and then hit the road again, Bonnaroo-bound.
The Spastic Kid decided to drive like a maniac, so the Savage and I wound up about five miles behind them, but it was of no consequence. We arrived in Manchester, TN around 7:00 in the morning and stopped to pick-up Fierle and McNaughton at a gas-station just outside the event. Mumbach emptied his bowels mightily, which drew the ire of Fraser who needed to go and was of little mind to be patient. Fierle and McNaughton illegaly purchased beer by paying off the cashier, since it was too early for alcohol sales. We then saddled up and mosied on into the campgrounds.
Right off the bat, we're off to a bad start. The tall goofy black guy who checked out car stole two 12-packs from us because they were in glass bottles. No reimbursement, no arrangements to retrieve them later, nothing. He just stole them. He then asked us: "Do you have any drugs or illegal substances?" to which we replied "No." This prompted him to ask "Are you sure?" as if this would cause us to break down and tell him the truth. We told him no again, and he finally waved us through. We got in line with the Chaperone's car and Fierle's car, and then we got cut off by a wild hippie maniac who came roaring across the totally wide-open field to join up with our three cars. And, if this was his plan, god forbid he get behind us or go in front of us. No, it was as if he were in the midst of bumper-to-bumper highway traffic, and he sped in recklessly between the Four-Runner and the rest of the caravan. He then paused to ask every single person who directed traffic which was he was supposed to go, which was stupid because they were already pointing the way you were supposed to go AND all the other cars were going that way. Nevertheless, we parked our caravan and set about establishing camp.
Establishing camp was fun. Jared brought a tent the size of a football stadium, and the only direction on the whole sheet that I understood was the one that said "Keep the corners taut." So I made sure to remind everyone over and over that we needed to keep it taut while the more hands-on people there managed to actually erect the goddamn thing over the next three hours. We built a woodshed off the side and slung a tarp between the tent and the four-runner for shade, and McNaughton then magically produced a briefcase that turned into a four-seater picnic table. If I ever meet the man who invented that thing, I will blow him.
So now it was 8:00 in the morning, and here we are sitting in a field, the sun beating down, with about a hundred cases of beer, and not one of us having any sleep - that is, except for the bastards in Fraser's car who slept in shifts. As for the rest of us, we wanted to catch some shut eye, but it was too damn hot, and we were too damn excited, so while a couple individuals drifted in and out of the stadium/tent to try and nap with varying degrees of success, the rest of us got into the beer. I wish every single day of my life started out in exactly this way. The time passed with extreme sluggishness considering how much fun we were having. Everytime we asked for an update, and felt sure it must be almost noon, we found out it was only 9:30 or so. I guess this is what happens when you start drinking hours and hours earlier than you expected. In any event, we eventually headed into "Centeroo" where all the acts and stages were and caught part of Ben Folds.
Who was good, but about half of us were about to pass out from the heat. We thought some food might help, so Jared, Rosiek, Mumbach and myself limped over to Zorba the Greek's where we were charged ten dollars for this thing they tried to tell us was a wrap. In reality, it was a shell in which they chucked some beans and lettuce and frozen sour cream and a strip of chicken and then probably took your ten dollars over to the strippers instead of going home to watch the kids. The food didn't help, and the four of us felt we were very close to death so we crawled around looking for help. We couldn't get into the comedy tent because there was a line as long as the prime meridian standing outside of it. But just as things seemed altogether hopeless we finally discovered one of "those trees." You know the ones - I'm talking about the trees where sick and/or injured animals come to die. There was probably fifty people laying around under this tree, all miserable, and we joined them. After sleeping for probably an hour, we leapt up, refreshed, and ready to navigate the hippie-crowds anew. Guess what happened. We found a giant mushroom sculpture shooting cold water everywhere no more than forty feet from where we were sleeping!! We thought it might have been a mirage, but as we got closer we could tell it was real, so we hung around for a while getting cool and trying to see which girls were wearing white t-shirts. A lot of them were, but they were the fat ones.
