Second Rodeo

A few years ago, in June 2019 I went for the first time to Bonnaroo, which my father refers to as Woodstock South. It was a wonderful trip, full of new music, sun, and good friends. More written on the subject can be found at this broken link here.

A week or two after the fact, I had an extensive conversation with my grandparents about whether this music festival, where Phish played twice, was really a low-down kind of place. Their words. What was the deal with using the john? What was the shower situation? I assured them that there were three tiers of toilet available for those with GA tickets, and presumably toilets of increasing quality available to those buying GA+, VIP, or Platinum. This year, though, a guy queuing with us for merch on Sunday told us not to do GA+. Better to spend the money on an RV.

I walked away from that first festival with a host of great memories, but I walked away from the debrief scratching my head about whether it was something I could really see myself doing again, though I was glad to have visited. I thought about how the weather that year, sunny and mid 80s, was ubiquitously deemed clement, as June in Tennessee routinely gets into the 90s and 100s, or it thunderstorms. One and done, I told myself.

Life continued, and in February 2020, I bought a ticket for the upcoming Bonnaroo, convinced in part by my friends and, unusually, by the lineup.

That Roo was eventually rescheduled for Labor Day 2021, at which point extreme rain flooded the venue, and they canceled it again.

That autumn, I saw My Morning Jacket for the first time, and the experience was made special in part by a couple of new friends my pals and I met in the pit, because one had a Roo patch on his jean jacket and the other had a Roo calf tattoo. Veterans, they had also chosen to be right in the middle, but not that close to the front.

There’s something special here, I thought. Starting a conversation with them, it felt like talking to somebody who had been to the same summer camp a few years before or after. A wistful, aw shucks tone used to talk about how much fun it was while gauging whether this person was safe enough to tell how much fun it really was, down to the late night kitchen raids. I had a great time at Bonnaroo, we said, depending on who’s asking.

Life continued, and I sat out of the June 2022 edition. Thanks to post-covid jitters and two years off, this one was a bit smaller. I’m told it was richer, allowing easier upfront access for top bands, full only of diehards keeping the lore alive. I began to question whether I should always earmark one of my precious 52 weekends a year to sweat in a tent beneath the baking sun.

February 2023, and Emily and I were taking a second pass through the Red Hook Ikea. We had mistakenly shopped before eating, but we couldn’t eat after visiting the warehouse with all her furniture. We couldn’t bring our cart of impulse items into the cafeteria without paying, so we stashed it near the bathroom, where it vanished. While retracing our steps to rekindle the same impulses a second time, Emily asked something along the lines of whether I wanted to go to that festival in Kentucky again.

I demurred, thinking about the toilets and about whether I would willingly bring somebody dear to me prone to sunburn into this kind of situation. She is committed to trying everything once, though, so tickets were purchased, a car was rented, and the gears set into motion.

The festival is divided into Centeroo and Outeroo. Centeroo is the festival proper, where the sound systems, the food, the ferris wheel all are. It’s open 24 hours a day, and people scan their RFID tickets on the way in and on the way out. Outeroo is where the campsites all are, where there are queues for portable but flushable toilets, water stations, showers, and a handful of “plazas” where some shows and other festivities are organized.

Bonnaroo has a ship of Theseus thing going on, as the acts change, the audience change, the vendors change, but something is always the same. Pulling into Outeroo, we waited on line for them to search our car for glass bottles, weapons, or who knows. We saw before us a sea of flags and tailgate tents, people walking around in wizard cloaks and people walking around in next to nothing, and I felt like I was at the Cross County Mall, getting on the bus to summer camp again.

I swaggered in with a better setup, lots of electrolytes, and an “it’s not my first rodeo” level of arrogance. Emily came equipped with three packages of baby wipes, fresh but refrigerator-agnostic vegetables, and an open mind.

As we walked about the festival, I kept eagerly pointing out the arepas for sale, which nobody seems to buy, and the lemonade, which is priced predatorily higher than alcohol. Another thing that happens is you’ll get tired, another thing that happens is there will be a scheduling conflict between two acts you love. Another thing that happens is I’ll go on and on about things that happen, as they happen.

Another thing that happens is lots of folks bring little party favors to pass out. These included adhesive gems, glow sticks, stickers, and clips with little plant sprouts on them. At Walmart, I bought a mega bag of dum-dum lollipops to build community with my fellow Bonnaroovians.

I didn’t just pass them out to everybody. There had to be a bit of a vibe check, and an opening. Some 30% of people looked excited, thanked me, and gladly took a lollipop. The overwhelming majority, though, gave me a full up-down and asked whether they were drugs. I said they were not drugs, which is what I would say if they were, but they weren’t.

