Some of the most evident aspects of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee are the varying states of unpreparedness of the festival-goers.
Some are unprepared for the weather, which can shift from sunny and warm to pouring and bleak in minutes. Some are unprepared for the other festival-goers, whose general disregard for social norms can be a bit jolting if you've never seen people having sex outside of a porta-potty before. Some, like these writers, come completely unprepared in every way imaginable, including neglecting food, water, shelter and appropriate amounts of money to trade for necessities. But even the most unprepared fans can easily have the weekend of their lives simply by milling around, scrounging for scraps and hopping from tent to irresistible tent of music.
For the musicians, however, being unprepared is significantly more problematic. Without proper preparation and research, even the most seasoned performer's time-tested set can fall flat outdoors, or during the day, or to swarming masses of more than 80,000. The Daily chatted with three musicians slated to appear in the 2006 installment of the festival - Death Cab for Cutie bassist Nick Harmer, My Morning Jacket singer/songwriter/guitarist Jim James and Hasidic reggae rapper Matisyahu - to see how they are getting ready for the fifth annual Bonnaroo.
Death Cab for Cutie tells a story that starts with, "One time, at band camp..."
Though Bellingham, Washington indie-pop group Death Cab for Cutie has the least Bonnaroo experience out of the three artists we talked to, you wouldn't know from chatting with bassist Nick Harmer. During the band's nine-year career, DCFC have gone from a fledgling, fly-on-the-wall underground experiment, to college radio kingpins, to platinum sales and bona fide commercial success. They've seen and done a lot along the way, including performing at similar giant festivals. "We participated in Coachella and Lollapalooza as a band now, and then overseas at Reading and Leeds (in the UK)," says Harmer of his band's festival experience.
Whereas some bands would use their familiarity with similar happenings to develop a plan for approaching one as daunting as Bonnaroo, Harmer and DCFC know from their experience that such planning is useless. But while the grandiose event's unpredictability of everything from weather to ticket sales can be intimidating, Harmer says DCFC is looking forward to it.
"What happens if it's pouring rain when we're playing? What happens if it's, you know, 200 degrees?" says Harmer. "A lot of those environmental factors kind of sculpt the sort of energy in the crowd and sculpt the performance of us as well, so you know, those kinds of things are - those variables that you can't really plan on really change things, even up to the last minute, and that's very exciting. There's only certain - I think that's kind of what is exciting about some of this festival stuff for us."
And having played with bands as varied as club hip-hoppers Black Eyed Peas and dance-rock revivalists Franz Ferdinand, DCFC isn't worried about not winning over Bonnaroo's traditionally jam-loving fanbase.
When asked if he had any concerns representing a mainstream indie-pop band at a customarily counter-cultural event, Harmer said that he had "zero concern, actually. I think that, you know, we're just excited to be playing for people that are music enthusiasts and people that want to hear music being played and performed live and I think that our music will do OK in that setting, no problem. There are a lot of other bands on the bill that are of similar ilk to us, so I think we're going to do all right. We're really excited."
But while the prospect of winning over new fans is alluring to Harmer and DCFC, perhaps the best part about Bonnaroo for the band is the musicians' community that develops when nearly 100 bands convene.
"There are so many friends and so many bands that we know and people that we've made connections with over the years, it's kind of like band camp for us," gushes Harmer. "We get to show up and hang out with people that, quite frankly, we keep missing because usually when we're on tour, so are, you know, our friends and they're out touring as well, so we never really get to see each other's shows and we just don't really get a chance to sort of debrief and catch up with each other."
With nearly a decade of music, touring and schmoozing under their belts, DCFC may not know exactly what they are getting into at Bonnarooo, but Nick Harmer thinks they are well enough prepared already. They are unfazed by bright lights, teeming crowds, and generally formidable ordeals, and they're chomping to get to Tennessee and hang out with their friends. Jim James of neo-psychedelic southern rockers My Morning Jacket also relies on years of experience to properly ready him and his band for the festival, but a different kind of experience than Harmer and DCFC.
Energy drinks, vodka, and bobble-headed puppets for My Morning Jacket
For Jim James, active preparation for this year's Bonnaroo is also unnecessary, but not just because the genre-bending, frustratingly talented band have been around the world and back since debuting in 1999; James and company return to their native South for their fourth Bonnaroo performance in a row this year. But while one might expect confusing stage names, wonky attractions and alarming amounts of filth to get a little old after a while, James is ecstatic to get back to Manchester this summer.
"We have so much fun, you know, playing with the other bands and backstage and also going out into the festival," said James, in his most excited response of the interview. "Everybody's so chilled and there's so many things to eat and so many good things to listen to and so cool to see and you can really just kind of go out."
He added, "It's like a fantasy world, you know? It's a chance for everybody to escape their normal lives and their normal jobs and their normal worries and, you know, cares and stuff like that and just kind of go out with a bunch of like-minded people that just want to have fun."