We headed off, watched another band for a bit, and eventually wound up back at the water. Jared, class-act that he is, was standing on a bench and suddenly broke into a wry grin and leaned over to inform us that he just farted in a girl's face. For some reason, we just couldn't figure out why the girls weren't flocking to us. Nevertheless, after watching the lamest mud-wrestling match ever, we staked out our spot at Death Cab for Cutie. We watched with interest as a girl fifteen feet in front of us was almost eaten by the biggest bug any of us had ever seen - we assumed it was a praying mantis. Somehow, she managed never to notice that it was sitting on her shoulder, and nobody told her. It finally flew away as she stood up, and a strange guy came over to ask us if she ever noticed it so we were relieved to find out we weren't the only heartless bastards.
Death Cab was good, but we left early to get a good spot for Petty. In doing so, we caught the last part of Oysterhead, which is Trey Anastasio's (of Phish fame) new band. Very impressive - a jam band like Phish, but unlike Phish it was heavier rock and roll with some punch. They had an album out in 2001 and I plan on picking it up. When Oysterhead finished we shoved our way through all the hippies and got within fifty feet of where Petty himself would soon be standing. We stood for almost two hours waiting for the show to start, while hippies filled in a wall two-thirds of a mile thick behind and around us. 80,000 people in one place is quite a sight to behold. Petty finally came on at 9:00, and he blew everyone out of the water. It was my fourth show, and though it's too early to committ to this, I suspect it may be the best I've seen yet. Petty and the boys really fed off the crowd's energy, and vice versa, and at times you couldn't even hear Petty singing over the crowd who was screaming, singing every word to every song, and dancing. It was absolutely wild, and an experience I will NEVER forget as long as I live. I just hope I can eventually forget the strange hippie couple who was on some strange drug(s) and kept nudging people out of their way as they drifted about in each other's arms, kissing, smiling creepily, and petting each other. It was very gratifying when the crazy Petty-fan babe shoved them back about ten feet. Plus there was a chick fight before the show when one girl spiked a beach ball into another girl's head. What a great night. I used a hole roll of film on Petty.
Day two was just as good (with the exception of their being no Petty to speak of). Those of us with the biggest balls shook off the exaustion and started drinking beer as early as 9:30. At some point in the afternoon a hippie set up a tank and baloons about twenty-five feet away from us. For five bucks you got a big ol' baloon filled with nitrous. Seemed stupid to me to spend five bucks for something like that, but others in our clique felt okay about it. So for about two minutes they both got really silly and laughed at everything, and it was then that Jared laid an eerily spot-on impression from "Old School" on us. In a deep, slow voice, he suddenly said "You got a fuckin' dart in your neck, man," and we all stood there gaping in awe. It was as if somebody had just put the movie on - seriously, it was that exact. The nitrous does that to your voice. But it passes quickly, and it was back to good ol' drinking. Except that the guy kept offering us baloons in exchange for cold water, which I was cool with - as long as he wasn't taking five dollars from me. So we were passing around community baloons and getting high for 60-80 seconds at a time, and Fraser kept heading over to buy more, and it was an odd, surreal scene, and I can't count on a TI graphing calculator the number of times we kept saying "You got a fucking dart in your neck, man," adding, "You gotta pull that shit out, that shit is not cool."
Eventually the gang split up, with everyone except me, Jared, and Mumbach going into Centeroo. The three of us stayed behind and lamented the fact that we didn't have a funnel. Mumbach suggested shotgunning, which made us all realize that we'd never shotgunned before - this meant we had an obligation to do it. And we did it. And we kept doing it. And we had a pile of probably twenty-five beer cans between the three of us by the time we were done shot gunning beers. Then we finally headed off to Centeroo, Jared in nothing but a bathing suit and drunk off his ass, but not before stopping at the body painting tent to watch the girls get their boobs painted up. We might have lingered their longer, except that when the girl who was on at that moment was finished, a guy ran up and insisted he be next. About twenty angry guys walked away muttering and threatening to beat him up. I hope somebody did.
