Bonnaroo 2010: Day 1 Musings

It’s all said and done. Roughly 130,000 people attended Bonnaroo Music Festival this year, and now that only a few crazed partiers still linger on festival grounds the record shows that most survived. 

Temperatures soared over 100 degrees each day. Plenty of good men and women went down hard from heat stroke. Others had to be carried away on golf carts by paramedics after a few too many beers and, in numerous cases, a few too many psychedelics that drove folks into horrifying ethereal dimensions.

But regardless of these incidents, Bonnaroo survivors can attempt to recollect the hazy events that transpired over the weekend from the comfort of their air conditioned homes. 

Here’s what I remember.—-

Day One:

One of the greatest things about Bonnaroo is that the festival begins before it actually begins. The party’s on as soon as the car is packed and you’re on the road, cruising a sunny highway with the windows down and the soundtrack cranked.

As you wrap through the kudzu-covered hills of Tennessee, you’ll discover that you aren’t the only party bus bound for the festival. You’ll pass by dozens of vehicles packed with longhaired dudes and dread-headed girls outfitted in tie dye garb and aviator sunglasses (which help to disguise suspiciously bloodshot eyes). If this scene isn’t enough to convince you that you’re bound for the same destination, keep an eye out for vehicles with the rear windshield completely obstructed with cases of Miller High Life. If this isn’t enough to convince you, then look for vehicles that have “Bonnaroo Bitches!” scrolled across the windshield. That should do it.

Upon leaving the highway, you’ll find the quaint town of Manchester overrun by hordes of people who share one collective mission: party harder than ever before and ignore whatever legal limits exist in the world outside.

In the course of the weekend, Manchester’s population (normally just above 10,000 residents) multiplies 10 times over, creating an insane traffic jam of hippie busses and decorated vehicles stocked with booze and in most some cases well-hidden ziplock baggies.

Once attendees make it through a security checkpoint, the portal into the crazy world of Bonnaroo, they find folks shamelessly walking around wearing nothing but glow stick jewelry and body paint or carrying cardboard signs that read “I Need Shrooms!” If you haven’t experienced Bonnaroo, this is the point at which you understand that the festival is a community unto itself in more ways than one, separate from the world in which we normally live and work.

After setting up camp in one of the Tent Cities, it’s time to walk around and meet your neighbors. My camp was flanked by crews from New York, California and Montreal. We quickly bonded over a case of beer, packed a few for the walk into Centeroo and marched together into the fray of Bonnaroo madness.

On my way to The Other Tent to see Baroness, a Savannah-based progressive Metal band, I was given a rock in exchange for a hug, offered THC candy from dudes who looked like members of the Manson Family and accosted by a man wearing a horse-head mask. If these encounters weren’t enough to make my head spin off my shoulders, Baroness tore up the stage with a fist-pounding set that left my ears ringing and my neck sore.

Although Baroness drew a large crowd of men with formidable beards, I left the show a few songs early to bask in the glory of some of the festival’s gnarliest facial hair at the tail end of Bonnaroo’s Beard and Mustache Competition. As a proud beard wearer and enthusiast myself, I left the competition feeling humbled by the winners.

Chris Vinyard of Big Hassle Media, the publicity and management company that helps make the festival what it is, calls this first night at Bonnaroo a “soft opening” for everything to come. After roaming down the vendor’s alley on my way back to camp, dodging at least a dozen people who were either passed out cold or experiencing LSD-induced revelations, I begged to differ with Vinyard’s outlook and couldn’t help but wonder what sort of fun he might consider a “hard opening.”

It wasn’t until Day Two that I understood what he meant.

This article appears in Jun 9-15, 2010.