With a live show as cohesive and purely tremendous as theirs, it probably would be enough for MMJ to simply do their regular thang at Bonnaroo, but they seem intent on one-upping themselves at the festival for each performance. Last year, perhaps the highlight of the festival was their day-time second-stage set, which featured giant, bobble-headed puppets on stage. James suggests that MMJ's 2006 performance, which, according to him, is tentatively set to be a four-hour midnight marathon set, will follow in a similar vein.
"I'm definitely looking forward to a lot of collaboration and stuff like that since there's going to be so many great people there," he said. "And we're working out some songs like that that we're trying to figure out...I don't - there's definitely a lot we've got in store but nothing that I'm going to promise."
But while there's a lot to get excited about for MMJ's fans at Bonnaroo, the band is just as eager to be entertained. Despite the angelic voice, flowing head of ethereally blond hair, and certified rock star status, James, like Harmer, is a regular dude at heart who can't wait to get to Bonnaroo to throw down with his friends.
"Man, Bonnaroo's great because we've got - back in the artist tent they always do the - they do like weird energy drinks/vodka drinks like Invigor8 and vodka, or vitamin water and vodka, which is nice," James divulged, adding that MMJ "have all Saturday and Sunday to see the rest of the bands and shows, so we always try to check the bands and tents...Yeah, and just kind of roam around until we pass out."
While James' ambitions may seem a bit inert, a man with as much Bonnaroo experience as him knows what kind of expectations are realistic for the festival. He also knows what it takes to wow a crowd, how to defy stereotypes, and how to blend musical styles into his own eccentric style. The last performer we interviewed, Matisyahu, knows all these things as well, due largely to his past experience at Bonnaroo.
Matisyahu comes to redeem Bonnaroo's many, many sinners
Like the other two artists the Daily spoke to, Hasidic reggae rapper Matisyahu isn't worried about having to prove anything to the Bonnaroo audience - his confidently spiritual debut at last year's show already took care of that. In fact, Matisyahu probably owes the festival organizers a few prayers of thanks; asked about last year's concert, the rapper credited it with helping him get into the public eye.
The crowd, he said "responded right away." "We played a good show," he continued, "I think some magic happened on that moment and, you know, that was definitely one of the major pieces that's gotten me to where I am today."
Part of the reason that Matisyahu enjoys Bonnaroo so much is its ephemeral, spiritual quality. And it's no surprise that for Matisyahu, whose music mixes traditional Jewish themes with contemporary reggae sensibilities, the performing experience is more transcendental than for most.
Music, he said, is "something that's been used for spiritual purposes for thousands of years and for the Jewish people that's particularly true... to me, music and song is a way of uplifting yourself and uplifting people and a way of sort of penetrating through the mundane, profane physical reality that we live in."
Penetrating the mundane, profane physical reality that we live in? It sounds like Matisyahu is aware of Bonnaroo's less-advertised identity as a drug user's holy ground. Even though these days Matisyahu's only accessing alternate realities through song, he understands who he'll be playing to this summer, admitting "I'm kind of used to that environment [of drug use]. That's the sort of the environment... that I grew up in as a teenager going to Phish concerts and things like that."
While he was quick to clarify that he no longer takes drugs, Matisyahu said that he understands "why people do it and I feel like I can create music in that environment that will help."
He explained that "with a hallucinogenic drug and things like that, you know, it's like, basically opening up a hole in your garments. Like, if you look at the person having a soul and the person having the garments of, let's say speech, thought and action, and a body and a physical reality that covers over their soul, there's no doubt about it that when people take hallucinogenic drugs they sort of open up a hole into themselves and into the universe."
He continued, "And while that can be like a very dangerous thing to do, it's definitely a place where, if you're listening to music and you're hearing the right kind of music, it can have an intense effect on you, as I know it did for me in my past. So I don't feel nervous or negative even about performing in that kind of environment."
If you're starting to get sad about missing out on the opportunity to open up into the universe with Matisyahu and a head full of acid, don't fret: You might just get him to have a glass of wine with you. Don't be expecting him to do a keg stand over a box of Franzia, though: Matisyahu's keeping this one strictly business.
Since the concert stretches over a weekend, spanning Sabbath, he's going to have to pull a few strings to keep things by the book.
"We're trying to work it out right now," he said, "but there's a chance - like, I'm going to make Shabbas with - make Shabbat at Bonnaroo, so I'm going to fly a team of rabbis... and we're going to have, like - I mean if it works out, we're going to have food and we're going to have our own tents and we're going to have like Shabbat services, like, prayer services at nighttime and in the morning, and we're going to have like a lot of wine and Coke." He means Coca-Cola.
Load up on the Grey Goose and Manischiewitz
Whether it's wine and Coke or vodka and Invigor8, Bonnaroo artists know how to get ready for the experience. Tellingly, none of the artists interviewed were too concerned about preparing their set ahead of time; it seems that the festival is just as much about community for the musicians as it is for the audience. Our advice for any potential Bonnaroo-er? Take a cue from the musicians and just hang out with your friends, be they rock stars, boozehounds or Hasidic rabbis.