In Centeroo, Mike and Jared fell asleep for Beck, which didn't surprise me. I wanted to see Blues Traveler who made their bones as a jamming live band over a decade ago, so I finally woke them up and we headed over to see them. We only got their in time for the last two songs, but it was worth it. I hope to see them when they come to Thursday in the Square this summer. Very talented, very good act. After Blues Traveler we went to the mushroom water, but there was an unfortunate shortage of babes. There was a naked guy, but the only good thing about that was that his dumb ass fell. We eventually got over to Radiohead, but we didn't last long. It was an obscure and uninspired set, and we joined the throngs of people fleeing the tortured and constant wailings of Thom Yorke. We high-tailed it back to the campsite, stopping again at the body painting tent, and we forced Jared to shotgun a beer. We hung there for a while, Mumbach tried to sneak away and go to sleep but we kept him up and headed back to Centeroo, after stopping again at the body painting tent. We rolled over to the New Orleans Jazz tent, and caught a pretty slick act there - a guy named Bones who played the stand-up bass and was backed by a drummer. He sang like he was growling, and kind of sounded like Screaming Jay Hawkin's, but not entirely. We liked it a lot, but he skipped out after only three songs and they started passing out bingo cards. We bailed and headed over to Superjam, which was a late night session featuring a couple guys from Phish and some other musicians. We sat right behind a group of people, among whom was an inexplicably topless girl, so that was cool. As she was walking away, Mumbach fired off a wild hipshot photo from thirty feet away in the dark, but he swears he caught some side-boob. We'll see when the pictures get developed.
Superjam wasn't starting for a while, so we got bored without boobs to look at and wondered back over to the jazz tent. Some fucking idiot with a mask on was running around the tent calling the bingo game, and screaming the oddest things like "B-27. Doesn't that get you excited, mother fuckers!?! B-27!!" We heckled him for a while with shouts of "play music!" and "shut the hell up!" but we weren't accomplishing anything, so once again it was back over the Superjam tent. This time they were playing, and jamming pretty hard. Once again, I was very impressed with Trey's ability to rock. Glow sticks were flying everywhere and people were really into it. Good times. Then it was back to the campsite around 1 in the morning, and we found Fraser there ... somewhere inbetween passed out and awake, and laughing to himself inexplicably. He swore he'd been in the other chair with the rest of the group around him, and suddenly he was in this chair with nobody there except us slowly approaching. He regaled us with stories of getting lost, asking for directions, walking by a herd of cows, etc. Eventually we all hit the sack.
So Sunday was depressing. It was pack up and say goodbye time. Some of us headed back in for some last second pleasures, but by now my sun rash was breaking out all over my arms and hands and I was miserable. Me and Mike hit the road around 1. And guess what happened ...
As we're driving through the camp ground, a girl comes up to the car crying and begs us to follow her. Her jeep stopped working and her and her friend need a jump. Now, these are attractive blonde girls, and they are there by themselves as far as we can tell. We give them a jump and they invite us to stick around for a beer and tell us they're staying until tomorrow morning. Driving away was one of the hardest things me and Mike have ever had to do. This is one of those "too good to be true" situations, and there was absolutely NOTHING we could do about it. All we could do was console ourselves by saying "Hey, if we hadn't been leaving already, we never would have seen them anyway, so it was lose-lose." But we won't lie ... we were tempted to call off of work and cancel my flight back to Buffalo - just to see. Ah, fate!
Anyways, to sum up, it was a fucking blast. I had the time of my life, and I know the other guys did too. I hope they get some decent bands again next year because I'd love to go out there again with the same crew and do it all again. I've got two rolls of film to get developed, and I'm going to put them in a photoalbum along with my ticket and wristband. Then I'm going to print up all the funny quotes from the weekend scatter them around in there as well. It will be a cool little keepsake. So anyways, thanks to all the guys who came, I had a great time hanging out with you and seeing the bands. If you didn't come, don't say it's because I didn't invite you. Little tip - save your money and plan on coming next year. You won't regret it.
