BonnaReview pt. 3

Saturday 6/14

Saturday I woke up with a a major bounce in my step. After Friday's bunk-goodies situation I took it upon myself to do some major Shakedown shopping. I situated myself outside Centeroo and patrolled Shakedown Street and meet all sorts of interesting characters. I bought an assortment of gifts and sampled an assortment of other goodies from the nicest entrepreneurs I have ever meet. I wound up with about three different types of everything just make sure I was in prime condition to enjoy the late nights.

As a result of my little adventure I missed out on some of the day acts but I did manage to catch a bit of Little Feet at The Other Tent. They were a jammy type band which I actually enjoyed. I wasn't familiar with any of their original material but it didn't matter much to me. They definitely catered to an older type audience so the Other Tent wasn't particularly poppin' or anything like that but it was nice daytime show. We rolled around Centeroo taking in sounds from metal madmen Mastadon and then Cat Power before settling on Zappa Plays Zappa.


That Tent was packed but we managed to get our usual right-in-front-of-the-soundboard-spots. I read somewhere Dweezil Zappa spent hundreds of hours building a new guitar or something to sound even more like his daddy. Whatever he did worked because it sounded dead on. Big J and I agreed that Zappa's band was the tightest band we saw all weekend. They must have rehearsed day and night to become so goddamn nasty. Time signature changes and key modulations were dealt with such ease and precision it made them difficult to detect. We basically rocked out for a while in total amazement before we rolled over to Jack Johnson.


While Jack johnson played The What Stage, they projected surf videos and beech scenes from the giant screens. I wouldn't say the show was boring, the party favors ensured that boring never reared its ugly head. Jack was more charasmatic and fun loving than anything else. Eddie Vedder joined jack in a heart warming rendition of something I can't remember. The show was all around inoffensive and had a clear beginning middle and end.


Pearl Jam came onstage and rocked faces. Eddie Vedder, who normally despises festival shows seemed happy totally shit-faced as per usual. I wish I could say Pearl Jam owned their headlining spot but I unfortunately cannot. I thought what I saw of Metallica was better but then again I did not get to see the whole PJ set. We had to leave around 11:30 to ensure prime viewing for Sigur Ros, which was well worth the wait.


Sigur Ros was absolutely brilliant at That Tent. We arrived That Tent WAY early and secured ourselves the same right-in-front-of-the-soundboard-spots as usual. They played the same little piano/bass melody all through the set up process. It made the whole wait almost unbearable. I was writhing with anticipation, or rolling with the waves of Red Buddhas, one of the two. When they opened with Sven-G-Englar which was the absolute highlight of the show for me, I felt like I was floating on clods of joy. They masterfully crafted a classical sonic experience despite exploding the left side speakers. They sorted out the sound issues promptly and rolled through some new material. They had an interchangeable string/horn/drumline situation that accompanied the band and completely took us by surprise. Frontman Jón “Jónsi” Þór Birgisson's ethereal voice filled That Tent with otherworldly reverb. His vocals washed over the crowd as his bowed Les Paul produced the most beautiful bass that has ever hit my ribcage. I wish I had words to describe the emotion, and amazement I felt during this spectacle. Every person on that stage has more talent in their little pinky than I can ever hope to obtain in a million lifetimes. The entire band came out and bowed for us, That Tent clapped so hard and long that we made them come back out and bow again.


We hurried on back to catch the end of Ghostland Observatory at This Tent, whose fog machines and lasers were working over-time. Seriously, they had an assload of lasers. We stayed for about an hour and argued about whether the frontman was actually a man or woman. I took the middle-road and said he was a flamboyantly effeminate man. Turns out I was right and his name is Aaron Behrens. I must say that motherfucker can dance. This was probably the most intense laser light show I have ever seen. It definitely topped the intensity of Tool's, Chemical Brothers', or The Flaming Lips' laser shows. The music was tight electro, dance-rock, soul funk, whatever; but the vocals, like many other bands, I could take or leave. There is no doubt in my mind that we will see Ghostland Obervatory doing even greater things in the future.

Now we moved on Kanye West's highly anticipated B+ Glow In The Dark Tour. After reading Entertainment Weekly's take on the show, which is favorable overall, Kanye threw a diva-fit and responded with a poorly written blog post of his own. Read about the whole B+ fiasco by clicking on the link above.


I will forgo writing a lengthy review of Kanye's show, especially since I didn't stay for the whole thing, because many others have reviewed it ad nauseam. I will however comment on Kanye's performance as it pertains to Bonnaroo. Festival goers are typically a smarter type of music fan. They listen to a wide range of artists from all different genres and go way out of their way to end up in no-where Tennessee for four days of killer live bands. They expect artists who are featured at Bonnaroo to put on a show that is a cut-above their average tour date. Actually it is advantageous for these artists to play just a bit harder at a festival setting since they're in front of a crowd who is there not necessarily there to see them. These artists should be trying their hardest to win over an audience who would not normally buy their ticket. The Thursday night bands like MGMT and Lez Zeppelin probably have never played to a larger crowd than one at Bonnaroo, so they know this performance will be blogged about and reviewed by thousands and this could make or break their touring career. When when a major artist gets a prime time latenight spot at Bonnaroo they are expected to deliver the performance of their lifetime.

