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We don't budge. Not once. Not all day. Not until the end.
We leave Southern NJ at about 4:30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon and arrive at the three day multi-stage Bonnaroo Music Festival Fairgrounds site on 700 acres of farmland in Manchester, Tennessee 17 hours later at 9:30 a.m. on Friday morning. That's 8:30 a.m. Tennessee time, so we've gained an hour. It's almost like we've been given a free hour to set up our tents but that only takes, what, 25 minutes, tops?
When we leave on Sunday, again at 4:30 p.m., we don't make as many stops and arrive home at 8:30 a.m. on Monday. So yes, it really is a sixteen hour drive. But a relatively easy one if you don't mind an after-image of the highway burned into your skull later when you try to fall off to sleep and accidently wake yourself with a startle because you think you're still driving and should be paying attention to the road.
It takes a few hours for your body to remember it can relax. You probably shouldn't try this alone unless you're willing to pull over to one of the many accessible (and surprisingly clean) rest areas to sleep in your car. There are two of us, so when one of us gets tired, the other one takes over. I'm a bit of a hog on the way down, not wanting to relinquish the wheel much. That's because it's dark and we're in unfamiliar territory. The protective mother in me takes over. I'm less of a control freak on the way back, though, because I know what to expect from both the road and my body.
It's too hot to sleep when we get there on Friday morning. Really, really hot. By the time we finish assembling our tents we're drenched. There isn't one cloud in the huge powder-blue sky and all the fog we saw laked between the Tennessee mountain tops earlier during the sunrise portion of our drive has probably been singed dry by the sun. Austin sleeps for about an hour, I think. I try, but the two couples who pull in immediately after us are LOUD. They're too pumped up to realize that others around them, us included, are exhausted. People have driven from as far as Canada, which takes an entire 24 hours, to attend the festival. Cars are still arriving and some people are playing music while setting up their sites, but none are blasting their music the way this group is. Lucky us. We don't want to be un-neighborly and so when one of the members of the loud group comes over to introduce himself to us we offer him a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles. This makes him happy. He's the happier and the less foul-mouthed one of what we will find later is a group of two brothers and their two female companions. They do pipe down as the hours pass, mostly because one of the females gives the louder, more aggressive brother shit for being so noisy while she's trying to sleep. It's all good after that. People offer one another duct tape and mallets for pounding down stakes. We do not, however, sleep that first day. My first hours of sleep don't come until 2:00 a.m. Friday night, and I'm awake by 8:00 a.m Saturday, too hot and too excited to sleep. I'm not asleep on Saturday night until nearly 3:30 a.m and again on Sunday it's too hot too sleep past 8:00 a.m so I'm up brewing coffee and washing up. One thing I discover during this trip is how resilient the body is. I've been awake since 8:30 Thursday morning, but my mood on Friday afternoon is one of happy perseverence and accomplishment. We've made it to Tennessee where I'm attending my first ever over-night camping music festival experience. We're here!!!
While attending these concerts at Bonnaroo I wonder how it must feel to be a performer and know tens of thousands of people have traveled to see and listen to you. I'm thrilled for the band members. I'm thrilled for musicians, in general. This is truly inspiring. To be on the fairgrounds with this many people is a spiritual experience. It is at times like this that I look around me and think I may have died during that brain surgery operation and that now I'm in heaven. And then I get all philosophical and wonder why oh why do so many people live as though they are going to get another chance. As if what happens in this life doesn't really matter because they are going to get another, better life, anyway. Better than this life? I doubt it. Looking around at everyone here, I think they doubt it to. I think they're thinking what I'm thinking. That this life DOES really matter. And music is their religion. This is, without a doubt, a spiritual revival.