Leave comments.
A presto ...
Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival 2006 was one of the finest weekends I've ever had. You simply cannot compare anything to the uncomplicated joy of sitting in a field, drinking beer with old friends, and listening to live music. I wish it were a week long, rather than a few days, and it's a major bummer to be back in Buffalo and back in the office.
Now without further adieu
I give you
Bonnaroo in review ...
The Cast:
The Paragon of Masculine Prowess - Michael Sherry
The Savage - Mike Mumbach
The World's Most Fearsome Pirate - Ryan Rosiek
The Spastic Kid - Jared Sanson
The Chaperone - John Fraser
He Who Loves Fresh Fruit - Jeff McNaughton
Harry Potter - Adam Fierle
The adventure began, for me, Thursday morning when I ventured into the madness of aerial travel. I deftly, albeit grumpily navigated the swirling crowds of tourists and security personell and managed to ultimately seat myself on the plane which promptly hurled itself at several hundred miles an hour through 25,000 feet of atmosphere toward Charlotte, NC. Almost incredibly, it arrived safely where I was picked up by the Savage in his slick new fire-engine-red Pontiac Solstice convertible. Not a bad little way to get around, all things considered. I spent the next two hours hiding silently in Mumbach's room while he went back to work - seems he neglected to tell his young, female roomate that he had a guest coming, and I was not keen on having her call the police on me. It was a long, quiet two hours - I felt like a CIA operative or something.
Alas, Mike returned after what seemed like an eternity, and we set out to accomplish the evening's business, which was to shop, exchange cars with Mike's co-worker, and then eat, drink, and be merry. The first was accomplished relatively quickly with but two hold-ups - the first to locate and purchase hippie soap (we wouldn't be showering for three days), and the second to load up the Savage-mobile which is less than accomodating on the subject of grocery space. We had to fit $130 worth of shit in a trunk that might have easily fit a bag of apples, but not much else. We "got 'er done", to use the parlance of our times, and sped off to exchange the Savage-mobile for a more sizable and camping-friendly Four-Runner SUV. Seeing all the beer we had, the owner of the SUV muttered "fuckin' New Yorkers" and we laughed mightily. We found a place to eat, requested a seat outside, and then skirmished uncomfortably as the southern waitress insisted my liscense was fake. Nevertheless, she scampered off and returned with my draft beer, a strange brew I had no previous experience with called "Stella." It was crisp and refreshing, and I drank of it with pleasure and refreshment, and ordered more and more over the next two hours so that I might continue quenching my thirst. The Eternal Mumbach ordered cigarettes for us, which was another local custom that blew me totally out of the water, and we smoked greedily.
We hit the road at approximately 12:15AM - the plan was to arrive in Knoxville at 4:00 where we would be meeting the Pirate, the Spastic Kid, and our Chaperone for the weekend at 6:00. We were to spend the two hours inbetween either sleeping in a parking lot or slugging coffee at an all-night diner. We listened to RHCP "Stadium Arcadium" as well as the comedy station on Satellite Radio, and we kicked it old style. When we hit Knoxille, Sevier, the road we were to meet on, turned out to be a network of backroads that split and turned in every direction, and we were baffled. We drove around for a bit and finally called the Chaperone, who, much to our surprise, was also driving around Sevier at that very moment, two hours early. We met them at the all-night landromat across from the Bale Bond Brokerage, and then hit the road again, Bonnaroo-bound.
The Spastic Kid decided to drive like a maniac, so the Savage and I wound up about five miles behind them, but it was of no consequence. We arrived in Manchester, TN around 7:00 in the morning and stopped to pick-up Fierle and McNaughton at a gas-station just outside the event. Mumbach emptied his bowels mightily, which drew the ire of Fraser who needed to go and was of little mind to be patient. Fierle and McNaughton illegaly purchased beer by paying off the cashier, since it was too early for alcohol sales. We then saddled up and mosied on into the campgrounds.
