Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival

Travel Fiend

Up until Bonnaroo Music Festival last summer, my schedule consisted of non-stop traveling. My summer began with a week-long camping trip down Oregon’s coastal highway (mentioned at beginning of blog). Without a doubt, such a trip is an excellent way to launch a summer vacation. Twenty-four hours after landing in Nashville from Oregon followed my next trip. Ireland was next on the list.

I enrolled in a two-week entrepreneurship abroad course that started in Dublin. Although there was little educational substance on that particular trip, I wouldn’t trade the experience I had for anything. I followed my Irish adventure with a weekend in Chattanooga; yet again, with only a day in between. Finally, I concluded my traveling-streak with a trip to New York City – with two days in between, this time. Evidently, I valued traveling over sleep! After four days of exploring NYC, I found myself back in Nashville. At that point in time, the festival season was starting to unfold.

Concluding my Summer Travels with Bonnaroo Music Festival

Fortunately, I had a resource for hard-to-get passes from the previous year. At Bonnaroo, they have a tiered-artist system: primary, secondary, and tertiary. For a couple hundred more than the general admission passes, I could get a top-tier artist pass. Essentially, the surplus of artist passes is due to MGMT. At most festivals, each artist will receive about 3 artist passes, and 3-5 guest passes for their family. This surplus certainly creates a loophole for a profitable market. Typically, ticket scalpers (for any festival) will sell such passes for about $2,000. Fortunately, I already had a number that I had used to get artist passes for Hangout Music Festival and Okeechobee Music Festival. He was only asking $700 for these rare passes.

I had the privilege of camping with some of my best friends, as well. Our campsite consisted of me, Brianna Roulic, and Trey Huddleston. Brianna, a longtime employee of Marathon Music Works, struck gold with an opportunity. Marathon gave her a pass that allowed her, as well as her whole group, to camp directly behind Main Stage. I had camped behind Main Stage the previous year and got her excited about the amenities. Considering this is the only camping section that is shaded on the whole property, this was prime real-estate. The food was free, and they provided us with nice bathrooms with showers. We were living like kings and queens.

Friday

CloZee

For disclosure, these choices are subjective and should not be taken personally. After kicking it at the campsite for quite some time, we headed into “Center-Roo” (essentially, where are the stages are). CloZee, the first artist we saw that weekend, had a sound that could not be mimicked. CloZee’s forte was mixing contemporary sounds with modern-synths. An example of her work that truly embodies her general vibe is her song, Koto. Seeing her first was a perfect way to begin the weekend.

Khalid

Following CloZee, we had the opportunity of seeing one of the secondary-headliners, Khalid. After seeing his amazing performance at Coachella on YouTube, his set was absolutely on the bucket list. He did not disappoint. If I wasn’t a major Khalid fan before, I was after. I found myself downloading several of his songs before the end of the weekend. Of course, he played several of his major hits: Location, Coaster, Young, Dumb, and Broke, and many more.

Muse

Afterward, we patiently waited at Main Stage for Friday’s headliner, Muse. This artist is famous for mixing rock with what is known as space-rock. While I was ecstatic about seeing Muse, I didn’t capture any part of their set on my camera. Prior to Muse, I went back to the campsite to charge my camera for Bassnectar. Nonetheless, I was beyond exhilarated to see one of my childhood favorites. To be completely honest, I hadn’t consistently listened to Muse since about 2010. While that may be the case, they were certainly one of my childhood favorites. They played ALL of my favorites. During their set, they played classics, such as Uprising, Time is Running Out, Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole, and Knights of Cydonia. By the end of their set, I was reminded of the incredible music I had been missing out on.

Bassnectar

Although I’m certainly a lover of music in general, my favorites typically revolve around the EDM genre. Friday’s focus, Bassnectar, is an artist I’ve seen a good 20 times. I was beyond ready for my 21st time. After 4 years of being in the pit or on the rail, I am surprised I have not experienced Tinnitus. Unfortunately, I have never used earplugs in such environments. What can I say? The earplugs interfere with the authentic sound! A normal conversation is typically about 60 decibels. Anything above 85 dB is considered harmful. A lawn mower is 90. Typical rock concerts are around 120 dB. An avid Bassnectar fan brought a decibel meter to several of Bassnectar’s shows and concluded that the average dB for Bassnectar was 130. This volume, coupled with the incredible visuals, made for an amazing show.

Saturday

Anderson.Paak

After recuperating from the day before, we headed into Center-Roo around 7 PM. Trey and I grabbed some dinner from Hippie Dips – a festival vendor that always uses healthy ingredients that I always look forward to. We chowed down on the food and watched Hippie Sabotage play from afar. We decided to schedule a little downtime because we knew we would be dancing the night away from then on. After eating, we headed out to the “Pods” (fractured campsites) to hang with friends and kill time. As 8:45 rolled around, we began to head back into the hustle-and-bustle that is Center-Roo.

Anderson.Paak, one of my favorite artists, was about to come on. Anderson.Paak is an American musician and record producer from Oxnard, California. On each one of his albums, there is a mixture of rap, jazz, rock, and EDM. AP is the only one creating and curating his content. A true visionary. He played many hits, such as: Am I Wrong, Come Down, The Bird, Heart Don’t Stand a Chance, Trippy, and Bubblin’. It was incredible seeing him live. If you were to compare his albums with his live performances, there would be none! Watch this video to see the Anderson.Paak’s talent.

Rebelution

I have always been a Rebelution fan. When I started longboarding, they were one of five jam-bands that I listened to heavily. I’ve seen them a few times: once at Marathon Music Works, and another time at Ascend Amphitheater. Nonetheless, I was totally oblivious of the massive following they had accumulated over the years. If I were to give an estimate, I’d say their set had about 3/4 of Bonnaroo’s 90,000 person crowd. I guess everyone can vibe with what Rebelution is putting out in the musical universe.

Eminem

Although I’ve never been a heavy Eminem fan, I do respect his grind. The boy from Detroit started with nothing but a terrible childhood. Even though he’s not in my evoked set of music choices, I had an absolute blast during his set. Mathers really knows how to hype up a crowd of 90,000 people. Every person to my left and right were following his songs verbatim. The only downside to Eminem’s set were gunshot loops his “hype-man” was throwing in the middle of songs. With the recent tragedy that took place at Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas the year prior, one would assume this would be taken into consideration.

Sunday

The Killers

Similarly to Muse, I had not listened to The Killers for a good decade. They were scheduled to close out the weekend – one of the highest demanded slots of the weekend. The crowd was quickly reminded of why they were given such a position. They played all their hits, including Mr. Brightside, When You Were Young, Human, and Smile Like You Mean it. The single I was patiently waiting on was All These Things That I’ve Done. Without a doubt, this single has always been my all-time favorite. Fortunately, they decided to close their set, and therefore the festival, with that song. Such a killer way to close Bonnaroo 2018 (their set is pictured below, and at the beginning of this blog)!

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Lineup For Bonnaroo 2019