Dispatch from Bonnaroo: Traffic, tie-dye and Tea Leaf Green

[Buzz Bands correspondents are such nice people -- they even write notes to the home office while they're on road trips that Bronson wishes he were on. This landed in the wee hours of the morning from Jeff Weiss, who is at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., and is lucid enough to write about it. He was not, certainly, among the people who tried to smuggle in some of the contraband pictured below -- which included, besides healthy amounts of booze, a hand axe and a machete. Careful, Weiss ...]

Tallyho Kevin,

9 p.m.

Bonnaroo is not Coachella. Big surprise, right? No one in their right mind would ever conflate Paul Tollett’s sleek, well-run indie-rock leaning desert enterprise with the jam-heavy, hippiefied, Tennessee festival awkwardly named Bonnaroo. And yet somehow, my Los Angeles-centric world view had dreamed up the idea that all festivals were one and the same: A lot of music, a lot of heat, a lot of people hard-pressed for a shower thanks to their penchant for watching music in the heat. Not so.

Of course, I had my suspicions. Friends had already warned me in advance that the operation wouldn’t be as seamless as Coachella. Then again, the stock cliché goes that everything in life is a trade-off and after witnessing the star-heavy VIP coterie that dominated Coachella, I was more than willing to lose a few creature comforts in exchange for being surrounded by 80,000 screaming hippies there solely for the music. After all, something told me that Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johansson weren’t about to make the trek to Tennessee. And I’d be willing to bet my life that Paris Hilton wasn’t about to do a Bonnaroo reprise of the dancing show she put on during Girl Talk at Coachella (sometimes, the lord works in mysterious and wonderful ways).

But it didn’t really sink in until 7 p.m. when a hotel shuttle dropped me off at the Bonnaroo gates, allowing me to skip the eight-hour traffic snarl of people waiting to get in, a jam so nasty it made the 110 at 5 p.m. look like the Autobahn. Congratulating myself on my foresight, I asked the bus driver if he could take me to the Holiday Inn so I could pick up my press information. Shrugging his shoulders, he hopped back in the bus and ditched me -- sans tickets, sans press pass, leaving me to walk 3 miles to the press check-in and forcing me to miss both the Little Ones and the Black Angels’ set. On the bright side, in the course of my endless trek, I learned that all the stereotypes often assigned to hippies are pretty true.

Indeed, tie-dye, bandannas and the Dead still rule the hippie universe. In this 15,000-foot odyssey, I saw 15,000 high school aged kids dressed like they had just stepped out of Woodstock (thankfully not Woodstock ’99). Surprisingly, few wore heavy beards. Then again, the median age at Bonnaroo is roughly 19. These kids don’t even need to shave. Instead, they lugged massive coolers with huge smiles pasted to their face, exchanging high-fives with a sense of enthusiastic Midwestern affability, a stark contrast to the jaded cool of Coachella. 

10:30 p.m.: The National in “That Tent”

Are the National the best band in the world? Probably not. In fact, they probably aren’t the best band at the festival (have you guys heard "Icky Thump" yet?). But I’ll be damned if their 10:30 set at “That Tent,” wasn’t one of the best performances I’ve seen all year, one that effectively quashed any doubts anyone might have about whether or not they are merely the indie rock band du jour. In front of a sizable crowd still dazed from the traffic monstrosity going on just outside the gates, Matt Berninger delivered a brilliant performance, flailing, rocking back and forth, occasionally sipping on a drink like Andy Capp about to fall off his barstool, yet still entrancing the crowd with his mahogany baritone. Behind him, drummer Bryan Devendorf displayed why he’s the band’s secret weapon, letting off a wild assault of cavernous drums that devoured all the oxygen in the room. The set list included classic cuts from 2005’s "Alligator" such as “Abel” and “Mr. November,” and “Fake Empire” and “Mistaken for Strangers” from this year’s knock-out blow, "Boxer." A six-piece on stage, the band supplemented their haunting Nick Cave by way of Leonard Cohen melancholy with a multi-instrumentalist who played everything from a ukulele, to a violin, to a tambourine, to even a melodica. Delivering a show-stopping array of gorgeous aching 4 a.m. laments, Berninger & Co. have become the band that everyone hoped Interpol would become.

11:45 p.m.: Tea Leaf Green on “The Other Stage”

I understand why rock critics give jam bands a hard time. Their lyrics usually aren’t very good. Their self-indulgency borders on wankery and while their fans are usually good and decent people, they quite often aren’t the sharpest sticks of incense in the pack. But people need to start paying attention to San Francisco four-piece Tea Leaf Green. Sure, they sound a lot like the Dead, but no one ever said that was a bad thing and with Jerry pushing up scarlet begonias six feet deep, bands that can deliver improvised searing guitar solos and atmospheric keyboard riffs will always have a place in my heart (and the entire Jam Nation). Tea Leaf might not be breaking any new ground, but their set amply displayed why they’re regarded as one of the top bands on the jam-band circuit. These guys can play as well as anyone and if you’re looking for rootsy, soulful music that admittedly probably sounds much better under the influence, Tea Leaf Green are a much see. Already a huge commodity in the un-shaven set, Tea Leaf’s bravura nightcap performance at “The Other Stage,” proved that indie kids might have to stock up on patchouli the next time they roll through Los Angeles.

Til' tomorrow,
Weiss

Photo: Associated Press

Comments

[Birthday Boy]

Ummm, wow. You must have set a record for backhanded comments in the guise of a positive article. Sarcastic much? Fact is, the boys are a solid Rock 'n Roll band playing many styles from Rock to Country to Hip Hop to Psychedelia. I shave every day. Glad to avoid poseur city there. Have fun with Paris.

[Greg Friedgood]

Tea Leaf Green "sounds like" The Grateful Dead? Are you deaf?

[Sampson]

Patchouli? Didn't you stay for the Dragonfly and Sex? These are fire breathing bitches and they taste so good. Props to you for knowing to show up though.

[Fridaynight]

Tea Leaf Green sounds like the Dead huh?

Well, not as much as you sound like an idiot.

[Friday Night]

Yes, he's deaf.

[Ben]

This blurb about TLG started well. When the guy mentioned the stereotype of bad lyrics and songwriting I thought he was going to say that Tea Leaf proves it wrong. However he never came back to this point, and lost me when he said they sound like the Dead. What?