Austin will later tell me that everyone here is drunker than I notice, but the only "mean drunks" we encounter are one or two concert late-comers who try to push us and other concert goers-out of our spots so they can see. Fat chance of that, them pushing us, that is. Especially on Saturday, when, after attending a very intimate acoustic set by John Popper and Blues Traveler (what that man can do with his mouth, whew!, to be HIS partner, eh?) we walk to the main stage where the Neville Brothers are playing so that we can stake out a spot for the Elvis Costello and the Imposters Featuring Allen Toussaint show. It's approximately 2:00 p.m when we get there and although we're already relatively close to the stage, when the Neville Brothers finish and the crowed disperses we advance, lay out our beach towels, put down our backpacks and sit tight. Us and thousands of others. Elvis Costello et al are scheduled to appear from 3:00 to 4:30p.m, Beck is scheduled to play from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. and Radiohead begins at 8:30. We don't budge. Not once. Not all day. Not until the end.
The sense of community here on the field is even more astonishing than it is back at the campsite, which is a twenty minute walk from here, walking fast. I have never in my life met so many happy people. Tens of thousands of people waiting in 100 degree heat, and they're all in a good mood. Why can't the people I work with be more like this? The other early-comers, those who also wanted to be certain to have a close spot, all look out for one another. The guy sitting next to us with his wife offers to go for a water run so we don't lose our place while we watch his, because if you move, you lose, believe me. We don't budge. Not once. Not all day. Not until the end.
There are towels and blankets and backpacks and people spread out everywhere. At first people can rest, even sleep on their blankets in between sets, but as the day goes on and the field becomes more crowded we all become contortionists, folding our arms and legs in as close as we can to our bodies to make room for others. We pile our backpacks in one pile and finally there is barely room to stand let alone sit. Some of the young girls around me become a little nauseous during the wait (one is obviously pregnant because while she sits on her husband's lap he pats her softly on the belly while trying to comfort her) but no one gets sick or passes out. Austin loans his cell phone to a guy in front of us who has been waiting for his brother to catch up with him all day. We try to make room for as many late-comers as we can, but when there's no room left and crowd-rushers try to push the members of the little community we've established during the wait out of the way, we tell them to move along, that we do need to be able to breathe, even if they don't think so. People are sharing water and sunblock and conversation. We meet people from Canada, Texas, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Indiana (to name a few), and none of the members of our neighborhood move. We don't budge. Not once. Not all day. Not until the end.
I don't know what it's like to be in the back of the concert field during these shows, whether or not it is as crowded there as it is up front. I do know that on Friday night we are much farther back for the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers show and that there is room to move through the crowd, but barely. It seems the farther back you are, the more careful you have to be about stepping on people because they tend to sprawl out more. If you're close you just have to accept that your'e probably not going to move much. This is where Zen comes in handy. You've basically got the space between your shoulders. And your ears.
Here again, my body surprises me. Even though I drink at least six bottles of water and don't move from my one spot for nine hours on Saturday, I don't have to use the bathroom once. It's almost as if my body knows it can't go so it doesn't bug me about it.
Yes, this is exhausting. But in a good way. The way sex is exhausting. Or childbirth. Beautiful and connective exhaustion.
Not every concert we attend is as crowded as these three at the "What Stage" and we don't try to get as close for Ben Folds, Bright Eyes or The Dresdon Dolls. Still, we are close enough because the crowds and the stages are a bit smaller than the main Bonaroo What Stage" stage. We sit in the field in front of the "Which Stage" picnic-style on our towels for the beginning of Bright Eyes. Ha. Like that's going to happen, sitting through Bright Eyes. They're too good to sit through. We have to stand up.
If you're confused by the stage names, just think slapstick. There are small music lounges and cafes as well as giant stages. The main stage names are "What Tent," "Which Stage," "This Tent," "That Tent", "The Other Tent", and "Yet Another Tent." So you can say clever things like, "Radiohead is at What Stage" or answer, "Yes!" if someone asks you "At what stage is Beck playing?" "Yes. What stage. No, not Which stage. That's where Ben Folds is. And Blues Traveler is over there in This Tent. My Morning Jacket? In That Tent. That tent. Over there. That Tent." You get the idea.