As a Bonnaroo vet of 4 years now, the latenight shows I have seen at Bonnaroo have always been better than just any old show. The Flaming Lips, when they played Bonnaroo latenight 06, went all out with their stage setup because they knew that their fans have been camping out for days in the Tennessee heat for them. The Flaming Lips love their fans so much Wayne ensured everyone who waited to get front spots for the Flips, some of whom completely skipped The Police to get their spots, that they were in for the the very best Flips experience possible. My Morning Jacket also destroyed their latenight sets in 06 and 08 respectively. Sasha and Digweed, who I mentioned last post, pwned their latelight spots. Every single artist who I have seen at Bonnaroo really brought their A-game with the exception of Tiesto, who I ranted about last time, and Mr. West. From now on I shall refer to Kanye West as AssGoblin.

AssGoblin was originally slated to play up against Jack Johnson at around 8:15 on the Which Stage. About a week before the festy they pulled the old switcheroo and put him on the What Stage after Pearl Jam at 2:45 AM. There are two reasons I have come up with for this change.

1) AssGoblin felt that his stage show and ego could not fit on the smaller stage or the time slot of 8:15 was not sufficiently late enough to fully realize the Glow In The Dark Show.

2) AssGoblin and his gigantic ego could not deal with playing on a smaller stage, up against another major artist. He then demanded to be put on after the headliner at the main stage. As it turns out this seems to be the case.

As I later found out, post festival, AssGoblin had overbooked himself that night and played another show earlier that evening in Georgia. I can't find a link to my source but I read it somewhere trust me. It doesn't matter anyway. AssGoblin had been rescheduled to 2:45 am, thus displacing one of the other artists who was slated to play the What Stage onto the Which Stage and pushing everyone's time slot forward by 30 minutes. No big right? At this point I couldn't care less where AssGoblin chooses to prance around all glowlike n' shit, hopefully I'll be so hopped-up it won't matter whats going on onstage as long as there are a shitload of lights.

After Sigur Ros' mind bending performance, on our way to the What Stage to see AssGoblin glow, we received word from other 'rooers that AssGoblin's show was delayed. We decided to hurry back and continue watching Ghostland Observatory. Once that ended at about 4:15 we rolled back to the What Stage to see what all the fuss was about. When we got there the vibe was pretty shitty. I have never ever seen a more pissed off Bonnaroo crowd in my entire life. Kids were booing, and throwing shit on the stage. Apparently some dude threw a glowstick and fucked up one of AssGoblin's screens and left a nice permanent pink spot on it. In any event, AssGoblin finally hit the What Stage somewhere after 4:30 am, nearly two hours after his already rescheduled 2:45 AM slot. If I were a Kanye fan I would be furious, two hours is more than enough time for the drugs to wear off...

I can't claim to be an AssGoblin fan, but I do agree that his productions are immensely popular and by all standards not the worst pop music ever. I had seen AssGoblin a few years earlier headlining Lollapalooza. That show didn't exactly do it for me but it didn't exactly chap my ass either. I was basically impartial to AssGoblin prior to Bonnaroo but this Glow In The Dark thing was so unbearably cheesy I felt compelled to leave after only 30 minutes. The show opened with a intro/teaser of Stronger, a perversion of a Daft Punk classic. We were then introduced to AssGoblin's onboard bitch-computer Jane. Jane is basically a cock-whore. She warns AssGoblin that he has crash landed on an uncharted planet, and then offers him her services after he complains about not having gotten any poon since he left Earth. ''We need the brightest star in the universe — you, Kanye! Only you can bring us home. You can glow in the dark!''

The show's theme was AssGoblin goes on an interplanetary voyage to bring shitty music to other star systems. He gets lost, crash lands somewhere, and is marooned on a desert planet. The space-opera is complete with a light up backdrop, light-up landscaping, light-up ramp whit extra lights underneath, light-up globes, and a light-up platform for AssGoblin to prance on. AssGoblin cut his set short and played for less than one hour. He did not bother to apologize for his tardiness or even acknowledge the Bonnaroo crowd once. Most of the fallout from this incident could have been avoided had AssGoblin even screamed a nice loud BONNAROOOOOO! But he didn't. the Sun rose fully by 5 AM, a mere 30 minutes after the show began. The Sun was the ultimate slap in the face; AssGoblin's Glow In The Dawn spectacular looked more like a big light-brite than a million dollar production. Had AssGoblin kept his original 8:15 time-slot, more 'rooers would have attended the show, (I estimate only about 15-20 thousand actually stayed up), and a lot more of the show would have been glowing the the dark. Retard!

More than enough has been written about AssGoblins pathetic attempt at a show at Bonnaroo, you can knock yourself out reading all that here. AssGoblin even responded to criticisms by posting his interpretation of the events on his blog. Do yourself and favor and read his response to the Bonnaroo shenanigans here. It is a fantastically entertaining read. I would copy and past that shit here but it would literally infect my blog with caps-lock-itus. ISN'T THAT SHIT REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING!!!!

I also read on Inforoo that Phil Lesh, who is Bonna-Royalty, was asked to cut his set an hour early to accommodate AssGoblin's ego, which further affirms that AssGoblin and his ego cannot handle playing up against a major artist. I wonder if AssGoblin will ask Trent Reznor to stop at Lollzapalooza so that he can start. I hope AssGoblin dies by drowning in a dumpster filled with a fuckton of splooge.