Bonnaroo

After finally agreeing on what we were going to do, we set off in convoy to join the queues of traffic entering the farm just off the freeway. Whatever way it worked out we managed to join a queue that had us in in minutes, only to join another queue. This queue was a security check to remove any weapons, glass, drug paraphenalia or any other dangerous or banned items from the RV. Just as we were within sight of all the security personnel we remembered that all of Emer's drink was in glass bottles and we still had the bottle of wine from Napa Valley in California. It was too late to hide it so we just told them we had it and asked if we could pour it into plastic bottles which they had no problem with so we got to work on all the Smirnoff Ice. The only thing we had to open the bottle of wine was my swiss army knife so if we wanted to salvage that it would nearly certainly cost me the penknife so we lost that one straight away. The transfer of the smirnoff ice was a slow process and pretty soon the guards got bored and distracted so Emer was able to sneak half of the bottles back on and the others were poured into large plastic bottles so it wasn't a bad result considering. With the security check completed we handed over our tickets, received our wristbands and headed in to find a place to park and setup camp. Again having 9 different opinions in the other RV can't have helped the decision making but pretty soon we were parked and cracking open the beers.

We all got to know each other for the next while as alot of the 9 in the other RV didn't know each other. Everyone was connected through each other but alot of people only met for the first time when they met at the RV rental office the previous day. All were amazed at the road trip we were on and they all gave advice as to where we should go for our last few weeks. After a while people started moving and were interested in finding out what the concert venue itself (named Centeroo) was like so we headed in. At this stage it was bright and warm with the odd cloud in the sky. We walked around inside for a while and after a bit myself and Emer split from the group and looked around at the various stalls and tents that were setup. It was very much in the early stages on Thursday afternoon but we certainly got a feel for what to expect. Also, Thursday is reserved for up and coming bands which neither of us had heard of so we headed to the cinema tent to watch game 4 of the Lakers v Magic NBA Finals. It turned out to be a very good idea as by half time the tent was full and a thunder storm had come in over the farm and was drenching everybody. In the third quarter Emer headed off to get food. Since the tent was so full they were operating a one in one out policy and the queue was quite big so we agreed to meet back at the RV after the game. However, at the start of the fourth quarter Emer was back and had brought me food. She had also changed into hiking boots and had an umbrella and our rain jackets due to the storm outside which I was very thankful for. Orlando had led for the majority of the game but Dwight Howard missed two free throws in the dying seconds which left their lead at 3 points. Derek Fisher scored a 3 pointer (his first of 6 attempts) with 6 seconds left to tie the game. LA's defence did the job and the game went into overtime. The crowd in the tent were very excited at this stage and were quite vocal for whichever team they were supporting - Orlando Magic fans were definitely outnumbering Lakers fans but the minority had the last laugh as Derek Fisher hit another 3 pointer and then LA got a steal to pull away and win, the first away win of the series to open up a 3-1 lead. Thankfully the rain had stopped but it had left it's mark in muddy fields which were difficult to navigate in the flip flops I was wearing but we made it back and headed off to sleep in preperation for the following 3 days of music.

Friday morning brought a small amount of leaking which was dripping right onto my face and had me out of bed nice and early. We drove the RV up onto timber blocks we have to create a sideways tilt and let all the water flow off the roof which will hopefully prevent any more water getting in. Rain doesn't seem to be a problem, it's the stagnant water that sits on the roof that manages to break through the barrier I created and drip on us inside. With the water off the roof the dripping ceased inside so we were left to enjoy the morning and early afternoon in the sunshine. We had a barbeque for lunch and headed into the festival in the early afternoon. First on the list was Animal Collective, a band with quite a large following at home and seemingly over here too. They were on the "Which" Stage, the second stage at the festival. Now I have some of their albums but never really got into them so we didn't stay here for that long. Lisa, one of the 9 beside us, wanted to see Galactic who were playing on the "What" Stage which was the main stage. These guys were amazing, they are a brass band from New Orleans and they played for over an hour playing some incredible songs with each one of them soloing at various times. They had a dueling brass part to the show and the trombone player even went crowd surfing during one of his solos. I really enjoyed the hour we saw of them and looking back on it now it was certainly one of the highlights of the weekend. Santigold and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were playing at the same time so we caught a bit of each, neither of which impressed me that much. Next up were TV On The Radio on the Which Stage. This is a band that I have grown quite fond of recently so I was looking forward to seeing them. When they started the sound was terrible and I was afraid it was going to be a terrible gig but the sound desk got their levels sorted and in the end it was a great show which I really enjoyed. David Byrne was playing an hour later so we headed back to the RV to have a quick rest. Emer isn't a massive David Byrne fan so she decided to have a nap as we were planning on having a late one so I headed back in on my own. I managed to bump into most of the New York 9 from next door at David Byrne, which was amazing by the way. He played a load of Talking Heads tracks but the stage show is what really made it. Everything was choreographed so that all the musicians and the various other on stage were dancing as the music was going on. The singers would step out at various imes to sing their lines and then seamlessly join back in. I grew up listening to The Talking Heads so it was really great to be able to see him play them live. Another highlight of the weekend.

