one big holiday

Any great weekend starts off with the purchase of a straw leisure cap and a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

It was Thursday, June 12 and I was sitting with Blake, Pedro (friends from high school) and Katie (from work) in a Popeye’s Chicken off of Interstate 24 out of Nashville, Tennessee headed towards Manchester for Bonnaroo. Never in my life was it so obvious that Popeye’s could very well be one of the best fast food choices in the nation. Their chicken makes me want to save the world. I sat with about 5 pounds of crispy strips at a dingy service plaza with a side of Jumbalaya feeling like I was king of the castle. I was eating heavily trying to lay the beechwood in my stomach for what would likely be a fairly disastrous weekend at Bonnaroo. Between the two cars we were driving in to the festival, I believe we held more Jim Beam per capita than residents in the state of California. Any music festival is best experienced through our good friend Jim—Bonnaroo 2008 would be no different.

I made a controversial move this year with my Bonnaroo ticket purchase. I opted for the VIP ticket upgrade. I would say that in most cases this goes against my thrifty spending patterns, but Jesus, if there was ever a way for me to enjoy a vacation, it would be at the hands of a padded experience at a music festival. There was slightly more involved than a commemorative lanyard and special access to hospitality lounges throughout the grounds—there was food served all day, acces was given to air conditioned bathrooms, the main stage was within spitting distance to our campsite and we had special zoned off viewing areas that just generally made the festival experience considerably more worry free. The overall verdict on the experience: sell your soul to the devil if it means you can get the VIP upgrade—it is worth it.

Arriving on the grounds was something of an adventure. I was expecting to wait in line for hours on end with hordes of hippies all over meditating to the sun and doing interpretive dance maneuvers. There were no lines and the hippies were just congregating under trees in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It seemed an odd gathering point, but I wasn’t going to argue with what seemed like an army of about 55,000. We went in to that Wal-Mart and picked up some essentials—folding lounge chairs, sunscreen and a Snickers bar. We finished up and entered the Bonnaroo grounds further. There was oddly no line to get in—perhaps another benefit of the ‘ol upgrade package.

We filed in to the camping area, directly across from the main stage. I think within 10 minutes we had the cars parked and I was wrestling with our monstrosity of a tent. And when I say wrestling I mean that wholeheartedly because my partner in trying to unfold the damn thing—Blake—was completely useless in that endeavor. There were two gentleman adjacent to our site who we got to talking to. One was a banker out in LA and the other an architect. The architect was wearing a pair of quasi-Capri pants with the multicolored patches and corduroy patterns. They actually looked like really comfortable pants but I am reasonably sure all of us couldn’t stop laughing about them. Nels was the guys name, and he was talking for hours and hours on end about Burning Man—another festival of sorts. The website describes this festival as: “Every year, tens of thousands of participants gather to create Black Rock City in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, dedicated to self-expression, self-reliance, and art as the center of community. They leave one week later, having left no trace.” Nels has been going to Burning Man for what seemed like the last 20 years and it seemed his goal was to do everything in his power to steer us away from the festival. Maybe it was my straw leisure cap, or perhaps Blake’s nylon Beatles vest. At one point Nels specifically said “If you guys were to show up to Burning Man looking like that you will be humiliated.” Awesome Nels. All in all, he continued to pretty much tell us that if we ever went to Burning Man we would die. Overall, quite entertaining. I was feeling great, even with one of the Burning Man Federales telling me that I looked like a toolbox.

I still remember my very first music festival—the year was 1997, the day was July 27. The HORDE festival came to mid-Michigan and it was monumental for a few reasons. For one, it was the first time I saw Ben Folds Five. Two, it was the first time I saw things like lesbians making out in public, weed smoked out of a corn cob pipe and things like patchouli and multi-colored tapestries roughly the size of a small house. Neil Young, Primus (who was easily making their way in to my current top 5 bands at the time after I had bought Tales from the Punchbowl at Big Whale Records in Keego Harbor), Domestic Problems, Morphine (before the death of Mark Sandman, I still consider this to be a cool performance) and Medeski, Martin and Wood were on the performance bill, but Ben Folds Five was easily my favorite. They played with a strings section that day. I ended up scaling a fence after the show to get my t-shirt signed by Ben. Not really sure where I got that idea, but I look back admiring the determination of the whole occasion.

