Cold Pizza Friday LIII

Imaginary Bonnaroo

Man, I hadn’t planned on doing another ‘imaginary festival’ so soon, but then presto!: Bonnaroo announces their lineup this week and it’s time to load up the brain-van with our mental North Face vests and oatmeal-patchouli shampoo we won’t actually use and chug on up to Manchester, Tennessee for some sweltering, muddy…entertainment? While corporate sponsorship and Pacific-Northwest coffee culture collided to outline our fake Sasquatch! experience, Bonnaroo is a different beast altogether. It ends up being a good thing because, frankly, I’ve noticed the same 20 bands popping up at all of these summer festivals and am caught between the rock of repetition and the hard place of stubbornly not wanting to try anything new. Bonnaroo presents an ideal opportunity for novel experiences, since its very purpose is to serve as an anathema to everyday life.

Going to any festival out in the wilderness will feel like entering another world, but B-roo is the reigning champion of lost netherverses and you should consider carefully the various shades of surreality you will encounter. Given the festival’s deep ‘hippie’ roots, you can expect widespread drug use, but what the folks out rolling/singing in the mud pits don’t realize is that there’s no need for chemical alteration when one takes adequate stock of one’s surroundings. Despite the vehemence with which many will argue, camping is never fun for anyone, ever. You will not sleep well—if at all—and will certainly not bathe, so as the festival rages on and the fog in your brain grows thicker and more noxious, you should find yourself acclimating out of pure numbness to the mixture of dust and sweat (much of it belonging to other people—personal space at these things is a luxury not even the headliners can afford) caked on your skin. Nourishment will also be in short supply (“$8 for a bottle of water?! Screw that!!”), so make sure you over-eat the week before to accrue fat stores on which to survive.

As exhaustion causes your powers of discernment to drain from your ears and your inhibitions float out the top of your head and burst like bubbles of translucent cotton candy over the course of 4 days (oh Black Moth Super Rainbow, where have you gone?), take the opportunity to exchange the arms-folded yammering of Sasquatch! for some light, incoherent antagonism as a new method of performing your tastes (this tack will ultimately be more familiar to attendees well-versed in online conversations, so that’s a plus).

Join me at these, where we’ll throw stuff and yell:
- Arcade Fire (Bring a boombox and play Grammy Award acceptance speech music when Win Butler tries to talk between songs.)
- The Black Keys
- My Morning Jacket (Be the two people ruining the interminable jam for everyone else by shouting ‘Freebird!’ It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.)
- Lil Wayne (Find six other people and paint the letters F-R-E-E-W-E-E-Z-Y on our torsos—then make anagrams.)
- The Strokes
- The Decemberists (Stand near the few remaining washed, be-sweatered attendees and concentrate on smelling our worst.)
- Iron & Wine (“We were into this guy back when he was on Sub Pop! SUB-POP! SUB-POP!”)
- Gogol Bordello
- Beirut
- Girl Talk (“Actually, y’know what? Nevermind. Let’s just go listen to the real Big Boi.”)
- Big Boi
- Deerhunter
- Wiz Khalifa (“Packers! PA-CKERS! PA-CKERS!”)
- Mavis Staples
- Loretta Lynn
- The Walkmen
- Devotchka (“Boo! Bring on Steve Carrell!”)
- Sleigh Bells (We whip our hair back and forth! We whip our hair back and forth!)
- Dam-Funk (If you want to go try to talk to that attractive person you’ve been eyeing, perhaps this is the time.)
- Junip (When the attractive person you’re been eyeing rejects you, come find me snoring under a tree.)
- Sharon Van Etten
- Omar Souleyman
- Twin Shadow
- Smith Westerns
- Man Man (Fashion drums out of garbage and see how long we can play along before we get ejected by security.)