Sweet Talk’s Bonnaroo 2007 Part One (the Journey of a 1000 miles…)

Once again your intrepid traveler has survived another Bonnaroo.  You’d think after four years I’d have this place dialed, but that’s the beauty.  Just as soon as you get comfy....POW right in the kisser. 

Time To Plug into Bonnaroo 2007

Land in Nashville, jump into the fire engine red Monte Carlo, go the secret back way to the grounds. no speeding ticket this year. Good.  all the more to tip my favorite bartender.   Listen to a gomez / radiohead mix from last years b-roo.  lots and lots of lightning bugs.  Pull into Holiday Inn where all the State Troopers are staying in order to pick up press credentials.  Except for maybe the set of the Blues Brother movie or a 70’s porno you’ve never seen so much fuzz in one place.  It’s a remarkably effective deterrent for the countless tour buses pulling in around me.

Grab credentials, frustrated, luckily I run into the Roots, they vouch for me.  That’s favor number 734 I owe that crew.  Go directly to bar to see said bartender, who makes his famous "Bitch Slap", basically equal parts liquor sponsor, vitamin water sponsor, and energy drink sponsor.  The perfect cocktail for 90 degree nights and days. 

Head out and see Apollo Sunshine.  Have a nice chat with the boys before their very vibrant set.  They are on their way into the studio next week, we should all be awaiting the outcome anxiously.  These marvelous Massholes are constantly climbing up the beanstalk.   

Meet up with the Sam Champion boys at the bar.  They give me a day-glo neon wrist/sweat band, which comes in handy over the next few days of trying to write notes with sweat shotgunning out of every pore.  Makes me feel like a professional something....when I figure it out  I’ll get back to you. Pick up my sidekick photographer and wonder wingman Toad, who grabbed all the following shots with a tiny pocket digital (yeah our sight lines were that good).  2:00 am early to bed; big couple of days coming. First Motel has rat in bathroom and large blood stain on floor, second hotel room a tad bit better, not by much but at least the toilet has a seat, which in a bonus.

Friday morning: RX Bandits out of Cali.  Fun Group, reminds me of State Radio with a lot more joviality and panache. 

Hit Kings of Leon on the main stage; luckily they play half of the new album which is by far the best stuff they’ve recorded.  So good through the massive Marshalls, they blow the main stage power for thirty seconds.  You can’t say they don’t go to "11".  Is it me or does Caleb have the best legs in rock n roll this side of Tina Turner?  He even pulled his best Cobain on his end of set microphone throw-down.

Race over to see the last of Gillian Welch, one of my favorite festival stalwarts.  Go back to the bar, watch Gillian and David get their picture taken by the best Music Photog on the planet, Danny Clinch.  There are three people who have a better job than I do,  The home bat boy for the Boston Red Sox, the senior product tester for Patagonia, and Danny Clinch.  The one he has of the G & D hopping hand and hand with half their faces out of frame needs to be the back cover of the new album....  You hear me, BACK COVER! 

Hustle to the poser platform  for The Roots on the main stage: This is what I write in my handy dandy Mt. Tom notebook pictured below:

Perhaps the best cover band in the land.  Talib Kweli’s "Get By", Sugar Hill Gang’s "Rapper’s Delight ", James Brown’ "Funky Drummer"  all with a sparked horn section.  The Tuba player must have needed two IV’s after the amount of energy he left on the stage and in the audience.  You haven’t see a ballsy tuba player until you see one jump off the main stage, chase down guitarist Captain Kirk Douglas 80 yards through the crowd to the soundboard, and back while never losing the beat or a synchronized dance step. 

How about a 10 minute cover of Dylan’s "Masters Of War" played to the melody of the Star Spangled Banner. With ?uest’s drums sounding like bursting cannons and Captain Kirk firing his guitar leads like sonic missiles, the anthemic posturing seemed  politically apt.  In fact the stadium cock rock seemed so perfect that Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll Part Two, sung with praise to the Roots Crew,  seemed right in time with the scene.

But the real highlight came with a note perfect rendition of The Police’s "Roxanne" sung by ?uestlove with tour manager, Tina Farris taking over the bass for Hub who was roots chomping and grooving with a mile wide grin behind the stacks.  Later Tina told me she’d played a little in high school, but had been practicing for months.  I mean who wouldn’t practice before playing the most famous song the headlining act of the festival  ever wrote in front of 30 + thousand people.  Not only did they nail it cold, it was unequivocally better than the version played by its original authors the next night.   I told her if she could write the way she played she could write for Sweet Talk any day. 

..... LOTS more to come:  Stay tuned