Desitively Bonnaroo

As a member of the Oregon Trail generation, I was born into an analog world ruled by cassette tapes, CDs, VCRs, the TV Guide channel, 30-minutes-or-less delivery pizza, road maps and a healthy dose of secondhand smoke. Concert tickets had to be purchased over the phone, at a venue’s box office, by mail order, through a band’s fan club or in person from an authorized Ticketmaster outlet. Tickets were sold on a first come, first serve basis and you showed up as early as you could to get in line and wait until 9 a.m. when the ticket booth opened up. It wouldn’t be strange to see the brains, the basket cases, the princesses, the athletes and the criminals all bundled up in the dead of winter hoping to score front row seats for insert band name here. You could risk heading to the concert on the day of and hope to buy from an unscrupulous reseller looking to price gouge but there was no guarantee of authenticity or admission to the show.   

Call it a rite of passage or call it the only option, either way I spent many hours as a preteen standing with friends and strangers outside of the Dominick’s grocery store on North Avenue in River Forest, Illinois waiting for the chance to spend my parents hard earned dollars toward the pursuit of happiness. I couldn’t tell you every band that I was fortunate enough to see as a snot-nosed brat but Rusted Root, Metallica, The Suicide Machines, Skankin’ Pickle, Mustard Plug, Blink 182, MXPX, The Toadies, and 311 were among the many. For the earliest shows in my concert-going career I would need an adult chaperone to safely transport me and my brother or friends to and from the show. Usually that duty fell to my father but my mother holds the distinction of bringing me and my brother to our first rock concert.

At the time, radio stations sponsored and hosted single-day events with several popular bands to showcase the stars of the moment. In Chicago, Q101 was the preeminent station for the youth and played the “alternative” rock music that was sweeping the nation and was the authority behind such events as Twisted Christmas and Jamboree. My attendance at these multi-artist engagements were a fine way for a young man to get accustomed to the live music scene that would play a formative part of my adolescence. The inaugural Twisted Christmas, held in December of 1994 at the UIC Pavillion in Chicago featured a killer lineup top to bottom. Performers that night included Bad Religion, Dinosaur Jr., Hole, Killing Joke, Veruca Salt, and Weezer. Not too shabby for a first concert to attend. My brother and I each brought a friend and all four of us bought the same shirt, but that’s a story for an another time.

I’d go on to see Veruca Salt play a solo show at the Riviera Theater in Chicago the following year where I purchased a “Veruca Salt for Boys” shirt which I wore into a shredded thing of beauty. It was on a standard 50/50 Screen Stars New “A” design tag. When I got into collecting it was one of the first shirts I looked to reacquire and was able to find a fairly priced one from a seller in London who had seen the band on their first UK tour but it came on the Screen Stars Blue Bar 100% cotton tag. It took me a little while to track down one on the 50/50,  but I ultimately was able to get it back into my rotation.

My first metal show was in 1995. White Zombie played in support of the Astro-Creep: 2000 album at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago which included Reverend Horton Heat, the Melvins and Babes In Toyland as opening acts. The guitarist for White Zombie, “J”, was the son of a Chicago Tribune colleague of my mother’s and we were able to score free tickets to the event. I brought a friend as did my brother while my dad read a book from the back of the hall. There was rumor that we would be allowed backstage after the concert but that never materialized most likely since we were four kids ages 11-13.

A full circle moment came when my brother and I saw Red Hot Chili Peppers on their One Hot Minute Tour at the United Center, home of the World Champion Chicago Bulls. Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik was the first CD that my father purchased for us that included the Parental Advisory sticker affixed to its front. Space Hog was the opening band and their song “In the Meantime” was a radio hit. My dad brought a friend so he wouldn’t be bored out of his mind and they would spend the evening in the stadium’s corridors drinking beers and entertaining each other while the show went on. Our seats weren’t that good, and I don’t remember much about RHCP’s performance. Flea might have played a French horn, but I’ll never forget spending that time with my dad and brother. I chopped and cropped the shirt I bought since it was about four sizes too big for me at the time. Now it shows a little midriff when I wear it.

When I was finally allowed to roam free without parental guidance at an all day affair, I attended the second annual Q101 Jamboree with five or six friends in 1996. Held at The New World Music Theater in Tinley Park, Illinois, my neighbor’s mother dropped us off in her teal conversion van and agreed to pick us at a predetermined place and time. What a difference from having sit next to an adult like all my prior concert experiences. For the next eight hours we ran between stages to catch the likes of Candlebox, Foo Fighters, No Doubt and Cypress Hill. I crowd surfed for the first time as Shirley Manson of the band Garbage belted out their hit “Only Happy When It Rains” while it was pouring down on the crowd. I was summarily dropped on my ass. Quickly, I asked to be lifted back up to catch another wave of hands. By the time Korn went on the the main stage, the venue’s lawn seating, which was a large sloped area, had been turned to a slippery, sloppy, muddy mess which made it hard to stand or even enjoy the emotive screams let out by frontman Jonathan Davis. I left the concert wearing a newly purchased and soaked Everclear ringer-tee with cartoon caricatures of the band members on front and a dope back hit. Our ride home was none too pleased that we were caked in mud and spreading it all over her beast of a vehicle.