The first night, we left Centeroo just as DJ Diesel, otherwise known as Shaquille O’Neil, took the Which stage. The Which stage is known for EDM, dubstep, and other space music that can be a bit too heavy for me. I didn’t know who Diesel was, but I knew that it’s a long long weekend. I meant to suggest we pace ourselves, but what I said was “Jake Marrus should not be at Diesel, at the Which stage, beginning at 2:30 AM.” I had in mind sayings about things after 2:00 AM and conversations with beloved relatives about what kind of shenanigans they had on offer.

Friday evening, night two, we drifted about the massive What stage hoping to track our friends down. We found ourselves a neat little place anchored next to a sound tower, where we could be easy to find. But, as Kendrick Lamar’s set moved on, I halfheartedly turned to Emily and explained how I forgot, another thing that happens is sometimes when you get separated, you don’t really find your way back for a while. It’s fun though because everybody’s running around having their little B plots, and tomorrow morning we’ll all sit around and talk about them and say ‘whoa that’s crazy.’

That night, as we danced off on our side quest, I decided to hold the lollipops up high, as tiny little totems. Totems are creative, lit up long somethings that your group keeps high so you can all find each other. At times, they’re beacons. For most of Friday, while we fumbled through our B plot, they were about as useful as a dum-dum.

So, we wandered around and danced til our feet ached, and eventually reunited with our friends. We limped out of Centeroo and declared “Bonnaroo 1, Emily and Jake 0.”

The third night, Bonnaroo ran up a second point as My Morning Jacket blew past their end time, playing a marathon three hour set until the very wee hours of the morning. This otherwise excellent set pushed us a bit over our musical saturation point, the point at which the walk home dilates to 10 miles long. As we finally settled into our sleeping bags at camp, somebody at the plaza started bumping some EDM.

Sunday night, we figured we would leave Foo Fighters a touch early so that we could get out to a hotel, where we would shower and spend the night before commencing the rest of our little adventure. We heard plenty of banter from Dave Grohl, and he sang with his kid, which was neat. I was surprised how many songs I knew, but I’ve aged into beating the traffic, so off we went.

We did not beat the traffic. Bonnaroo 3, Emily and Jake 0. We arrived at our hotel late, and they had given away our reservation. This has precipitated an, at time of press, ongoing battle with Marriott Loyalty.

Willfully skipping Shaq meant that the first night was probably a draw, so we didn’t quite get on the board all weekend. Yet, we’re planning to go back again next year. There’s something going on there, isn’t there.

People come to this thing every year, bringing their bags of party favors and their outfits. For many, it’s better than Christmas. In 2019, everybody greeted one another with a tossed off “happy Roo!” or yell “Bonnaroooooo” with a falsetto at the end.

Friday of Bonnaroo, it’s customary to high five everybody you pass as you wind your way through the Disney-style entrance corral. The side entrance closer to our campground didn’t have this, and reports from the main arch told of dishearteningly few high fives.

The fixation on lines for toilets, which were better than I remembered, feels like it cancels out any rose colored glasses. Nonetheless, this year, things felt different, less innocent.

The other day, I watched The Menu after finally making it home. Spoilers don’t exist anymore, so it’s revealed that Nicholas Hoult’s obnoxious foodie lead brought Anya Taylor Joy’s call girl to a pretentious meal where he knew every diner would be killed at the end. She is furious.

Every now and then, we stood or sat too close and the sound overpowered our earplugs. Other times, we placed ourselves too far back, and we found our show corrupted by sound leaking from other stages. Some times all we wanted was to curl up in the tent, but the walk back loomed too large. I developed a fear of the beating, fierce noontime sun that only now after a handful of rainstorms has dissipated. Watching the menu, I thought, my god, that’s me.

Emily and I both got to see half a dozen acts that made us super stoked. We got ourselves into a nice big gang that goes every year, full of super cool people we loved meeting. We danced more than we ever had, I can’t even list all the bits and jokes we picked up. There were more acts than tasting menu courses, nobody folded our napkins, and we did leave full. A four day festival, though, rhymes with a four hour meal.

Sore feet and ringing ears however don’t quite equal surprise death, but there’s a level of fear in bringing somebody new to your second rodeo, assuring them that it’s under control because it’s not your first rodeo. I had no concerns at all about the mutton busting. But mutton busting, chasing down and wrestling baby sheep, is child's play, reserved for children. The rodeo's marquee event involves trying not to get bucked off an angry bull, which is just a bit trickier.

People make a career of riding bulls. We can’t wait for next year.