The first full day of concerts at Bonnaroo was met with intermittent sunshine, a crowd that swelled to an estimated 75,000 and multiple reasons for people to wander around without pants.
While the rest of the world trudged to their cubicles to endure another day underneath fluorescent lights, those of us here in Tennessee spent the afternoon stumbling from stage to stage, forced to make difficult decisions like whether to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Santigold, debating the risks of buying a samosa from a wooden stand, and googling the symptoms of heat stroke.
The hardest part about the day was deciding which bands on the packed schedule to see, so I spent a tremendous amount of time stepping over people sprawled on towels, hustling from one stage to the next and hoping I’d make it to Animal Collective without taking a frisbee to the face.
The psychedelic freak folk of Animal Collective drew an enthusiastic audience, possibly because their music provides the perfect soundtrack for whatever illegal substance you just purchased behind a tent from a dude named Unicorn. They blipped and synthesized their way through several songs from their recent release Merriweather Post Pavilion as the woman beside me alternated between dancing and battling the invisible demons that came out of her face.
It was a jarring transition from their genre—classified under LSD Soundsystem—to the rootsy Bonnie Raits-y rock of Grace Potter & the Nocturnals. Bonnaroo veteran Potter’s goal each year seems to be to top her previous performance and she delivered, bringing a lot of soul to the ‘This’ Stage.
The women absolutely brought it on Friday and I’m not sure anyone—ovaries or not—rocked harder than Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O. She strutted around the stage nonstop for two hours and I honestly can’t recall the last time I’ve seen someone command a crowd the way she does. When she shouted “Sometimes I think I’m bigger than the sound” from “Cheated Hearts”, she was absolutely right.
Country-tinged rocker (or rock-tinged twanger, either way) Lucinda Williams gave a dazzling performance on one of the smaller stages with a setlist that pulled from her most recent album Little Honey and her critically-acclaimed Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. She also has the dubious distinction of drawing what had to be the oldest crowd I’ve seen so far.
The grey-headed man beside me sang along with “Drunken Angel” in between bites of GoGurt. Read that sentence again. HE BROUGHT HIS OWN YOGURT to a rock festival. Somehow watching him suck down some artificially-flavored strawberries was more shocking than standing beside a guy who was naked except for an Indian headdress during the TV on the Radio show. What have you done to me, Bonnaroo?
I chose to skip the Beastie Boys’ set since I heard enough Ill Communication during college to last the rest of my life, choosing to check out David Byrne instead. That was was the best decision I’ve made since buying an extra bottle of hand sanitizer.
For almost three hours, the former Talking Heads frontman powered through a string of ‘Heads favorites with occasional stops in his solo career. Clad in his trademark white suit—which he eventually accessorized with a tutu—he opened with “Heaven” and brought out “Burning Down the House” during his first encore, making the evening reminiscent of the band’s classic live album, Stop Making Sense.
Byrne didn’t skimp on spectacle either, filling the stage with dancers who flipped and twirled their way through his back catalog. He closed his show with an acoustic version of “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today”, which may be the best motto for Bonnaroo I’ve ever heard.
I can’t wait to see what kinds of Everything will happen tomorrow.
Image via FilmMagic, Inc