With my beak wet, I wanted to go in for more. I attended Lollapalooza in 1996, and less than a month later I was at the Van’s Warped Tour held in the parking lot of the United Center. Thunder storms marred that day as well but at least there wasn’t any mud to contend with. NOFX, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Goldfinger, Reel Big Fish and Pennywise played and were constants during my punk and ska days. I was back at Lollapalooza in 1997 where me and friends smoked bowls of low grade weed and an endless supply of Bidi Sticks purchased from an unlicensed vendor in the parking lot prior to the show before seeing Snoop Doggy Dog, Tool, and Devo headline.

Entering high school, I wasn’t on board with many of the popular fixtures from MTV’s Total Request Live era like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, Monica or Brandy. I fully admit to blasting Nelly’s Country Grammar nonstop in my parent’s Mercury Mountaineer after getting my license and trying to download Eminem’s third album from Napster before it officially released. Much of the music I was listening to around then was sourced from my dad’s extensive and disorganized record collection dating back to his teen and college years in the nineteen fifties and sixties up until CD’s became the most common way to enjoy audio recordings in the mid 80’s. Exploring rock records from Cream, Blood Sweat & Tears, Rick Nelson, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Electric Flag, Paul Butterfield, Weather Report along with jazz heavyweight champs John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Charles Mingus and countless others gave me an appreciation for musicianship and songwriting that had not previously been present and would inform my musical tastes for the rest of my life.

My concert going slowed considerably around then as going to house parties, keg parties in the woods, or drinking in any available basement or other place that adults were not became my main source of entertainment. In the summer my friends and I would spike our Slurpees with Dimitri vodka and jump the Green Line downtown to catch free shows in Grant Park during the Taste of Chicago like the Isley Brothers, George Clinton and Wilco. I was a Parrothead for a little while and saw our Lord and Savior Jimmy Buffet two summers in a row. Then I started going to shows of bands that jammed, grooved, improvised and were highly regarded for their live performances like North Mississippi Allstars, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Umphrey’s McGee and the String Cheese Incident.

The period between high school graduation and starting my freshman year of college was like a long weekend that went on for three months. It was filled with nighttime softball, daytime bowling, lake house weekends and as much alcohol as possible. Some of the kids in my class had planned a post graduation “senior trip” to a godforsaken Mexican tourist trap like Cozumel or Puerto Vallarta and got some of the less responsible parents to sign on as chaperones. I desperately wanted to go. Despite the fact I was a legal adult, my parent’s sound judgment prevented me from gallivanting in some foreign land looking for foam parties with troublemaking teens. However, they were more than willing to allow me to attend the inaugural Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Bumfuck (Manchester), Tennessee with a handful of my most adventurous friends for a weeklong exercise in overindulgence and drug consumption. 

My dad was at Woodstock in 1969, so he of all people knew the potential for disaster. As described by him, he had bought a ticket and made a plan to meet up with a friend at the entrance of the festival. That never materialized. With no way of contacting his buddy, he spent the next two days wandering around Max Yasgur’s farm without food, water or shelter while potentially under the influence of really good psychedelics and left before Jimi Hendrix blasted off. If there were vendors selling anything, they were few and far between and didn’t plan accordingly to feed the 400,000-500,000 people in attendance. 

It didn’t take much convincing to get my folks approval. They’d lend me the family Nokia 3310 cell phone in case we needed to get in touch over the week that I would be gone. It was unlikely that cell service would be reliable where I was going. In total, myself and five or six friends would drive from Chicago to Tennessee. It would be my first time seeing a Waffle House in person. 

In the lead up to departure, the most important aspect of planning would be purchasing all the beer and liquor that we’d need over the course of the three-day festival. I couldn’t count on my fake ID working in the Bible Belt so I purchased fifteen 30-packs of Busch and Busch Light, one case of Miller Lite and bottles of cheap vodka, rum, and whiskey from a suburban liquor store in Forest Park, Illinois that had been well know for selling to underage kids. Luckily it all fit in the flat bed of the truck we were caravanning in. If we got pulled over on the way there’d be no way to talk our way out. It wouldn’t be prudent to get in trouble with the law. We’d end up in jail at least for a night, miss the festival and probably never be trusted by our parents again. The stakes were high. I took an early driving shift and made sure to stay below the speed limit. Any drugs were in the other car. 