Phish were playing the first of their two headline shows after this so I went with the lads to see the start of it. I'm not a Phish fan by any strectch of the imagination but I wanted to see what all these Americans were going on about. THe second the music started hundreds of glow sticks were thrown into thae air from various people dotted around the crowd. It was amazing to see as the band jammed up on stage all these coloured sticks were flying around the crowd. And it just didn't let up. I stayed for about 20 minutes and they were only on their second song - I saw their whole show on the Sunday so I'll describe it much more at that point but at this time I headed back to wake up Emer. Paul Oakenfold was due to play a set from 2.15 until 4 so Emer knew she would need a nap if she would be able to survive until that time. I got back and had a few beers while I waited for 2am to come. Emer wasn't in the mood for dancing so I headed off to meet Ian and Graham who were looking forward to it too. I met up with the lads at "This" Tent, one of the three main tents at the festival, the others being "That" Tent and "The Other" Tent. He came on around 2.30 and a while later I was surprised to see Emer. Rachel, one of the 9, had gone back to get some food and persuaded Emer to come dancing. Nearly all of us were in the tent dancing around half 3. He was due to finish at 4 so a few of the others headed back shortly before as they were so tired. 4am came and he showed no sign of finishing. We continued dancing thinking he could finish at any moment. 5am and still no let up, only 5 of us were left at this stage. 5.30am and the sun had risen completely and the crowd had thinned considerably. Myself, Emer, Lisa, Ian and Graham remained. Ian and Graham had had enough at this stage so Emer headed back with them but myself and Lisa danced on defiantely. He finally finished at 6am and the two of us headed back to rest our weary bodies.

The sun was out early the following morning so I was up way earlier than I wanted to be. The first band I wanted to see were Of Montreal at 5.15 so we chilled out at the RV's, cooked some burgers, had cool showers in the RV and had a couple of beers in the afternoon. We headed in for the gig and got there just as it started. Emer isn't a massive fan so let me push my way in while she stayed back and went shopping at all the hippy stalls. It was on in "This" Tent so I knew exactly where I needed to get to to be on higher ground and be able to see. What a show these guys put on, they are all dressed up and have vearious things happening on stage during the songs. Like 2 people dressed in suits with a bear head and a tiger head fighting or a monkey in a suit getting bottled by a ninja. All very surreal. They finished with my favourite song and all bashed up the stage, smashing their instruments, throwing them into the crowd and then going crowd surfing. Absolutely brilliant!! The Mars Volta were on next on the "Which" Stage so I went up close for this as Emer coninued shopping as these are one of the bands she hates and I love. They were very good but were nothing on the last time I had seen them when I went on a lads weekend to London. Still quite enjoyable. After them I met back up with Emer and we headed to the "What" Stage to see Bruce Springsteen who was due on at 9pm. He didn't start until 9.30 but still played for 3 full hours without letting up, backed by the supremely talented E Street Band. They had a request section in the middle of the show where Bruce collects signs from the crowd and they play some of them - one of them being "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" in the Tennesse heat. He puts on quite a show and has a massive back catalogue, alot of which I wouldn't really know but there is no denying how much of an entertainer he is. He finished off with alot of the hits that I know like "Rosalita" and "Glory Days" so I was happy. We were both quite tired afterwards but I had one more band I wanted to see - Nine Inch Nails, so we headed back over to the "Which" Stage. After a couple of songs Emer had seen enough and headed back to the RV but there was no way I was going to miss any of it, this being their last ever show in the US. It was really good, full of smoke, bright lights, loud music and a wide range of their catalogue. Around 3am they left the stage and I finally got to go to bed, I was knackered after the two late nights. It was definitely worth it though as they were really good, bringing on a new rock band to play the final song with them.

