Bonnaroo 2008: Day 1

What’s struck me so far about Bonnaroo is how friendly everybody is. I suppose some would chalk it up to the festival being in Tennessee, but I'm not so sure-- I'm from Chattanooga, and I've experienced no shortage of surly Tennesseans in my life, most of them in large groups. Plus, almost everyone we talked to yesterday was from out of state-- way out of state. And I can see the draw. This place is just unlike anywhere I've ever been. It's like a little city, but also a county fair, but also a giant backyard party, but also a sprawling, dirty outside mall—an extraterrestrial shanty town plopped down on earth from the planet Tie Dye.

And yesterday, everyone seemed happy. Maybe because it was the first day, and no one was dirty yet, still wearing the same clean clothes they drove in with from Michigan or Rhode Island or Pennsylvania. No one had slept a night back at the campground, awoken by the stifling heat that rolls in as soon as the sun’s up. No one had yet spent all their money too early on $4 soft serve and $10 hummus wraps. The sun was out, the fountain was on, and life was good.

Last night as the Paste crew was closing up our tent from the night (we’re two stalls down on stage left of the Sonic Stage—come say hi!) I began to wonder if Bonnaroo’s good nature knew no bounds. At what point would the ‘roo be irrevocably harshed? I soon found out.

A bunch of us headed over to the Comedy Tent to see Zach Galifianakis as soon as we were loosed from tent duty, and after waiting in the standby line for a Six Flags-esque length of time were filed into the cool darkness. I have never once seen a live stand-up comic in my life so it was a relief to discover that stand-up concerts are much like music concerts in that there are sometimes really awkward opening acts that you squirm through all for the love of the headliner. I really don't feel like writing about it, but I'll say that the high point was a joke about Jerry Orbach and the low point was an instructional song about blow jobs. Yeah!

Zach closed his set with a really elaborate video production that also involved him holding up hand-written signs with presumably funny things on them that we were supposed to read and laugh at, and likely this would have happened if we'd been able to see them. Unfortunately the whole bunch of us Paste folks were sitting in such a way that a giant piece of scaffolding blocked the whole scene, leaving us to crane our necks awkwardly in all directions as everyone else laughed and laughed. So when I saw a bunch of folks in the bleachers in front of us suddenly jump up from their seats and move towards the asile, I thought perhaps they were scattering out of frustration or for a better view-- and them I saw The Stream.

It was glowing purple and yellow from the stage lights, arching from the lap of the one fellow left after the sudden, seemingly inexplicable mass exodus. My first thought was that he was squirting a water bottle into the crowd. My second thought is that he was an embedded urinator of some sort, planted there by Zach himself to-- actually, I have no idea what. Pretend to pee into the crowd, maybe? What else could it be? My brain was all, CANNOT COMPUTE CANNOT COMPUTE DUDE IS PEEING INTO THE CROWD BUT THIS MAKES NO SENSE WHO PEES INTO A CROWD THIS MUST NOT BE REAL ALSO THAT IS SO MUCH PEE THIS DEFINITELY CANNOT BE REAL WHAT IS GOING ON SYSTEM IS SHUTTING DOWN.

Reality was just too much to comprehend: Dude actually peed into the crowd. I have no idea how Zach's set ended. People started clapping, but we were still gawking at the pee-er. Clapping seemed inappropriate. A dozen folks, at least, had just been sprayed on the back of the neck with what I'm sure they thought was spilled beer but what they slowly realized was pee-- it felt rude to clap or cheer. And the guy was just sitting there, slumped over on the bleacher, the crowd having parted like the red sea around him-- Bonnaroo's own Moses, fully wasted just six hours in. If he'd come with friends, they'd quickly abandoned him, leaving him to the care of the equally bemused festival staffer that wandered over as the rest of us filed out, shooting harried glances over our shoulders, not sure what body fluid would be next to pour forth so prolifically.

We made it out safely, thank god, and then went to see Vampire Weekend. They were bright and happy and were so many people were there, all dancing and singing along and flailing about-- crowdsurfing, even, to a panicky "Walcott" that closed the set. I'm betting there's a baseline level of excitement at all Bonnaroo shows that's just unprecedented in the outside world-- that friendliness, again, as long as no one pees on anyone-- but still. Last summer, those guys played at the Earl in Atlanta to, like, three people and a drag queen named Vagina Jenkins, and last night they were wreaking mass apoplexy to thousands and thousands of people out in some Tennessee field. This is a weird world.