The fun really started after buying groceries for the weekend. A few miles away from the farmland that would serve as the festival site, a traffic jam greeted cars for as far as the eye could see. All 70,000 festival attendees got there early and waited to get into the venue at the same time. When the sun went down, hippies, posers, drug-dealers, light-healers, bros, burn-outs and more, exited their vehicles and turned the highway into a bacchanal. For close to ten hours I wandered Interstate 24 looking for enlightenment.   

I cracked into one of the racks of Busch to get some onto ice. The first few warm ones went down slow but once they reached an ideal temperature, I was able to drink to my heart’s content while waltzing up and down the boulevard with the beer bong that I packed for the camping trip slung around my neck offering it to revelers along the way. We’d share a joint and make plans to meet up inside, knowing the chances were slim that we’d ever see one another. Entrepreneurial partygoers hastily set up bootleg merchandise tents and several food stands to feed the masses: things like grilled cheese sandwiches, veggie burritos, hotdogs, and hamburgers. Other salespeople offered the chance to buy cocaine, weed, edibles, Molly, Lucy, shrooms and other federally scheduled substances for a nominal fee. Buyer beware. 

It was muggy outside and cars began to inch forward as rain began to fall. While folks meandered back to their own vehicles, some turned-on individuals marched through the remnants of the evening while drumming and dancing up a storm much to my delight as I finished throwing up next to my friend pissing on the side of the road. When the festival finally started to let travelers in, we were able to realize just how far the traffic stretched. After slogging along for hours, we arrived at the entrance, had our tickets checked and found our way to the campgrounds. 

I was useless in trying to help set up the decades old 10-person tent we’d borrowed. Those hours on the interstate had taken their toll and I needed to rest up for the next three days of debauchery. Curled up in the less-than-full-size backseat of a Dodge Dakota didn’t quite allow me the respite I was in search of so I was groggy and sore when I emerged from my slumber. The morning sun was already beating down when my group left our campsite to explore the festival grounds. 

“Ganja Goo-balls! Who wants a Ganja Goo-ball?” was yelled repeatedly by a person walking around with a soft lunch cooler draped around their neck. I thought, “What the fuck is a Goo-ball”? For the uninitiated, its a no-bake confection made with cannabis infused butter and any number of dry ingredients and binding agents like peanut butter, honey, cereal, graham crackers, cinnamon, chocolate chips and granola. I bought two and slammed them down. I hadn’t experienced edibles previously so had no reference for how stoned they would get me, which was very stoned to the point of discomfort. 

I’m certain I saw Jurassic 5 perform and I clocked Les Claypool’s Flying Frog Brigade, Bela Fleck, Jack Johnson and The Del McCoury Band too. Phil Lesh and Friends with Bob Weir was essentially the The Dead and had the crowd howling with their rendition of the classic Tennessee Jed and its refrain of “Tennessee, Tennessee, there ain’t no place I’d rather be” was sung by everyone in attendance. I was tripping balls through Galactic’s late night set that went until 4 a.m. which melted my face off as I sat and stared int to the sea of partygoers. Widespread Panic closed out the first two nights and Trey Anastasio on hiatus from Phish wrapped the concert up on Sunday evening. Beyond that, memories of the inaugural festival are hazy and bleed together with my subsequent trip back to Tennessee for Bonnaroo 2003: Electric Boogaloo the following summer.  

With most of the extra money I brought spent on narcotics and ice to keep the coolers of our food chilled, an official festival shirt wasn’t on my radar. On the way back to the campsite to begin packing up we ran across someone liquidating their bootleg shirt inventory while the festival drew to a close. For ten bucks I scored a Budweiser parody shirt featuring a spoof of the King of Beers logo on front and the list of performers on the back. With shirt in hand and my time in Tennessee nearing an end, we smoked the rest of the weed we had and tried to leave at the same time as the other 70,000 attendees. 

Throughout my twenties I attended hundred of concerts across the country though by and large I’d stopped buying shirts at shows. I’ve clocked the Nappy Roots perform in a lecture hall at the University of Missouri and my first Phish show was in 2003 on their comeback tour after their two-year break, which coincided with my skipping an algebra test so I could tryout for the original iteration of SLAMBALL. Bob Dylan at the Illinois State Fair was an affair to forget. James Brown bringing down the House of Blues in Chicago was top notch performance from the hardest working man in show business. A spry 74-year-old Willie Nelson on his Last of a Breed Tour captured my grandmother’s heart during a photo opportunity and stole the show from Merle Haggard and Ray Price.

