Bonnaroo Sunday: F*ck You Mister West and Your Awesome Awesomeness
Early word in the press tent was that Kanye West disappointed the 'Roo crew with an untimely, five-o-clock-in-the-fucking-morning set. Rumors were rampant: The patchouli-and-devil-stick contingent were pretty sure that Kanye had conspired to cut Phil Lesh's set short, and the pinkos were convinced that he was chilling with Obama. But more likely than not it just took a while to set up that crazy stage.
Whatever the reason, he played almost two-and-half hours after his already rescheduled slot, and the kids were pissed. But he's Kanye, and he gets to do whatever he wants. That dude drops hits more often than some of these people take showers. Seeing him play "Jesus Walks" as the sun came up over Coffee County was almost enough to make a heathen like me consider almost believin' in some sort of higher power. (And when I say "higher" I don't mean...oh, you know what I mean.) I guess calling it a religious experience is pretty redundant, but my brain is goo and I can't think of any other adjectives.
The rest of Saturday was pretty much par for the course: Chromeo were rockin', Sigur Ros was boring and The Coup's performance was so badass I'm going write a whole post about them once this fucking hangover wears off. I started the day with Red Bull and whiskey at 10 in the morning and 24 hours later I got to squeeze in a drunken disco nap on the press tent couch. There isn't enough aspirin in the world right now to make my head stop thumping.
To the genius that introduced me to the free booze tent behind the porta-potties, next to the buses and the radio station: Good lookin' out. Thanks. My liver loathes you.
Comments
Kane should have stayed in her cage.
Posted 06/15/2008 at 11:32:43 PMi was with you until you said sigur ros was boring...
Posted 06/15/2008 at 11:39:26 PMI don't know, oshoney, they were pretty boring. I dig the music, but I was hoping for a lightshow or something to keep me awake. Chromeo was pretty damn fun, though. Ghostland Observatory was even better. That's what the late night sets are all about.
Kanye was alright I guess. He sounded pretty good from the VIP showers. Seriously, though, the people I know who 1) had the balls to tough it out and wait up front and 2) knew what to expect from his set were entirely satisfied with the show. It's not my thing, but he seems to be doing something right.
Posted 06/15/2008 at 11:52:41 PMOn Sunday, Robert Randolph led the crowd in a cheer of "Kanye Sucks!" that went on for a couple of minutes. And there were already "Kanye Sucks" T-shirts being sold! How's that for capitalism!
I, of course, was in bed an hour before he started, so I can't comment. But I second Mr. Maloney's take on Sigur Ros. I thought their Ryman show a couple years ago was pretty boring. I didn't tell the thousands of adoring fans, who thought it was the second coming, for fear of being tarred and feathered. But it's just not a very dynamic live band. Though they did have good lights at the Ryman. (Oh, and the violin bow on the guitar thing...where I had I seen that before? hmmmm.)
Posted 06/16/2008 at 09:00:39 AMwhat i'd like to know is why all these stories from sean and seth involve just drinking a bunch... i mean, it was bonnaroo... i was hoping for shit like "in the middle of my peyote trip, i came across some really great opium that took pearl jam's set to a whole new place in my mind"... i mean, i guess if it's free and all that but still...
or maybe you just can't print that sort of thing?
i also agree with sigur ros and boring. i listened to them when i was a lot younger and into that whole "start quiet/get loud playing the same thing" but lost interest bigtime by the second record. paid to see them at the ryman on that valentines day but barely remember anything about it other than being like "sweet lights" (like jack said)... kinda like feist's last time there.
Posted 06/16/2008 at 11:12:00 AM