Due to my late arrival and desire to avoid Tool, which I am told by many of my Roo compatriots was a mistake, the only shows I scoped on Friday were of the late night variety. Arguably my favorite part of Bonnaroo, the late night shows really capture the out of control energy of the festival goers.
On to the music. I began with STS9 (Sound Tribe) playing a lively set that got the crowd moving pretty well, but I quickly moved on to Super Jam because I looked forward to hearing what Ben Harper, ?uestove, and John Paul Jones (of Zeppelin fame) had to offer. Let me tell you it was brilliant. If I had been soberer (or less inebriated, your call) I may have been able to tell you all about the jams, but basically it was Dazed and Confused, jammed in with some other riffs and an amazing jam for over half an hour, hence the name SuperJam. So a great start to my festival weekend. And for the record, don't let anyone tell you Ben Harper isn't one of the most versatile and genuinely likeable artists around. He always puts on a great show and can belt out some serious harmonies.
Saturday held the big ticket items for me (minus Wilco), starting with Old Crow Medicine show playing one of my favorite country/rock hits "Wagon Wheel". This band's Confederate creativity and homage to Country Western music with a dash of Rock makes them a fun show to investigate if you have the chance.
But my visit with OCMS was cut short due to a desire to catch the Slip peform "Even Rats". That song rocks and the Slip have an ability to get the crowd going, but they were unable to really rock the house due to a poor showing from festival goers. A surpise since I remember a previous Slip show there that was highly popular. But I digress, the festival has changed a lot and people were here for bands like Tool and the White Stripes, drastically altering the mood.
Slinked by Hot Tuna for a bit, pretty well unimpressed, with a band that lives in the 60's, but who am I, I just listen to the music. Then Regina Spektor bored med for about 15 minutes. At that point I wanted a quiet place to sit down, because festivals are hard work.
I move on to some artists I genuinely enjoy, Ziggy Marley played a nice lively set of his wonderfully upbeat music. "Tomorrow People" got me dancing around. Watching Ziggy makes me wonder how spectacular watching Bob really was. He is the closest thing we have.
I skipped Fountains of Wayne and Damien Rice, so sue me. I wanted to see my favorite Aussie tooting on his didgeridoo, the one and only Xavier Rudd. He plays off the crowd so nicely, and wows you with his ability to amp it up at the right moments. He's very earthy so dealing with some of his grass roots story telling is a bit much sometimes, but he tells a solid story and involves the crowd that much more. Something about the Cree Indian nation showed his homage to Native peoples and their love of music.
A dollop of The Hold Steady for good measure. This band is utterly old and so unhip they've become cool. Their songs must have been written when they were in high school, but now they're old and sound kind of funny. I'll give you this, their lead singer has a unique voice that plays well into their genre and makes them much more interesting.
I took a break, regrouped, rested my feet, pounded some H2O, because Saturday night was why I came to this place -- THE POLICE!!!! First I had to rein in my excitement as Ben Harper was playing first on the big stage. Excellent show, and I love Ben Harper (two guests John Paul Jones and Ziggy Marley helped out with some excellent material), but I'm too excited about what came next to write anything more.
So I moved in close, tired to get a good spot. I did alright, not as well as I would have hoped. Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers, and Sting arrived on stage to a rousing ovation. One of the best I've seen at the Roo. Quickly sensing that we wanted the hits, boom, "Message in a Bottle". Yes, that is correct, well done Sting. "Syncronicity II" hit the spot. "So Lonely" might have been my favorite of the night. An obligatory "Roxanne" was a crowd favorite, but Sting can't sing it anymore, so the fun is lost on me.
Sting was brilliant, seemed less ticked offed than Paul Simon was during his "Old Friends" Tour with Garfunkel, which I appreciated. Of course reunion shows get a little weird, because these guys broke up for a reason, and Sting went in a totally different direction than his band mates. Nonethless, they gelled, they jammed, and quickly vaulted to the top of the list of my favorite shows of all time. A perfect blend of Reggae, Jamming, and 80s cannot be topped by anyone of this era.
A note on the musical prowess of Copeland and Summers: Summers can shred. He drives the riffs hard and completely overpowers Sting musically. Copeland can do anything and always looks shocked banging out some serious percussion. I know I used driving before but that is the only way to describe his talents. He seriously dictates the whole show and if he is on he is on. You could sense if he didn't have the energy the show screech to a halt.
Random notes:
- Andy Summers looks like Dr. Kelso from Scrubs.
- Sting is in love with himself.
- Stewart Copeland wears golf gloves.
- Worth mentioning, The Police ripped us off, and played 45 minutes less than scheduled. I won't bemoan the point, but at a festival that I pay good money for I expect the band that I come to see to rip it up for their entire allotted time. usually you only get a snippet of a band, but with a headliner, they have got to fill it up.
I'll have more about the late night Saturday and Sunday shows I watched from home in a second installment.
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