Currently I am blogging from an 11-year-old girl's bedroom in Clarkesville, Tennessee. As such, I will try and round up the last two days of Bonnaroo as succinctly as possible. There were major funzies and major disappointments.
- jay electronica's stage party
I learned today that Jay Electronica is Erykah Badu's boyfriend and is considered underground rap's next big thang. He came to Tennessee from Brooklyn but like Lil' Wayne, he's originally from New Orleans. I thought his set was just okay but some of his rhymes were clever - he referenced Groundhog Day and Judas Iscariot. He also invited everyone onstage with him, which led to a flurry of texting and iPhone photos until an extremely squat and irritated security guy ushered everyone off.
- fundamental reggae
Jimmy Cliff's set was a funny combination of amazing and weird. He came out in what looked like a yellow Hazmat jacket that probably has some Babylon-based significance that I can't possibly understand, with a solid and generally energetic band with horns, backup singers etc. He tried very hard to energize the crowd, who were all exhausted, by doing back-and-forth chants and updating lyrics (changing "Vietnam" to "Afghanistan" for example.) He also danced like Pee-Wee Herman, which was amazing. He's 62. When he sang "Many Rivers to Cross" I got really choked up. His voice still holds all the poignancy that it ever did, and it was really lovely. His encore completely baffled me, though - instead of doing "The Harder They Come," which I would think would be the obvious choice, he did the much lamer "All for Love" which dragged on FOREVER. Sigh. Still, I never thought I'd get to see Jimmy Cliff live and he's a legend, so whatever.
Then some ginger came onstage in a Pabst Blue Ribbon t-shirt and a cowboy hat and I could tell he totally wasn't a real cowboy. Total loser.
- meh
This is my biggest mistake of the festival; choosing the Dead Weather over the Melvins. I really like their two albums but the live show was bloodless. I felt like everyone was shambling around and posturing in stupid outfits and there was no actual soul in anything they did. Harsh, but you're playing after Jimmy Cliff, there's a giant storm brewing in the sky, you have a glowing endorsement from Conan O'Brien and still everyone is bored?
Alison Mosshart is hot but her voice sounded, for a lack of a better word, tinny; Jack White makes absolutely ridiculous faces when he's drumming, and everyone else is really good. On their albums, they coalesce and sound like a really evil, powerful blues-rock band, and live, they come across as yet another hastily-assembled Jack White glamour project. They would be fantastic at a bar. Why they are playing big festivals is beyond me. And I heard the Melvins were fantastic, because of course they were. I'm grumpy and old. We left after "60 Feet Tall."
- smells like teenager
These guys were playing near our camp and yes it is hippy-ish and earnest and all of you hate them, but they're why I love Bonnaroo.
- woahahahha
We went on a giant Ferris wheel that cost too much money. It was great but we were sitting with a woman who had an accent like Clarice Starling and I got a little weirded out. Generally everyone we met was amazing.
Then it was time for STEVIE WONDER OMG. We were pretty far back at the main stage and there was literally a few thousand people there, and the sound wasn't fantastic, but it was also amazing because every hit he churned out led to a massive group singalong. I took a hilarious video of 200 people singing along to Uptight (Everything's Alright) but I fear I deleted it by accident. I don't even have any photos - they were all awful.
Like the Tom Petty set I saw at Bonnaroo four years ago, it was pretty much a greatest-hits jam, featuring everything from "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" to "I Was Made to Love Her" to "Sir Duke" and everyone loved it. At one point he stood up (he was wearing a long white and silver dashiki) and extended his arms to the giant crowd, beaming and I got choked up again. But I had to harden up and stop being a puss, because it was Clutch time, followed by Gwar.
Clutch was amazing. Everyone all weekend kept telling me they are "America's Nickleback." I think the lead singer of Clutch could crush Chad Kroger's face with his left testicle. What I'm trying to say in a very clumsy, tired manner is that they had balls of steel. Oh yeah! Again, the audience was reallllly into the band and it was very gratifying to be among them.
This became compounded when Gwar set up to take the stage at around 3am. A ten minute Troma-ish film was shown called "Gwar: Behind the Murder" about the band's origins and their 25-year-history, mildly funny and laden with crack cocaine references. By the end of the video the crowd was literally vibrating and chomping at the bit and I was so slippery with other people's sweat that I kept leaning into people and sliding off of them. I was a cocky idiot, too. "I've been in like ten thousand mosh pits, I can handle this, whatever," I said to Runaround Sue as the band began marching onto the stage. For reference, this is what they look like:
When they came onstage, I realized my feet were no longer on the ground - the crowd had pushed forth so much that I was literally sitting on three people's laps. My breath was sucked out of my lungs, monsters were yelling at me, my shirt was falling down, I'm fairly confident that my boob popped out and some guy behind me had me in a choke hold. Then they wheeled out another alien on a gurney and some freak started "sawing" him up. The blood spewed over us and it felt like lovely summer rain. I had no idea what the band was playing because I kept having to pull myself up from sliding up and down people's bodies slick with sweat, blood and other juices. I looked over at Runaround Sue and she grinned maniacally at me with clots of Gwar blood in her teeth. We were all drenched and I felt like I was going to die. It was one of the most ridiculous and fun shows I have ever seen. Walking back to the campsite, people stared at our gross hair and wrecked shirts, mostly in disgust. Here's what my fingers still look like:
- ugh
The 11-year-old wants me to watch Pink Panther now so I have to go. Tomorrow: a hilarious belated last day post (what has it been, like, a week?) We leave Tennessee tomorrow too; my heart is filled with mourning and relief.
