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[glynor]

I know this has nothing to do with MC, and is more personal (and feel free to move it over to the OT board if you want, Jim, I just know I'll get more eyeballs on this board).

I'm heading to Bonnaroo 2009 tomorrow.  ince this forum is chock-full of music-enthusiasts, I thought there was a fair chance that some of you might be going too!  If so, it'd be pretty cool to have a quick meet-up.  If anyone is going and interested, post back and we can maybe figure it out.

[rjm]

I must be getting old, don't recognize any of the bands. Where's U2 and Van Halen?

[JimH]

Here's a good article on Springsteen's performance there:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090614/ap_on_en_mu/us_music_bonnaroo_springsteen

[glynor]

Wow.  Well, now that I'm mostly recovered, I can report that it was absolutely fantastic.  Good times were had by all, and great music was heard.

Highlights of the show (for me):

• Nine Inch Nails: his last show ever in America, he says (currently on his "wave goodbye" tour -- hopefully it doesn't really last forever).  Really put on an amazing show (I've seen him 3 times, and this was far-and-away the best one I've seen).
  
• The Decemberists: they played their new album in it's entirety (from start to finish without a single break, even for a second, in the music) and it was very, very good (then they came back out and did some older stuff).
• Of Montreal: I hadn't heard of them before I started prepping for Bonnaroo.  I bought one of their albums on Amazon's MP3 store to check it out before the trek down, because they sounded interesting from the write up.  Wow.  They REALLY put on an wild and interesting show.  Definitely a band to see live.
• Crystal Castles and Girl Talk: Both were just unbelievable.  If you like house or club music at all, and haven't ever checked out Girl Talk, get some of his stuff now.  He's a mash-up artist (He is Not A DJ) and is just amazing, especially live.  The stage was absolutely packed full of people dancing, and the whole enormous crowd was bouncing and dancing and singing along.  The Crystal Castles show was an amazing display of lights and throbbing beats.  I want to see both of these artists again soon.
• Ani DiFranco: While I enjoy an Ani tune every now and then, I can't say I'm a huge fan (my wife is), nor would I be the type to sit down and listen to a whole album of hers very often.  However, she really put on an amazing show.  Good job, Ani!  You rocked it.
• Phish: Again, I enjoy a couple of Phish songs, but I'm not a giant fan (I skipped the first of their two shows and went to Phoenix, Crystal Castles, and Girl Talk instead)  However, they really put on a great first set on Sunday with tons of energy (I heard Friday's show was even better, but I skipped it).  Also, Bruce Springsteen came out and played three songs with them (and Trey was obviously quite thrilled to be on stage with him).  It was a fantastic ending to the festivities.

[glynor]

There were, of course, some shows I wasn't so impressed with:

• Beastie Boys: this was sad because I've seen them a few times and they were always good before, but... They're just tired of this stuff and "old in spirit", and it shows.  Pretty flat performance, with quite a few mistakes, and very short (45 minutes or so was all we got).
• Animal Collective: I was excited to see them, and it probably would have been good had it been at a different time (it was first thing on Friday right at the hottest time of the day), but I just couldn't get into it.  I probably needed some sort of "additive" that I didn't have in order to fully "comprehend" the show.  Felt pretty flat and mellow to me.
• Band of Horses: This isn't really the band's fault, but I switched directly from seeing Snoop Dogg to Band of Horses.  This was too much of a switch, and didn't really work well for them.  They sounded good, but I wanted to fall asleep.
• The Dirty Projectors: They were pretty heavily hyped, but it was way too much "art house" disjointed screeching for me (and I can take some weird disjointed screeching).

All in all, though, there were tons of bands that put on really good shows that I saw at least part of: Jimmy Buffett (heck yeah!), MGMT, Bon Iver, Snoop, Public Enemy, TV on the Radio, and Erika Badu were all great too.