The nights here are a cool release. Austin sleeps on his towel in the field in front of the "The Other Tent" while we wait for the Dresdon Dolls to go on at 2:00 a.m on Saturday morning, as do other blankets-full of people. I scatter the leftover lightsticks I collected (the ones I didn't throw back into the air or give away, there were so many!!) that landed at my feet during the Radiohead concert around the heads of people who are sleeping because some people get stepped on, or nearly stepped on by passers-by. It helps.
There is no bad food at Bonnaroo. I'm going to try to re-create the sirloin beef tips with veggies and rice because wow. Wow. Wow. I thought my mouth was awake all these years. My mouth was only half-awake. Like a woman who has her first orgasm at age 37. Austin says the shrimp is incredibly good, and we both try the alligator. Oh, okay, I only taste it. He eats an entire plate. But I get it down without gagging! The pizza is perfect. Perfect. Do you know how difficult it's been to find a perfect slice of pizza in Southern New Jersey? Sorry New Jersey, I do love you, but it took me nearly twenty years to find just two good pizza parlors. The others pizzas aren't even edible. Seriously.
There is so much more to tell. I've never seen so many people in one place. And other than at a college campus, I've never witnessed communal living. The camping fields here are immense and there are more than 80,000 tents for sleeping and canopies set up for shelter from the sun. There is the smell of grilling food in the background, and the soft lull of thousands of voices in the background of the campsite mixed in with various sources of music. I can hear Common and the crowd that is cheering him on from the tent at 3:30 a.m. Saturday Morning and it's a comforting sound. Like falling asleep to the soft roar of the crowd during a televised sporting event, only a trillion times better.
By the time we leave, we've done a lot of walking and a lot dancing. Even though we don't budge from our spots all day Saturday, that only accounts for nine of our 56 hours there at the Bonnaroo site. And through each bands set we barely stop dancing, clapping, singing and bopping. We spend another nine hours sleeping, and I may be erring on the generous side when I say I get nine hours of sleep. Nearly all of our remaining 38 hours are spent moving from one tent or building to another so that we can see all of the attractions, which include a classic arcade/discotheque, a giant water fountain, and a silent auction where people are writing in bids for posters and instruments that have been signed by the artists. There's a girl framing an 11x15 poster of Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint and when she finally turns it over we get a good look. The bidding starts at $500. A signed guitar is going for $2,500. It makes me wonder what my signed jeans back home would bring should I ever be stupid enough to sell them, which I will not. People are standing around the fountain, waiting for the water to be turned on, and when it finally is, two sticky little boys charge toward it. One runs back out because the water is cold, but the other does a dodgy dance, eventually getting his body used to the startle and staying under it.
Other attractions include a cinema, a silent disco, a comedy club, booths touting environmental awareness and responsibility, and artisans selling their wares: art, posters, hemp clothing, jewelry, hats, t-shirts, hammocks, puzzle boxes, even instruments. We get Austin's dad a gorgeous tunable xylophone with a beautiful clear tone, a stand and a case for Fathers Day (he's learned piano and writes/records music, so this should be fun for him) and we visit the VW Garage where festival attendees take turns playing the instruments provided. No violin, though, so I can't play, but the musicians we hear when we stop by are pretty damn good and once again onlookers are bopping and dancing.
I do so much dancing these past few days, my body hurts, but it's a good hurt. A good kind of sore. Like after a work-out or playing your instrument all night. Or as noted earlier, good sex.
p.s. My mascara didn't budge so I'm advocating. Maybeline "lash stylist" waterproof. It's the best mascara I've ever used, and I've used a lot of mascara. Hey, even poets need expressive eyes.
Also: "I left my eyebrows in Tennessee." It should be a bumper sticker.
posted by Marylisa at 8:49 PM
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