After TOOL:

Superjam
- John Paul Jones, baby! I was hoping to see him join TOOL for “No Quarter,” but at least I got to see him on stage during this show. Maybe if TOOL played Saturday they would have been able to pull it off (considering he played with like half the bands on Saturday)? Guess we’ll never know.

We all went home after this performance. It was late and we were pretty tired.


{{{ SATURDAY }}}

We slept in a bit to recover from a long night out. Finally, we made our way to Centeroo again.

In order of appearance:


Ziggy Marley
- We missed the first half of his set, but what we saw was
pretty good. Heard a few Bob Marley covers.

Xavier Rudd
- I had never heard of him before, but this was an awesome show. I went to his autograph session and got him to sign my Bonnaroo booklet and got a picture with him. This festival is all about finding new music, and I definitely did with Xavier.

Ween / Spoon
- Went to a few songs for each of these bands.

The Police
- It’s always a pleasure to see a band that’s been around
for so long and has had an influence on so many people. I think almost all of the 80,000 people at Bonnaroo were there for at least a little bit of the performance that night. Huge crowd.

The Flaming Lips
- All the balloons and lights and stuff are neat and interesting to watch, but the music was painful to listen to. Seriously…I don’t get it. And, the lead singer talked way too much. I don’t need to hear Flaming Lips Philosophy 101. They definitely weren’t my style. We left early.

Galactic
- Another awesome show from a not so familiar band at Bonnaroo. I needed a pick-me-up after The Flaming Lips, and this was it.

Sasha & John Digweed
- These guys put on an awesome giant rave way later into the night, or early morning. The performance finally ended around 3:30 or 4 in the morning, and only one of my friends and myself were able to keep going. I was exhausted, but everyone else in the group had gone back to the RV, so we win at life.


{{{ SUNDAY }}}

We woke up with our chests and noses feeling a bit congested, and we were a little slower than the previous day. Bonnaroo was starting to catch up to us a bit. Though, it was our last afternoon of fun so we had to push on. It was also the hottest and dustiest day of the weekend, which made it difficult to stand outside for some of the bands. Thank god for the giant fountain raining life-saving water down on all the sun-dried hippies. It was very refreshing.

In order of appearance:

John Butler Trio
- My third time seeing them live, and one of the reasons why I came to Bonnaroo this year (besides TOOL). They didn’t disappoint, and were one of the top shows for the weekend. I also got to meet the band and get their autographs later in the day.

Wolfmother / The White Stripes / North Mississippi All-Stars
- We went to a few songs for each of these guys before calling it a day and packing up the RV.


What a weekend. I’m still exhausted, sunburned, and even a bit sick (and I'm still refusing to shave my beard -- those guys at work will have to deal). It was worth every second. My friends and I just completed an amazing 10-day experience following TOOL around and we were able to top it off at the greatest music and arts festival in America: BONNAROO! It just doesn’t get any better than that. :)


[[[ SIDE NOTE TO BONNAROO ]]]

Brightwell and I tried to meet up several times throughout the weekend. Unfortunately, I didn’t anticipate Cingular blowing ass for cell phone coverage, so I didn’t get a lot of his messages until an hour or so after he had sent them. Also, it was pretty much impossible for me just to make a simple phone call, so the first afternoon in Centeroo all of my crew ended up going to shows alone because we had no idea where anyone was. I was also supposed to call a friend of mine from college once I got to Bonnaroo, but that ended up not happening because of the cell phone problem. So, lesson learned. That seemed to be the only real complaint we had throughout the weekend. Well, besides the dust.