My attitude over the years has deviated with regards to music festivals. Once the year 2000 hit, my idea of how to properly appreciate a music festival was to have a structured outline of the day—I wanted to know where all the bands were at all times, when they started and finished, at what stage and how I was going to coordinate my Euler circuit so as to get in a piece of each performance. I look back on this now as organized suicide. Right around the year 2006 my attitude took a completely different turn. Gone were the days of killing my innards trying to beat the heat and crowds to see 6 minutes of all 90 different band performances. I was more concerned with sneaking my pint of whisky on to the festival grounds. At times I wouldn’t even carry a festival lineup. I had maybe one or two bands I really wanted to see and then the rest I just chalked up to happenstance. I took a similar approach with Bonnaroo—all I really wanted to see was My Morning Jacket. Their set was at midnight on Friday night. The rest was just going to be icing on the cake.

I am reasonably sure that Blake and Pedro weren’t really aware of the fact that live music was actually a component of the Bonnaroo experience. Of a higher priority were two things—the silent disco and a place/concept that came to be known as “the booty room.” The silent disco was this area where a DJ spun dance tunes but each of the participants wore a set of headphones to enjoy the performance. I think I heard Pedro talk about the merits of such a setup approximately 450 times, each time illustrating his point with the same cell phone story— Pedro’s consistent claim was that he could dance and grind up on some honeys, but then if his phone rang he could just remove his headphones and take the call—in perfect silence. Pedro, at a certain point in the weekend, was actually going to the silent disco to field work-related phone calls. Now, the second place you could find Blake and Pedro was “the booty room”—something that still remains a mystery to me. I can’t explain the booty room, describe it or even try to wrap my arms around the occurances in “the booty room.” Honestly, I don’t even know if the booty room was a physical place because I never actually went there, I just know that Blake and Pedro had a “booty room” that they visited every night typically after the hours of 1am. Apparently they danced, apparently they made friends in the booty room but other than that it remains a mystery to me.

Bringing the conversation back to live music, the first day of the festival I was able to catch one performance—Vampire Weekend. I cant say I love this band, but I do have to tell you they put a bit of thump in to their live performance making the whole occasion entertaining. I also know that I had consumed roughly 10 bottles of Budweiser that evening so perhaps anything would have been entertaining. Other notable performances were Jose Gonzales with his slow guitar strumming. I thought Death Cab was exceptionally good for the sole fact that those guys have their live shows down pat. Some of the new record I really like so that was enjoyable. Similar to days at HORDE festival in ’97, I got to see Ben Folds. This was enjoyable, but the luster of the old days has sort of worn off. Jack Johnson was exceptionally good on Saturday night as the sun set. Eddie Vedder came out and did a rendition of “Constellations” with him. Pearl Jam played a three hour set as well—pulling out the stops with eight songs played off of the album “Ten”—something of a rarity these days.

The first morning of the weekend I woke up feeling like I was sleeping within the confines of a forrest fire. I was covered from head to toe in sweat baking in the direct rays of the morning sunrise. Breathing became difficult. I still felt like a million bucks as the sun pierced my eyeballs for the first time as I stepped out of the tent fumbling with the shitty zippers. As I stepped away from the doorway I marveled at the disheveled state of the tent. One of the main poles that criss-crossed to hold the entire cabin upright was missing in the tent bag, so there was an awkward dip across the entire midsection of the roof that was now being jimmy-rigged by a pole that was found on the ground. It looked terrible, but the tent was still standing so I was happy. Meanwhile Blake and Pedro were slumbering away 15 feet to my right in my rented Kia Optima sedan— with the air conditioning on. The poor fellas exerted themselves a little too much the night before at the booty tent.

I would say a good 40% of Friday afternoon (day two at the festival) was spent marveling at the Centeroo Fountain. I couldn’t tell you if that is the official Bonnaroo name, but for the sake of simplicity, that is what I will call it. The fountain was a free standing contraptions that shot out water that got continuously recirculated for roughly 10 hours straight on to those that chose to stand in the line of the spray as it came down. To the casual passer by it looked like a nice way to cool down and get a spritz of water down your back. After about 2 or 3 hours of analysis, the thing looked like a harbor for disease as the same water went through the fountain over and over. Little Johnny thought he was washing his hair in the nice cool fountain, but what he didn’t realize was that roughly 450 people had washed their hair and bodies in the same water that day. We watched this occur for a good chunk of Friday as we stood taking photos and drinking whisky. I have a disdain for getting unnecessarily wet so I happily refrained from entering the fountain, although at times when the heat got up in the high 80’s I entertained the possibility.

