Bonnaroo 2009, Day 4: Sunday - Holy Trey Anastasio Batman! There's a Metal Tent at Bonn...

Yes, yes, and yes. A Bonnaroo metal tent, who would have thunk it? Well before the music I have a little anecdote concerning a suprise tent mate that showed up in the morning. After we left the MGMT concert, my friends (whom my girlfriend and had left there) made friends with this girl and partied until 7am at moe and brought her back to the tent and well, I found her laying there when the morning came around. That was interesting, but rather expected in a weird way. So we got to That Tent, which was playing metal all day long, around the end of The Dillinger Escape Plan which sounded pretty good for what I heard of them.

We hung around at That Tent to catch High On Fire where I met thing cool guy from Memphis - Jason - and my girlfriend miraculously slept on a table. High on Fire was so impressive that Jason and I went up to the front to rock out with the slim crowd. The music was kind of midtempo'd Pantera riffs with doom vocals. It was extremely appealing.

Next we headed over to the What Stage which had Erakah Badu playing some odd R&B / Hip Hop (I think). We didn't stay too long, just saw her out of curiosity...

For something completely different, we walked over to the Which Stage to see Andrew Bird who played a pretty chill set. We sat by our tree and I decided to climb up to the top and get a better view. And what a view that was! The music, well, it was pretty well done, Bird has a fantastic voice, but overall it was rather just "pleasant."

We tried to then go back to the What Stage to catch a couple minutes of Snoop Dogg but he was late and so we went back to That Tent to see my girlfriend's favorite band Coheed and Cambria, who was headlining the "Metal Tent" for the day. I'm pretty familiar with most of their stuff but was never really impressed by it until seeing this concert. They put on a hellova show and left my girlfriend with a smile plastered on her face for all of 90 minutes. Most of their set drew from their latest record with highlights including "Gravemakers and Gunslingers" and "Mother Superior," but most of the standouts came from their older records including their opener "In Keeping Secrets," or the closer "The Willing Well Part IV." Possibly the song that got the most crowd response of any song of the day was when they ripped into "A Favor House Atlantic." Decked out in a 7 person group - with added percussionist, keyboardist, and female backup vocals, the songs were sonically layered to try and capture the sound on the record. They also threw in some suprise covers of Peter Gabriel (Red Rain), and The Church's "Under the Milky Way." Overall it was a highlight of the festival and well worth missing Snoop Dogg.

Before running off to Phish pt. II there were a couple of things that needed to happen. First we went to the Mushroom fountain and danced under it, then we went to a vendor and got a corndog, and finally, it was Phish time! This time around my friend and I made our way to the very front and got a crazy view of my first taste of what they call in "Phish-land" "glowstick wars." I felt like the sky was falling. One minute it was just a regular jam in Gotta Jibboo, the next, the sky was falling with phospherous-filled plastic things pelting me from all sides. The sight was breath taking... for the next 4 hours. Anyways, the next 4 hours was filled with some good moments and bad moments; highlights include Tweezer, Bathtub Gin, Run Like An Antelope, a MAMMOUTH 15 minute cover of The Velvet Underground's Rock and Roll, 46 Days, and Farmhouse. As everyone knows by now The Boss joined for 3 songs at the end of their first set and just about everyone around me let out a collective groan. For me, it was a lame guest star and I would've rather seen Snoop Dogg, Warren Hayes, Jenny Lewis, Tobacco, Viex Farka Toure ANYONE other than Bruce fucking Springsteen, but, for what it was worth, it wasn't half bad - mostly because Trey and the boys totally topped the E-Street band in every way possible so that "Glory Days" became somewhat bearable again. Trey was smiling starstruck the whole time after announcing Bruce as his childhood friend. Somewhere around this time my friend and I found a cool pair of 3-D glasses that made the lights go kaleidoscope. Anywho, it was a great concert and great festival and now, onto the Best and Worsts -

Best / Worst Jams 09

Best: Cygnus...Vismund..Cygnus (The Mars Volta), Down With Disease (Phish pt. 1), Fireworks (Animal Collective)

Worst: Jam/Church (Portugal. The Man)

Best / Worst Dancers 09

Best: Janelle Monae (Herself)

Worst: David Byrne (Himself)

Best / Worst Fashion 09

Best: Bryan Poole (Of Montreal) - Dee Snider circa 1987, BONUS: There was an audience member behind us at Dirty Projectors who was dressed exactly as Jesus which was AWESOME!

Worst: Flavor Flav (Public Enemy) - Where're the horns man?

Best / Worst Cover Songs 09

Best: Gomez - Bron-yr Stomp (Led Zep), Red Rain - Coheed & Cambria (Peter Gabriel), Rock and Roll - Phish (The Velvet Underground), I'm Afraid of Americans - NIN (David Bowie)

Worst: Santa Clause is Coming to Town - Bruce Springsteen (?@!3#)