The Best of Bonnaroo So Far

Best Set Involving Rocking Chairs and Lemonade
In a special set for Chase Bank customers and some lucky press people, The Avett Brothers broke out their banjo for a lemonade-sipping, rocking chair-lounging crowd. It was the perfect backdrop for their: “I am a breathing time machine, I’ll take you all for a ride.”

Best Prison Song
Brandi Carlile “cry, cry, cry”ed to a hoe-downing house in the afternoon heat when she covered Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.”

Best “The Weight” Cover
Dave Rawlings Machine and Gillian Welch busted out that iconic (and over-played) refrain after Carlile finished, but, being Dave Rawlings, his “Take a load off Fanny,” sounded fresh.

Best Sob-Fest/Dance-a-thon
It’s rare when every person in the outer regions of a mosh-pit sings every word to nearly an entire set. It’s rarer yet when, while singing, they collectively bust down and dance their asses off to some sublime banjo-rocking. And it’s rarer still that, while singing and dancing, most of the crowd is also crying their eyes out. But all three took place at the Mumford and Sons set. Then the band invited Old Crow Medicine Show up onto the stage and the climactic finisher “Roll Away Your Stone” was damn-near cathartic.

Best Advice Given from a 40-Year-Old Legend
Jay-Z, as always, was full of gracious advice for everyone less accomplished than he (which, let’s face it, is almost everybody). He told us we should “Brush [our] shoulders off,” “Get [our] fatigues on, all black everything” and, of course, warned us “more money, more problems, gotta move carefully.” Along with former collaborator Memphis Bleak, he guided us in the Gospel of “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man” and, of course, completely killed while he did so.