Zubaz and Cock Rock: Bonnaroo Rumination 5 or Spirit-a-r-oo and the Happy Dance Magic

Let's get back to talking about the festival and bands now, enough acid dropping.

As we departed from Saturday Bruncheroo to see some bands there were a couple of Evangelicals preaching about the evils of rock and roll. I found this wonderfully exciting as I thought people had moved on to accept rap as the devils music, but was thrilled to see rock still has it's bad ass edge to it. These people were relentlessly mocked by concert goers, who like me, are part of the smartass generation. People made counter signs and stopped to take pictures with them as seen here:

Obviously, these guys probably didn't generate the positive impact they hoped to.

The first band we saw saturday was Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings. The Dap Kings were featured as the backup band to Amy Winehouse in her album Back to Black (with single "Rehab" which I am documented as saying is lyrically appalling, but hey, looks like she turned out OK). However, unlike Amy Winehouse, Sharon Jones is completely awesome live. Even at 52 years old the woman bounces around the stage and sings her heart out, even keeping in key and on beat in between songs to joke about taking her heels and clip on earrings off. All of us there had a blast and danced our asses off.

Not from Bonnaroo but I love this pic, it sums her up very well

Next up was the Gypsy Punk Revolution of Gogol Bordello. I've seen Gogol Bordello many times and they always put on an awesome show. As always I get a few skeptical looks from my friends when describing the crazy multi-national gypsy dance along and they were sufficiently weird out by the freak show that rolled up,

but after seeing them and the absolutely crraaazzzy show they have everyone becomes a convert. Such a fun show to see and another one to lose ya butt dancing to.

Gogol Bordello

A change of pace was needed after the non-stop dancing of the previous two artists and Cat Power was perfect for this. I've professed my love for her before, and she was surprisingly different in a live setting. She was very very intense while singing and having a full backup band gave a much richer feel to her songs rather than the stripped down emotion I'm used to. All in all, a pleasant surprise.

After Cat Power, we headed over to the legendary BB King and his guitar Lucille, still going strong at age 82. I wasn't expecting much but BB King was absolutely awesome. He was incredibly gracious, humble, endearing, and still put on an amazing show. He's like all of your grandfather's funny and crazy comments put on stage and bolstered by absolutely legendary songs and guitar playing. As someone from SOPTRANTA said, "After the show I just wanted to sit next to him and listen to his stories he was so adorable." Right on, SOPTRANTA.

We caught a bunch of Ben Folds following BB, but we stayed way in the back, due to exhaustion from dancing all day in what was by far the hottest and muggiest day of Bonnaroo. Also adding to the distraction, I very surprisingly ran into some coworkers (fellow Taco Bell employees?) at Ben Folds and talked to them for a while as neither of us had any idea the other party would be there. But as a result, I don't have much to say about Ben Folds other than he claims to be retiring "Bitches Ain't Shit" but is probably lying.

We headed back to camp to restock up on beer and vodka and whiskey because 2 of the absolutely highlites of the festival were coming up for me, Pearl Jam and Sigur Ros. Also, Jack Johnson sucks and we didn't want to see him

Back at camp SOPTRANTA introduced me to a new concept of Beirut. Now being a legendary Beirut player, I am always open to new ideas and interesting ways to play the game. 3-D Beirut features 6 cups on the bottom with 3 stacked above that and 1 stacked on top. You must work your way down, anything hit in the bottom with cups remaining up top does not count. The fun part of it is that many times, when you hit a top cup, it falls back into a cup in a lower row which means both cups are taken and drankened (bad english alert). This can lead to the dreaded 7 cup hit of awesomeness. Altogether, a fun alternative to regular Beirut worth a play every once in a while.

3-D Beirut in action

And so, on to Pearl Jam. I'm not going to write too much about their show since I already did at Lollapalooza, but here's what I will say: 3 hours. They played for 3 freaking whopping hugely awesome hours included hitting up some rarities I never thought they'd play. Eddie Vedder continues to command a massive stage presence and tight grips your attention without ever letting go. All this while drunk too. Eddie Vedder was clearly and obviously drunk at this show, which made it even more amazing that he could still sing so well. Pearl Jam has fought Ticketmaster, MTV, global warming, and countless other issues and still remained one of the strongest, funnest, incredible live bands in the world. In an era of little decent arena rock left, they are the true champions.

Can you name this rarity?

So is Eddie Vedder drunk?

Pearl Jam ended at 1am, just in time for me to head over and see the 1-3am set of one of my favorite bands on Earth, the mysterious and otherworldly Sigur Ros. Sigur Ros probably isn't a band you'd think would be one of my top 5 favorites, given my heavy guitar pedigree, but there is something just so beautiful and wondrous about their music that I love them. When people ask me to describe them I say they are a slow deliberate band that creates a heavenly atmosphere and I borrow a quote from my friend Aly when we saw them a few years ago, "It just feels like being hugged." Sorry if that's too cute for you, but it's true. It's wonderfully moving, happy, and emotional. A beautiful band from an amazing place that played a soaring late night set. It makes me happy just to think about seeing them live or hearing them in headphones.