Thankfully it wasn't as hot on Sunday morning so we got to sleep a bit later. As alot of people have to leave to be in work and stuff like that Sunday isn't packed with too many headliners. This meant that we got to relax and recover in the afternoon before we headed in for Snoop Dogg after 6. He was exactly as I expected, full of rhyming and swearing but thoroughly enjoyable. Phish were on after him on the "What" Stage (the main one) so we headed up a bit and got close to the sound stage so people could meet up with us later. Phish came on around half 8 to exactly the same start, hundreds and hundreds of glow sticks being thrown all around the crowd. Their music, live at least, seems to be very similar - 1 minute of a song and then a massive solo for the lead guitarist to play and the crowd to go wild about. It was quite enjoyable, especially when Bruce Springsteen came on for the last three songs - Mustang Sally, a song I didn't recognise and Glory Days. All of them Phish-style with loads of guitar soloing thrown in. You could tell that Bruce was having a great time with all the soloing on stage and they all left to thunderous applause and cheering from the crowd. There was then a 20-30 minute part where the house lights went on but nobody left and then Phish were back on playing again. Apparantely they do it all the time but I thought it was weird the way it happened. Back they were and they played for another hour/hour and a half. I found this quite tedious at it seemed to be exactly the same as what had gone before - 1 minute of a song and then loads and loads and loads of soloing by the guitarist. It was good to see a full Phish show and I can see why people follow them but it is quite 1-dimensional after a while. We wandered around a little bit, got some funnel cake (amazing - basically fried dough) and headed back to the RV for a bit of a party. It was to be Graham's and Lisa's birthday the following week so we had a bit of a celebration for them. There were sparklers, booze and a Pinada which got well and truly bashed by our baseball bat. It was good fun as we all enjoyed the final few hours in the farm.

That was Marks Sunday, mine started out the same with some relaxing in the sun and then I decided to hang out with the girls for the day. I hadn't been to the silent disco yet and they were planning to go early as it closed down for the weekend at 7pm. So Rachel, Steph and myself headed straight to it and listened to many popular songs being mixed together and we danced around with our giant yellow headsets. It was a lot of fun. After this we sat in the sun and got some food from the stalls around us followed by some ice-cream. We then met up with Kelly and headed into see Phish. They started off and as Mark said they sing for a bit and then go off on a massive solo for about 20 mins. I enjoy a jamming session at times but this was just too much. Kelly didn't like them too much either so we decided to leave after about an hour. She hadn't seen any of the stalls so we decided that we would walk around and look at the few that were still lying around. She found a stall with coconut jewelry and bought a ton of stuff but I have to say if I had any money on me I probably would have as well. We then passed trough the cafe there where they were selling off everything for a $1 so we bought bagles for the next morning for everyone. We then headed back to the RV and we set up the joint birthday parties for Lisa and Graham. I set up all the chairs around. Kellly got the neighbours tiki torches, I filled up the piñata and tied it up. Eventually the lads came back and the party was kicked off. It was a great way to end the weekend.

When we got up the following morning we were one of the few RV's left in the place, it was quite strange to look at what used to be a wall of vehicles and only see grass and bags of rubbish instead. We tidied up and messed around for a while and in the afternoon we hit the road. The big RV was heading north back to Pennsylvania but we had to go to Nashville to collect our insurance cheque. Graham was getting a flight from Nashville so we were able to give him a lift which he was quite grateful for. We stopped at Cracker Barrel for some food (where we tried biscuits for the first time - basically really soft sweet scones) and got him to his flight in plenty of time. We then rejoined the Interstate system and headed north back up to Chicago for our next adventure.