One memorable excursion found me hopping on the City of New Orleans train and then riding the festival express to the end of the line, which delivered me to the Crescent City for the famous Jazz and Heritage Festival where I’d catch a couple of my favorite artists, Levon Helm and Greg Allman before father time got a hold of them. I hit up legendary venues Tipitina’s, The Howlin’ Wolf and The Maple Leaf for late night shows. Venturing into the French Quarter in the early morning hours searching for some good old debauchery, I stumbled into a corner bar called The Rusty Nail where a no-nonsense West Coast soul and funk outfit called Orgone was passing the hat around and belting out a cover of “I Get Lifted” to a lively but exhausted crowd of pleasure seekers. It would be the first of 20+ times seeing them over the next few years as they became my favorite live band and a guaranteed party every time they hit the stage.  

When I lived in Austin, Texas I enjoyed music nightly around town at the many bars, clubs, theaters and other venues. South By South West (SXSW) brought too many people to town and wasn’t all it had been cracked up to be. Billy Joel and Elton John nailed it in 2009 during their Face 2 Face tour’s stop at Wrigley Field. Ringing in the new year and entering 2010 with Girl Talk’s show at The Congress Theater in Chicago was an all time concert-going experience. During the years I lived in Colorado, I vibed with Lil Wayne and Drake at my first show at the hallowed Red Rocks amphitheater  and received complementary tickets at the Boulder Theater to just about any show I wanted as a benefit of working for a popular cannabis lifestyle magazine at the time. 

The older I get, the less inclined I am to venture into the night raging against the machine. Staying in and spending time with my dog is preferable but every now and again I will get a bug up my ass and go check out one of my favorite contemporary artists. Dropping acid at the Pretty Lights concert had me loopy and enthralled with the flashing imagery that almost induced me into seizure. Bands I learned about through my music streaming service suggestions clued me in on international sounds coming from groups like Mildlife, Surprise Chef, L’Eclair, and Parcels, which I’ve now had the pleasure of seeing perform. A friend’s Tom Petty tribute band has been known to draw me out into the open occasionally. 

Hard to believe that I hadn’t been to a multiple-day music festival with camping in over two decades. That changed last summer when a good friend invited me to join him at the Electric Forest in Rothbury, Michigan for a freak festival with 50,000 souped-up ravers cutting loose and getting goofy. Ideologically, the festival shared DNA with Bonnaroo. They both see themselves as temporary utopias and choose community over consumption (in theory). Radical inclusivity and using music as a connective force are core tenets of the events. Sharing a rejection of authority, a tolerance of altered states and a mythology of freedom entice the festival goer to live on the fringes of society for a few days each year. 

This time the drugs I brought were all legal. Psilocybin gummies were purchased online and picked up in a CVS parking lot in Ann Arbor, Michigan where the substance had been decriminalized and the cannabis came from the regulated market. Our starting point was only a few hours away from the Double JJ Resort campgrounds that the festival is held on each year and there was an early entry ticket option that allowed our travel party to get onsite more easily than my sojourn to Bonnaroo. My host had a travel trailer with a gas grill, StarLink internet, toilet and sleeping arrangements on the convertible sofa. We had access to VIP showers which I skipped. I was living high on the hog, a stark departure from my previous festival experience.

The music was eclectic but slanted heavily toward genres within the electronic music milieu. Festival attendees were dressed to impress wearing home made costumes and wild outfits. The forest was literally electrified and lit up the night with incredible visuals, art installations and a one of a kind atmosphere. When Justice began their set, thousands of party goers moved in rhythm to the stage like they were being led by the Pied Piper. EDM and House beats blared into the early morning and could be heard in our camper all the way from the stages when trying to pass out after a long day. 

With the festival running from Thursday to Sunday, we left on Saturday morning. That was enough for us. Four straight days and nights of partying and carousing aren’t feasible anymore. My back and knees get stiff and sore from standing for hours end then walking miles back and forth between the campgrounds and the festival site all day long. During our departure there was nary a noise being made from our neighbors nor any other camper for that matter. Most attendees are typically coming down from a night of being high on Ecstasy and don’t start moving around until the early afternoon. Breaking down our campsite was a marvel of efficiency and we were out of there and embarking on the drive back to civilization before the sun had fully risen. 

Growing up my mother told me about seeing The Beatles perform in 1964 at their first ever concert in the United States at Washington Coliseum in our nation’s Capitol. My father would regale me with tales of seeing Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, Howlin’ Wolf, The Band and many others as a young man. Time spent with my brother and friends on the outskirts of a mosh pit or pressed up against the barrier in front of a stage were central to my coming of age. My eight-year-old nephew has already gotten some experience under his belt when he attended Riot Fest last summer with his parents. He came back with a smile on his face and a new favorite band—Mac Sabbath, a parody band that dresses as deranged members of the McDonald’s Gang. Uncle Emmett might not be the best choice to chaperone my nephew to a concert at his age now, but give it a few years and I’d be happy to help him make some musical memories of his own.