Recently in Bonnaroo Category

There is always too much to see and too much to say about Bonnaroo, so with the dirt finally washed off my feet and the layers of sunscreen and sweat mostly scrubbed away, a few final notes:

During Bonnaroo the city limits of Knoxville seem to temporarily stretch all the way to Manchester. As usual there are a lot of familiar faces on the farm, both in the crowds and on the smaller showcase stages.

As if. Jay-Z's closing set on the main stage Saturday illustrated a lot of things, some of which weren't exactly news (e.g., Jay-Z is a great rapper and a great showman). But it was interesting how completely he owned the Bonnaroo collective. The under-25 crowd knew all the words to songs that came out a decade ago or more. If you don't think of "Big Pimpin'" or "Jigga What, Jigga Who" as classic rock yet, their reception from 70,000 or so Bonnaroovians says it's probably time to start. 

There's music here, too. Some good things:

Jonathan Sexton (of Knoxville generally and the Big Love Choir more particularly) was hard at it Friday afternoon at Bonnaroo, hugging an attempted 24-hour world record number of people. Including me. I was just standing there taking pictures, when he said, "Are you going to hug me, or just take pictures?" Which is one of the more novel pick-up lines I've ever encountered...

Having apparently seen the limits of Crocs, the young women of Bonnaroo have settled this year on rubber boots as protection against the muck and grime. They don't breathe so well, but they do keep the toes out of the mud (and the worse-things-than-mud that inevitably become part of the Bonnaroo landscape). But that doesn't mean they can't be cute. Pink is the preferred color, with decorative flourishes including daisies and butterflies. How your feet will smell in the tent at the end of the day is your problem, but smelling anybody's feet at Bonnaroo is best left to the fetishists anyway.

Blogging about Bonnaroo has become sort of a cliché in itself. You show up, you write about the heat, the humidity, the hippies, the hash. So, yes. Let's stipulate all of that. They all seem to be present and accounted for.

The announcement of the Bonnaroo lineup rolled out on an exhausting Tuesday afternoon on the festival's MySpace page and more effectively on its Twitter feed, essentially making lunch and publication deadlines an afterthought--and also serving as a reminder of just how lumbering and obsolete an old-fashioned newspaper can sometimes seem. It's already old news, right?

Some online commenters were frustrated by the official announcements. The entire roll-out process, in fact, prompted enough complaints that "#lineupfail" became a popular Twitter tag.

Here's the full lineup: The Avett Brothers, the Flaming Lips, Weezer, Medeski Martin & Wood, John Fogerty, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Ingrid Michaelson, Phoenix, the xx, Regina Spektor, Mayer Hawthorne, Wale, Steep Canyon Rangers with Steve Martin, Norah Jones, Bassnectar, OK Go, Monte Montgomery, Jay-Z, the Punch Brothers, Thievery Corporation, GWAR, She & Him, Jimmy Cliff, Tokyo Police Club, Kid Cudi, Japandroids, Dr. Dog, Baaba Maal, Neon Indian, the Zac Brown Band, the National, John Prine, Dave Matthews Band, Dave Rawlings Machine, Local Natives, Dropkick Murphys, Manchester Orchestra, Jeff Beck, Jay Electronica, the Postelles, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Rebelution, Damian Marley and Nas, Needtobreathe, Tenacious D, the Black Keys, Jamey Johnson, They Might Be Giants, the Entrance Band, Lotus, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Clutch, Tori Amos, the Melvins, the Dodos, Kings of Leon, the Dead Weather, Rise Against, Deadmau5, Martin Sexton, Blitzen Trapper, the Gaslight Anthem, Mumford and Sons, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, Baroness, Julia Nunes, Here We Go Magic, Tinariwen, the Disco Biscuits, Diane Birch, Lucero, Isis, Miranda Lambert, Kris Kristofferson, LCD Soundsystem, Brandi Carlile, B.O.B., Darryl Hall with Chromeo, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Blues Traveler, the Temper Trap, Michael Franti and Spearhead, the Dan Deacon Ensemble, Les Claypool, Mike Snow, Against Me!, Calexico, Hot Rize, and Stevie Wonder.