I can’t really hold it in any more so I will just go ahead and call the My Morning Jacket show epic. And by epic I mean it was probably one of the best rock ‘n roll shows I have ever seen. Yep. That’s right Kevin Sack. ONE OF THE BEST ROCK ‘N ROLL SHOWS I HAVE EVER SEEN. They started their set at midnight, which means I left the Mettallica performance at the main stage to get there at 10:30 pm for a prime spot. I was probably 10 feet back from the center. I waited and waited, slowly friends came to join as midnight approached. I was slowly pulling on my Iced Tea bottle filled with whisky. Yep. With every sip and the burning inferno that crept down my chest, I became more and more excited. Over the years I have seen these guys a handful of times, and I feel like they play the only shows where I walk out not only completely pleased but also wondering how in the hell they pulled off some element of the performance.

The stakes were high I guess.

For those that have the new MMJ album, you may be reading this wondering what I am really referring to when I throw out words like “epic” or “completely pleased.” Listen, I realize the new album isn’t stellar, but see I am not here to debate the intricacies of their recorded material. I think “Evil Urges” is the first album to leave me desiring something, but for the sake of this argument that is irrelevant. I am talking about LIVE PERFORMANCE here. I am talking about a rock ‘n roll band that PLAYS TO AN AUDIENCE. I am talking about RAW ENERGY that bleeds through each strummed guitar chord. I am talking about the essential components that make a live performance epic.

Right around midnight, the thunder clouds simultaneously exploded and a band called My Morning Jacket burst on to the stage. The audience roared. There’s that moment of anticipation seeing a band you love when they first step on the stage— the lights are usually dim, a few of the members are perhaps tuning their guitars. You hear a few partial chords strummed in to the darkness and you are wondering what the hell they will play first. Jim James, the lead singer of the band, had a goofy straw cap on. Before I could really realize that it was already raining, “Evil Urges”—the opening track on the new album— blasted through the PA. I was almost half expecting that, so at this point there was no real surprise element involved. I was just getting comfortable with the mob of people around me who were jumping up and down. Jim James broke in to a painstaking guitar solo to break the song up about ¾ of the way through and that is when I knew it was the real deal. A few months ago, Jim James did an interview with NPR talking about “being in the zone” on stage performing— the idea of getting to a place in a show where its as if the mechanics of strumming the chords to the songs are on auto-pilot and the focus shifts to the performance and letting the songs beam the emotion that created them in the first place. THIS is what makes my Morning Jacket so good. Even one song in to the performance, you can tell they are all in the zone. There is passion on that stage, those guys love what they do.

Now, go listen to the song “One Big Holiday.”

Do you think that when MMJ wrote “One Big Holiday” in some barn out in god knows where they were sitting there playing it and casually strumming away thinking that it was a good track? Hell no. They were probably brewing with the kind of intensity that Russell Crowe brought in the film Cinderella Man. They probably recorded that song for the first time and Jim James needed to take a vacation because he had fractured both ankles and broken a wrist while laying it down. In all honesty though, when they wrote that song, there’s just no way they didn’t step back from it and think to themselves “holy shit, that is pretty intense.” So, with most bands, the emotion of such a song is captured on the album and then potentially in a casual few of their live performances. Most bands get tired of the road and the performance of it all—performing live becomes a chore as it feels more and more like a day job as opposed to a hobby. The emotion of what created a song in the first place is lost to the hardships of just subsisting on the road. This is where MMJ is different. They let the emotion of every song be attached to the lifeline of every audible chord you hear played. What gives them that ability you say? Passion. They are a passionate group of individuals that have no problem giving you that emotion and instensity because its effortless—its coded in to what they do. MMJ doesn’t try to be epic, their passion for the music they play just makes them that superior.

Halfway through their set, a fellow by the name of Kirk Hammet strutted on to the stage with the signature black tank top. Hours earlier he had just wrapped up a 2 hour plus set with his band Metallica but stepped out to play a song. It was a pleasant surprise to see such a voracious guitar mongrol up on stage with Jim James and the rest of MMJ, but the surprise got even better when the drum beat fixated on the opening rhythm to “One Big Holiday.” Any positive thoughts I had about that show immediately jumped up about 16 notches. Yep. Epic. The crowd went bonkers and it seemed like the woods aroun us were going to spontaneously explode. There was palpable energy in the air. Everyone felt it. The rain came down and people were dancing as the highlight of the weekend unfolded for me. They wrapped up "One Big Holiday" and took a breather only to come back on and play 2 more hours of music.

All said and done, the band played for 4 hours in the cool night air while the rain sporadically burst out of the clouds. At about 4am I wandered back to my campsite thinking to myself that i should fully expect to see that show mentioned on VH1's Classic Rock Moments in about 20 years. I walked along watching the night set in on Bonnaroo. I still had my sunglasses and straw cap on-- completely unnecessary, but overall a very sound decision given the feeling in the air.