Monday, July 2, 2007
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
11
Not quite Graceland
Hippies and indie-rockers unite with Bonnaroo love
By FOREST CASEY
Daily Arts Writer
Two weeks ago, Manchester,
a small town west of Knoxville,
became the sixth-largest city in
Tennessee. Normally, the ebb and
flow of populations in small south-
ern towns isn't something worthy
of print. The migration of 100,000
or so people is a bit different.
The massive migration past the
Mason-Dixon line is like many
other wildlife migrations: It's sea-
sonal. Locals even have a name for
it: Bonnaroo.
Yes, June has come again, and
with it that most famous of ongo-
ing outdoor festivals. For four days
in Tennessee, hippies from around
the world gather to watch jam
bands, buy prayer beads and smoke
pot. And for the first few years,
that was the image that stuck in
the minds of concertgoers; if you
struck Bonnaroo with an atomic
bomb, three quarters of the Amer-
ican population of hippies would
go up in a mushroom cloud. But
the people behind Bonnaroo had a
different image in mind.
It wasn't quite the music of
Woodstock they seemed to emu-
late; it was more the singularity of
the moment. Every teenager in the
country wanted to make the drive
to upstate New York to tune in, to
drop out. Our cultural tastes are
too diversified and personalized
now to ever see such a thing again,
but 2006's visit to Manchester by
Radiohead certainly came close.
Since last year's festival, the
artist lineup reflects a desire to
be more inclusive, and with this
year's artists including Spoon,
The Hold Steady, Feist, The White
Stripes, The Flaming Lips, Cold
War Kids and Wilco, the crowds
gathering before shows looked
even more like the indie-rock set
you'd expect to see gathered at the
Blind Pig.
Except, of course, that you
don't normally have to live with
the indie-rock kids in a farm of
tents for four days. In that sense,
it's difficult to write reflections
FORtST CASEY/Duily
Thousands of revelers camyed and rocked oat for 4 days in Manchester, TN.
ence this festival really is. It's one
thing to mull over an artist lineup
on the internet and quite another
to spend a long weekend without a
proper shower, quickly becoming
primal in a desire to seek water or
shade or food at all costs and try-
ing to survive long enough to stand
up for the bands you drove to see.
As with festival concerts of all
types, the story of your concert
experience will be written by your
walking shoes, the $4 cup of fro-
See BONNAROO, Page 12
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what a deeply personal experi-
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EP OUR EVEN DOLLAR PRICING BUT RAISE SELECT MENU
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