Why I Hate Bonnaroo
4:54 PM EST Thursday, March 30 2006
Bonnaroo just announced their artist addtions: Cypress Hill, Blackalicious, The Streets, deadboy & the Elephantmen, Lyrics Born, The Refugee All Stars, Electric Eel Shock. It is amazing to me how far Bonnaroo has moved away from their jam band fan base. I honestly wouldn't go to Bonnaroo if you gave me free VIP tickets and airfare. I hate to admint it, but I'm secretly hoping for some kind of Bonnaroo disaster to show people that massive concerts without jam bands just don't work. Hopefully for everyone's sake it's nothing like Woodstock '99.
The reason that jam band festivals work is people go to see jam bands live because they love the music and they are really paying attention to the music. Most people at good jam band concerts/festivals are there to have a good time, but more than anyhting, enjoy some great live music. That is just not the case with people who go see acts (I won't even call then bands) like Beck and Cypress Hill. If you have bands like that, that nobody really takes seriously musically, everyone is just going to have a good time. That sounds great an all, but when the good times start to be more important than the music, it just seems to attract the trouble makers, people who are there just for the scene and not for the music, the scene starts to turn ugly, and eventually, it's not a good time for anybody. It reminds me of some of the last Phish shows I went to were you would see tons of people in the parking lot, with no tickets, no intention of even trying to get a ticket, people who have "been" to the last 5 shows on the tour, but haven't actually been in the venue to hear the music once.
I know Bonnaroo is just trying to avoid having the same bands play there every year, but I'd rather see them give some mid-level jambands like moe., Umphrey's McGee, String Cheese Incident, etc. a chance at headling. I assume they aren't doing that because they fear that without the big name headliners they might not sell out, and that is why I hate Bonnaroo. When it comes to jam bands that have already made it big, The Dead, Trey, Widespread, etc., they are all about jam bands, but once they've decided that those bands have played there one too many times, instead of trying to use their own well known name and promote some new bands and really create something special, they start lining up acts like Beck, Radiohead, Tom Petty, Neil Young, etc., because that is the safe thing to do and they know it will sell tickets. So that's why I hate Bonnaroo.
And my prediction is that this isn't going to last. Either people will start losing interest in Bonnaroo and they will struggle to sell tickets, or one year they are going to have the wrong band and the wrong crowd and there will be a disaster and they will be forced to stop doing Bonnaroo. I hope for everyone's safety that it is actually the first option, but I fear it will be the last. I'll see you at Wakarusa and moe. down.
