Small acts show strong stage presence
The mention of summer music festivals often conjures visions of idyllic nights spent under the stars in the company of thousands of strangers and one world-famous headlining band. At this year’s Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, Paul McCartney’s stirring Friday night set fit this description perfectly, and even R. Kelly’s Saturday night set (for which he emerged from the sky on a crane and the crowd experienced the most literal meaning of bump ’n’ grind) provided that classic “festival feeling.”
When I returned from Bonnaroo, after a few thorough showers and one trip to the emergency room for A$AP Rocky-crowd-sustained injuries involving a foot and my face, these were the types of sets that people asked about constantly. I shed plenty of tears at Paul McCartney, and seventh grade me is probably still screaming internally about R. Kelly, but some of the most moving and memorable moments from Bonnaroo came in the form of early afternoon sets by smaller bands.
For instance, Patrick Watson drew an intimate crowd Saturday afternoon. To be honest, I considered blowing this show off due to its 12:30 p.m. starting time and the fact that the sun was unrelenting on any body part not sheltered by our camping site’s tarp; but I slathered on the SPF 50 and booked it to the show anyway.
Watson and his band performed their own sound check and built up a friendly rapport with the crowd during this extra stage time. Watson, one of those people with a pleasant speaking voice that doesn’t indicate a vastly different singing voice, burst out into strains of song that may have stopped the world from turning for a moment. His haunting live renditions of “Into Giants” and “Adventures in Your Own Backyard” inspired a focused tranquility in the crowd that I’d not yet witnessed at ‘Roo. The set felt like a conversation based on the give-and-take of energy as much as a performance. He sprinkled in tasteful dashes of storytelling between songs to illustrate his work and draw the audience into the narrative. The fact the set took place in the earliest time slot in one of the smaller tents lent to the quality of a well-kept secret between all those festivalgoers who made it to Patrick Watson’s intoxicating show.
The next day I found myself camped out with a crew of diehard Tame Impala fans front-and-center in The Other Tent. It’s not always ideal to view sets as hurdles to the ultimate goal, but the lineup of bands playing pre-Tame Impala matched the vibes we were waiting for from Kevin Parker and company. Wild Nothing in particular played an ethereal 3 p.m. set that made us all forget about our exhaustion, thirst and other festival maladies. Live renditions of “Summer Holiday” and “Nocturne” fleshed out the synthesizer lines that are so integral to Wild Nothing’s sound, and Jack Tatum showed more vocal range live than he does on recordings. The entire set maintained a blended quality between songs that truly made Sunday afternoon a “Golden Haze.”
The endless nights packed shoulder-to-shoulder with 80,000 concertgoers watching a legend take the stage will always stand out in any Bonnaroo recollection. But something about the way dust filters the afternoon sunlight for lower-profile artists in the intimacy of a small, early set casts a glow over the entire festival experience.
—Marina Oliver
A day in the life...
I woke up sweaty. That was to be expected, I suppose. I was sleeping in the flattened-out back seat of a Ford Expedition in the middle of a Tennessean wheat field. Nevertheless, I was sticky. This was Bonnaroo, day three. There weren’t showers. There weren’t real bathrooms. We bathed in baby wipes, slid gracelessly into new clothes and went to find our travelling companions.
We made new friends everywhere we went: fellow hippie weirdos from all over. Nothing brings people together like music and being stuck in a field for four days. We bonded over the absence of cleanliness, the wafting aroma of whiskey and weed smoke, the glory of paying far too much for an ear of corn or a water bottle.
The first show we went to Saturday was Lord Huron. If you’re at all familiar with their sound, you can attest to the surfiness that surrounded us as we melded with the crowd under a gigantic tent proudly labeled as “This Tent.” Lord Huron was followed by The Tallest Man on Earth, which gave a forest-like trait to This Tent, and from the perspective of someone who barely breaks 5 feet 4 inches, it was quite like a forest.
After Tallest Man, half of us headed toward Matt and Kim, the other half taking a lunch detour. Knowing a thing or two about music theory, we discussed the merits of the Dirty Projectors’ lovably weird rhythms until we deemed it an appropriate time to fight our way through the crowd accumulated for Bjork. If you’re unfamiliar with her work, it’s adorable and a little… terrifying.
After she finished worshipping an ancient dark deity, Jack Johnson strolled leisurely out onto the stage, which evoked a peacefulness that mostly wasn’t found on the grounds. We chatted with those around us, learning of cultures unbeknownst (basically southern). After JJ, we wandered toward R. Kelly, which was only half a mistake. Blanching at the sheer social volume I was “trapped in,” I slipped out of the crowd, following a group of big 30-somethings with a flask, which they were more than willing to share with a pair of slight, unguarded females.
We passed through Billy Idol, who was shaking and shimmying upon the stage, which we passively observed for a while. Neither of us was drunk enough to enjoy it wholly, so we trotted back to our little car-tent and fell asleep to the sounds of “I Believe I Can Fly.” This was Bonnaroo, and despite the grunge that’s hard to imagine and the droves of disturbingly confident fat, hairy dudes we bedded next to (spiritually), Bonnaroo was perfect. Everything was perfect.
—Savannah Stauss
Lessons from a magic evening with Sir Paul
Since the prospect of a near-obsessive Beatles fan stringing together coherent thoughts about Paul McCartney’s show at Bonnaroo is somewhere in the range of daunting to Herculean, I’d like to instead offer a few nuggets of wisdom that I managed to retain from that magical, humid, awe inspiring evening in Tennessee.
1. There is no such thing as watching an opening act for Paul McCartney; there is only waiting for Paul McCartney while some other band plays music nearby.
2. Anybody who says Paul McCartney has “lost something with age” is off their rocking chair, out of possession of their marbles, totes bonkers, completely cuckoo, radically uninformed or just simply unaware of what they’re saying.
3. The sheer thrill of hearing the opening chords of “Eight Days a Week,” live and in person, is indescribable.
4. The word “Bonnaroo” sounds ridiculous in a Liverpool accent.
5. Paul McCartney knows exactly how cool he is. See: telling stories about Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Soviet officials who are, secretly, massive Beatles fans, all like it’s no big thing.
6. As displayed on the big screen during “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” Sir Paul McCartney believes the Russian government should “Free Pussy Riot.” I would strongly urge that they comply.
7. When Paul McCartney plays “Here Today” in tribute to John Lennon, you will cry.
8. When Paul McCartney plays “Something” on a ukulele as a tribute to George Harrison, you will cry again.
9. Fireworks make everything better (see: “Live and Let Die”).
10. Sometimes you just don’t want an aged hippie dancing with you.
11. You cannot stand next to people during “Hey Jude” without instantly becoming best friends.
12. You know what? You’re going to cry a lot. It happens.
13. Paul McCartney has a stuffed walrus named John that he sang “Golden Slumbers” to. I can’t think of a better fact.
14. Describing concerts as “life-changing” or “life-affirming” or “life-anything” is usually an exaggeration…unless it’s Paul McCartney.
—Austin Wellens