BonnaView

A three-year Bonnaroo veteran, I've made it back 

alive again.  I must say that the vibe has changed.  It used to be about intimacy with the music; now, some stages/acts are so packed that you cannot even hear the artist. I sat at Alison Krauss, Bela Fleck, and a number of other acts whose acoustic nature called for a much smaller setting – it sounded like background music at an unsophisticated restaurant.  The music, the fans, and the experience has all been diluted. At the 2005 Bonnaroo, I was able to hear the acts clearly from my campsite in Tent City. It was beautiful. Toomuch money has been paid by Bonnaroo patrons to have such a fate hit them. Of course, everyone is going to be a critic.  

The delicious Food Trucks!!!

What amazes me is that you can go to a music festival, a place where people of kind intentions typically gather, and still have the amount of trash left on the ground by its patrons.  America has fostered a society of externalists. Despite strategically placed trash cans and recycling bins, the crowd still saw the ground as their own personal garbage can. This requires that Bonnaroo employ over one hundred Clean Vibe volunteers every day to clean up the sea of water bottles unnecessarily placed there. Just who exactly is going to these festivals? Not my type of crowd - that is for sure.  Whatever drew these new indiscriminate fans there needs to go away - the mainstream music, the drugs, and the needs driven by greed. Music festivals typically have the most earth-conscious patrons of all industries; its increasing population indicates that it is now a festival of the masses. How can something that was once pure become commercialized to the point that it loses its inherent qualities?  

As for the music, well – most of it was  great. I was able to see many bands I have known and loved for years and others I knew nothing about. It was great to finally see Galactic, The Strokes, and RATATAT. Artists I had just recently learned about whose shows I really enjoyed were The Pimps of Joytime, Junip, and Wiz Khalifa.  The atmosphere is still there, but the fusion of it all could use some tweaking.  I do not know if I was simply disengaged, but I do know one thing – the next festival I attend will be much smaller and more intimate.