The boys and I headed down to K-Town last night for the festival thing in Market Square, and hung out for a few hours. It was some good times. Kinda reminded me of Bonnaroo, in that it was 10 bucks to park, and everything else got progressively more expensive.
Ahh, it brings me back.
But I digress, because the coolness of all this is that badass tats the boys got. Well, henna tattoos, although G was begging me to take him to get his filled in with real ink!
Yes, for you Pirates of the Aquarium fans, Pigpen is rocking Jack Sparrow’s tattoo. They both went around last night topless until the sun went down, and Pigpen actually ran up to total strangers to show off his ink. G just tried to look tough. The tattoo helped, but the fact that he’s as skinny as a lamppost kinda hurt.
NugJug and Dishwater Blonde were awesome, Pigpen was shaking it hard with me to the Blonde, to the applause of onlookers (for him, not me… I’m a scary thing when I dance), and the boys participated in a righteous beach ball game to NugJug as they did some damn good Beatles covers at the end of their show.
OK, people, the expiration date is up on the finer points of the two (three, if you count Monday morning) days of the Bonnaroo experience, so they’ll be left in the imaginations of all of you fine internet people. Things like:
The Flaming Lips show, Saturday night. UFO descending from the stage, Wayne Cohen rising out of it in a plastic bubble, and crowdsurfing like a big hamster. The UFO opening up to reveal a crazy light show, and finally rising above the stage revealing a Pink Floydian movie screen behind the band. Me, getting a laserpointer from some dude handing them out for the band, later falling and twisting my toe, losing my glasses, Bonnaroo karma.
Earlier in the day, I did NOT attend this show. And if I did, it would have only been to see three songs. And they would have been pretty good.
But I saw most of Weens set, and deemed it also to be good.
Actually, it was pretty damn good
Got to bed really, really late on Saturday, but was up and rolling at 9 AM on Sunday.
Sunday:
Sunday was the big W day. Wolfmother, White Stripes, Wilco. Widespread Panic, I guess, but I didn’t really care about seeing them. Something about W’s and music today, dunno, but it works. Or worked then, I suppose.
After spending my morning hanging around (Nodbob had by then found a friendly glass merchant who had a spare electrical plug, so he got that hawk rolling), we ate some tasty, tasty spaghetti, and completely missed the Christabel and the Jons show. Christabel, Jons, I apologize. But the spaghetti was really good, and then Wolfmother came on, and I found myself getting sucked into the vortex of Wolfmothery stoner metal
Oh yes, it was damn good. I sat on the grass in the hot Bonnaroo sun and let the sound blow my hair back. Them crazy Aussies and their rock n roll…
After that, it was Wilco time. I’ve seen Wilco twice before, but this was by far the best set.
Now, Wilco’s a band that got me through some tough times. I leaned on the music, particularly the songs on Sky Blue Sky, which, to me, is a record about recovery, starting over.
As I sang along to this, and to Jesus, Etc, and particularly to Hummingbird, I couldn’t help the tears streaming down my face. Over the weekend, I’d tried feeling where BJ was, but I found her at Wilco.
And you know what? I realized that I’m OK. I love her, people, I love her more than I ever have when she was alive, but I’m over what happened to her, and I’m ready to be who I am next. I’ve said it before, but I felt it then, and I still feel it now, as I sit in my messy house, in the day-in day-out life that isn’t Bonnaroo, or escapism.
“With a sky blue sky
This rotten time
Wouldn’t seem so bad to me now
Oh, I didn’t die
I should be satisfied
I survived
That’s good enough for now”
Indeed.
I felt purged.
After that, it was time to mosey down and see the Jack and Meg show. Now, I’d seen the White Stripes many moons before, but, as with Wilco, this was the best show.
Damned if they weren’t back in the reds and whites! Gone were the carney hats, and the ringleader beard. They seemed back home. Icky Thump might just be the best record out of them since De Stijl, and they played the hell out of it.
I enjoyed part of the show from under the rafters, because I didn’t feel like fighting crowds, and climbed the scaffolding in the back. It was good times, but I finally got out and muscled my way to about 50 feet from the stage.
Ol Nodbob had made it up front, and reported to me that he enjoyed a nice long crowdsurf up there, but I’m afraid I missed it.
After the show was over, I bumped into a friend of mine from Oak Ridge, somebody I hadn’t seen in a few years. It was surreal, topping off the day with a chance encounter and a hug.
After that, we went back to the camp, drank, slept, and the next day Bonnaroo was dead, just the carcass of a music festival left in the sun.
