Musical Set In South America

Old and New at Bonnaroo

MANCHESTER, Tenn.—Nearly 100,000 people gathered last weekend, June 9–12, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival on a hot and at times dusty farm in Manchester, Tenn. The four-day camping festival offered a broad range of music from all generations and cultures and attracted a global and diverse audience. Adventurous music fans flooded I-24 just south of Nashville with cars, vans, and campers packed to the limit. Most arrived between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday evening, forming a line on the road’s shoulder that took many hours to pass and caused local traffic problems—not all that uncommon for festival goers. However, once the car is parked and the campsites are set up, the long road trip is soon forgotten. The wait is like a rite of passage for the chance to see the wide variety of artists fill stages, lounges, and tents for four days. The continual expansion of genres showcased at Bonnaroo was as noticeable this year as ever, with Eminem getting the honor of the Saturday night headlining slot. This could have been the reason for a staggering number of first-time “Rooers” and a noticeable decline of veteran attendance.

Bonnaroo began predominately as a jam-band rock festival. The 2002 inaugural lineup featured Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident, moe., Umphrey’s McGee, Phil Lesh and Friends with Bob Weir, The Disco Biscuits, Trey Anastasio (of Phish), Ben Harper, Gov’t Mule, and bands alike. Other notable acts over the years have included Dave Matthews Band, Phish, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Tool, Radiohead (widely regarded as the best Bonnaroo performance of all time), Widespread Panic, Pearl Jam, Stevie Wonder, Nine Inch Nails, The Dead, Neil Young, The Police, and many other greats from past and present. In the years following Radiohead, Bonnaroo started seeing the jam-band-only identity slipping away; more indie, alternative, and rap acts were popping up, along with new festival goers. The Police and Tool were headliners the next year. Kanye West played in 2008, Snoop Dogg played on the main stage in 2009 just hours before Phish closed out the festival. Jay-Z played in 2010. In just a few years, the festival had gone from being a relatively unknown jam-band cult gathering into what many concert goers think is America’s greatest music festival. Where else are you going to see a Snoop Dogg crowd singing and dancing with a Phish crowd? (It brings to mind the James Brown line: “The long-hair hippies and the afro blacks. They all get together across the tracks.”) That’s Bonnaroo.

How Love In South America Changes A Man - As We Travel - Around ...

Today, I’d like to share a story about an old friend of mine – Mike. We used to be flatmates for 3 years during university back in Wellington, he was a cool dude but a total computer nerd, who loved staying inside playing with & fixing computers etc.

He was the kind of guy who wasn’t really interested in seeing the world, a guy who treasured security and safety first – he wanted a good education so that he could have a good job, earn money, buy a house, a car and raise a family in the city he grew up in.

So understand my surprise when I received an e-mail from him late last year.

I had heard that he was in South America, so my first thought was that he had gone on one of those  luxury holidays in South America with friends – you know the kind of holiday office-dwelling computer nerds would take – but it turned out to be something quite DIFFERENT!

Here is a random excerpt from the e-mail he sent me … The delay getting into Brazil meant that me and my Argentinian friends, Leandro & Martin, got separated. They headed north to Manaus, which is towards the beginning of the Amazon river – with the van, and a strictly 4wd path through the forest, this wasn’t an option for me.