Right off the bat, we're off to a bad start. The tall goofy black guy who checked out car stole two 12-packs from us because they were in glass bottles. No reimbursement, no arrangements to retrieve them later, nothing. He just stole them. He then asked us: "Do you have any drugs or illegal substances?" to which we replied "No." This prompted him to ask "Are you sure?" as if this would cause us to break down and tell him the truth. We told him no again, and he finally waved us through. We got in line with the Chaperone's car and Fierle's car, and then we got cut off by a wild hippie maniac who came roaring across the totally wide-open field to join up with our three cars. And, if this was his plan, god forbid he get behind us or go in front of us. No, it was as if he were in the midst of bumper-to-bumper highway traffic, and he sped in recklessly between the Four-Runner and the rest of the caravan. He then paused to ask every single person who directed traffic which was he was supposed to go, which was stupid because they were already pointing the way you were supposed to go AND all the other cars were going that way. Nevertheless, we parked our caravan and set about establishing camp.
Establishing camp was fun. Jared brought a tent the size of a football stadium, and the only direction on the whole sheet that I understood was the one that said "Keep the corners taut." So I made sure to remind everyone over and over that we needed to keep it taut while the more hands-on people there managed to actually erect the goddamn thing over the next three hours. We built a woodshed off the side and slung a tarp between the tent and the four-runner for shade, and McNaughton then magically produced a briefcase that turned into a four-seater picnic table. If I ever meet the man who invented that thing, I will blow him.
So now it was 8:00 in the morning, and here we are sitting in a field, the sun beating down, with about a hundred cases of beer, and not one of us having any sleep - that is, except for the bastards in Fraser's car who slept in shifts. As for the rest of us, we wanted to catch some shut eye, but it was too damn hot, and we were too damn excited, so while a couple individuals drifted in and out of the stadium/tent to try and nap with varying degrees of success, the rest of us got into the beer. I wish every single day of my life started out in exactly this way. The time passed with extreme sluggishness considering how much fun we were having. Everytime we asked for an update, and felt sure it must be almost noon, we found out it was only 9:30 or so. I guess this is what happens when you start drinking hours and hours earlier than you expected. In any event, we eventually headed into "Centeroo" where all the acts and stages were and caught part of Ben Folds.
Who was good, but about half of us were about to pass out from the heat. We thought some food might help, so Jared, Rosiek, Mumbach and myself limped over to Zorba the Greek's where we were charged ten dollars for this thing they tried to tell us was a wrap. In reality, it was a shell in which they chucked some beans and lettuce and frozen sour cream and a strip of chicken and then probably took your ten dollars over to the strippers instead of going home to watch the kids. The food didn't help, and the four of us felt we were very close to death so we crawled around looking for help. We couldn't get into the comedy tent because there was a line as long as the prime meridian standing outside of it. But just as things seemed altogether hopeless we finally discovered one of "those trees." You know the ones - I'm talking about the trees where sick and/or injured animals come to die. There was probably fifty people laying around under this tree, all miserable, and we joined them. After sleeping for probably an hour, we leapt up, refreshed, and ready to navigate the hippie-crowds anew. Guess what happened. We found a giant mushroom sculpture shooting cold water everywhere no more than forty feet from where we were sleeping!! We thought it might have been a mirage, but as we got closer we could tell it was real, so we hung around for a while getting cool and trying to see which girls were wearing white t-shirts. A lot of them were, but they were the fat ones.
We headed off, watched another band for a bit, and eventually wound up back at the water. Jared, class-act that he is, was standing on a bench and suddenly broke into a wry grin and leaned over to inform us that he just farted in a girl's face. For some reason, we just couldn't figure out why the girls weren't flocking to us. Nevertheless, after watching the lamest mud-wrestling match ever, we staked out our spot at Death Cab for Cutie. We watched with interest as a girl fifteen feet in front of us was almost eaten by the biggest bug any of us had ever seen - we assumed it was a praying mantis. Somehow, she managed never to notice that it was sitting on her shoulder, and nobody told her. It finally flew away as she stood up, and a strange guy came over to ask us if she ever noticed it so we were relieved to find out we weren't the only heartless bastards.
Death Cab was good, but we left early to get a good spot for Petty. In doing so, we caught the last part of Oysterhead, which is Trey Anastasio's (of Phish fame) new band. Very impressive - a jam band like Phish, but unlike Phish it was heavier rock and roll with some punch. They had an album out in 2001 and I plan on picking it up. When Oysterhead finished we shoved our way through all the hippies and got within fifty feet of where Petty himself would soon be standing. We stood for almost two hours waiting for the show to start, while hippies filled in a wall two-thirds of a mile thick behind and around us. 80,000 people in one place is quite a sight to behold. Petty finally came on at 9:00, and he blew everyone out of the water. It was my fourth show, and though it's too early to committ to this, I suspect it may be the best I've seen yet. Petty and the boys really fed off the crowd's energy, and vice versa, and at times you couldn't even hear Petty singing over the crowd who was screaming, singing every word to every song, and dancing. It was absolutely wild, and an experience I will NEVER forget as long as I live. I just hope I can eventually forget the strange hippie couple who was on some strange drug(s) and kept nudging people out of their way as they drifted about in each other's arms, kissing, smiling creepily, and petting each other. It was very gratifying when the crazy Petty-fan babe shoved them back about ten feet. Plus there was a chick fight before the show when one girl spiked a beach ball into another girl's head. What a great night. I used a hole roll of film on Petty.
Day two was just as good (with the exception of their being no Petty to speak of). Those of us with the biggest balls shook off the exaustion and started drinking beer as early as 9:30. At some point in the afternoon a hippie set up a tank and baloons about twenty-five feet away from us. For five bucks you got a big ol' baloon filled with nitrous. Seemed stupid to me to spend five bucks for something like that, but others in our clique felt okay about it. So for about two minutes they both got really silly and laughed at everything, and it was then that Jared laid an eerily spot-on impression from "Old School" on us. In a deep, slow voice, he suddenly said "You got a fuckin' dart in your neck, man," and we all stood there gaping in awe. It was as if somebody had just put the movie on - seriously, it was that exact. The nitrous does that to your voice. But it passes quickly, and it was back to good ol' drinking. Except that the guy kept offering us baloons in exchange for cold water, which I was cool with - as long as he wasn't taking five dollars from me. So we were passing around community baloons and getting high for 60-80 seconds at a time, and Fraser kept heading over to buy more, and it was an odd, surreal scene, and I can't count on a TI graphing calculator the number of times we kept saying "You got a fucking dart in your neck, man," adding, "You gotta pull that shit out, that shit is not cool."
Eventually the gang split up, with everyone except me, Jared, and Mumbach going into Centeroo. The three of us stayed behind and lamented the fact that we didn't have a funnel. Mumbach suggested shotgunning, which made us all realize that we'd never shotgunned before - this meant we had an obligation to do it. And we did it. And we kept doing it. And we had a pile of probably twenty-five beer cans between the three of us by the time we were done shot gunning beers. Then we finally headed off to Centeroo, Jared in nothing but a bathing suit and drunk off his ass, but not before stopping at the body painting tent to watch the girls get their boobs painted up. We might have lingered their longer, except that when the girl who was on at that moment was finished, a guy ran up and insisted he be next. About twenty angry guys walked away muttering and threatening to beat him up. I hope somebody did.
In Centeroo, Mike and Jared fell asleep for Beck, which didn't surprise me. I wanted to see Blues Traveler who made their bones as a jamming live band over a decade ago, so I finally woke them up and we headed over to see them. We only got their in time for the last two songs, but it was worth it. I hope to see them when they come to Thursday in the Square this summer. Very talented, very good act. After Blues Traveler we went to the mushroom water, but there was an unfortunate shortage of babes. There was a naked guy, but the only good thing about that was that his dumb ass fell. We eventually got over to Radiohead, but we didn't last long. It was an obscure and uninspired set, and we joined the throngs of people fleeing the tortured and constant wailings of Thom Yorke. We high-tailed it back to the campsite, stopping again at the body painting tent, and we forced Jared to shotgun a beer. We hung there for a while, Mumbach tried to sneak away and go to sleep but we kept him up and headed back to Centeroo, after stopping again at the body painting tent. We rolled over to the New Orleans Jazz tent, and caught a pretty slick act there - a guy named Bones who played the stand-up bass and was backed by a drummer. He sang like he was growling, and kind of sounded like Screaming Jay Hawkin's, but not entirely. We liked it a lot, but he skipped out after only three songs and they started passing out bingo cards. We bailed and headed over to Superjam, which was a late night session featuring a couple guys from Phish and some other musicians. We sat right behind a group of people, among whom was an inexplicably topless girl, so that was cool. As she was walking away, Mumbach fired off a wild hipshot photo from thirty feet away in the dark, but he swears he caught some side-boob. We'll see when the pictures get developed.
Superjam wasn't starting for a while, so we got bored without boobs to look at and wondered back over to the jazz tent. Some fucking idiot with a mask on was running around the tent calling the bingo game, and screaming the oddest things like "B-27. Doesn't that get you excited, mother fuckers!?! B-27!!" We heckled him for a while with shouts of "play music!" and "shut the hell up!" but we weren't accomplishing anything, so once again it was back over the Superjam tent. This time they were playing, and jamming pretty hard. Once again, I was very impressed with Trey's ability to rock. Glow sticks were flying everywhere and people were really into it. Good times. Then it was back to the campsite around 1 in the morning, and we found Fraser there ... somewhere inbetween passed out and awake, and laughing to himself inexplicably. He swore he'd been in the other chair with the rest of the group around him, and suddenly he was in this chair with nobody there except us slowly approaching. He regaled us with stories of getting lost, asking for directions, walking by a herd of cows, etc. Eventually we all hit the sack.
So Sunday was depressing. It was pack up and say goodbye time. Some of us headed back in for some last second pleasures, but by now my sun rash was breaking out all over my arms and hands and I was miserable. Me and Mike hit the road around 1. And guess what happened ...
As we're driving through the camp ground, a girl comes up to the car crying and begs us to follow her. Her jeep stopped working and her and her friend need a jump. Now, these are attractive blonde girls, and they are there by themselves as far as we can tell. We give them a jump and they invite us to stick around for a beer and tell us they're staying until tomorrow morning. Driving away was one of the hardest things me and Mike have ever had to do. This is one of those "too good to be true" situations, and there was absolutely NOTHING we could do about it. All we could do was console ourselves by saying "Hey, if we hadn't been leaving already, we never would have seen them anyway, so it was lose-lose." But we won't lie ... we were tempted to call off of work and cancel my flight back to Buffalo - just to see. Ah, fate!
Anyways, to sum up, it was a fucking blast. I had the time of my life, and I know the other guys did too. I hope they get some decent bands again next year because I'd love to go out there again with the same crew and do it all again. I've got two rolls of film to get developed, and I'm going to put them in a photoalbum along with my ticket and wristband. Then I'm going to print up all the funny quotes from the weekend scatter them around in there as well. It will be a cool little keepsake. So anyways, thanks to all the guys who came, I had a great time hanging out with you and seeing the bands. If you didn't come, don't say it's because I didn't invite you. Little tip - save your money and plan on coming next year. You won't regret it.
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A presto ...
posted by Il Pazzo @ 10:40 AM
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