What do you say?

Its taken me close to a week to recover from the all-consuming experience that in Bonnaroo, and now that I’m finally acclimated back into a normal routine it only seems fitting that I chronicle my experience by sharing the best of the best that I had the benefit of enjoying while spending 4 miserable days in the sun without sleep.

5 - The David Mayfield Parade

David Mayfield was formally with the amazing bluegrass group, Cadillac Sky, and played the Solar Lounge on Thursday night. If you are ever have the chance to see this band live, take it! He’s a great showman and while the music was really good, his antics were priceless. I’m told his guitar picking skills are legendary, but unfortunately it wasn’t on display at Bonnaroo. 

Here’s a sample of his music and band with much better sound:

4 - Buffalo Springfield with Stephan Stills and Neil Young

This show was epic, and I know this because I wasn’t even there and still enjoyed it tremendously. I would have been there, except it started to rain after the Black Keys played on the main stage, and we had taken the rain cover off our tent so it wouldn’t be so hot at night. So we had to sacrifice getting to see the show in order to save everything in our tent from getting soaked. 

Like everything at Bonnaroo, you’re forced to gamble and choose one good thing over another. Unfortunately, the threat of massive thunderstorms prove to be only a short mild shower, but since the campsite was so far away, it was clear that we were going to make back in time to see the rest of the show.

In the end, it work out great because apparently it was so packed (thanks to Bonnaroo selling an extra 35,000 tickets this year) at the Which Stage, that most people were forced to stand almost to the other side of the Centeroo and could barely hear the show. Amazingly, we could hear the show perfectly from our tent and was easily able to get swept up in the great performances from these musical geniuses. The highlight for me was the 10 minute “Rockin in the Free World” to close the show.

3 - Grace Potter & the Nocturnals

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals was the first to play the main stage on Friday afternoon. I had seen her once before in Atlanta and thought I knew what to expect, but they blew me away and put on an epic performance.

Funny Facts: The female bassist was hardly visible when I saw this band in Atlanta last October. I caught her briefly off in the back corner playing towards the end of the show. I’m glad to see she’s more comfortable being in the spotlight

Also, Ron Jeremy was apparently watching this show from the left side of the stage, and the camera kept catching glimpses of him while filming the band, and every time it happened everyone there would turn and ask someone, “Is that Ron Jeremy?” It was pretty funny. 

2 - Mumford and Sons 

This is another bittersweet performance from the weekend. And I say that only because I didn’t get a chance to watch it, because I was stuck in the movie tent right next to the stage they were playing on only hearing what I was missing.

We had gotten free tickets to see an advance screening of “30 Minutes or Less” which comes out in August, followed by a Q&A with Aziz Ansari. It was really hard to say no to that, and seem like a great way to kill time before Mumford & Sons was going to play (as well as a great way to avoid the sun in the middle of the day). Unfortunately because  of the threat of piracy, everyone had turn over their cell phones and cameras to the movie studio security before the screening. The process took forever and by the time everyone finally got into the tent to see the movie, the band had already started.

But from what I heard in the tent the Mumford show was amazing, from what I heard from the people who saw the show it was mind-blowing, and from the clips I saw later it was a can’t miss performance. So here’s a few of many, many shinning moments that I could kick myself for missing out on (including some first time premieres of new music coming soon).

1 - Band of Skulls

Band of Skulls played an awesome show on Thursday night to open everything up, and I kept waiting to see (or hear) a better show but it never happened. I’ve listened to their cd a lot and enjoyed it, but it is absolutely nothing as good as seeing them live. Its hard to believe that its only a three member band and that their female bassist also serves as a co-lead singer. Its a great group and certainly filled the void of any of Jack White’s various ensembles.

I couldn’t find great videos to give a true sense of how good they really were, but I did manage to find one of “Patterns” which was far and away the best song of the set.

Other Noteworthy Shows:

Robert Plant and the Band of Joy

This supergroup did not disappoint as all. While I was bummed they didn’t play everything from their fantastic new cd (Band of Joy). They did play the best parts, and they also each highlighted their own incredible music talents. There were no egos on the stage, it was just a bunch of amazingly talented people letting good music exude from them regardless who was leading them at the time. It was phenomenal.

String Cheese Incident

We went to this show while we were waiting for Girl Talk to perform, and we were blown away at how great the show was. Great music, and great entertainment. Their light and screen set up was the best of the weekend and the huge beach balls that exploded at different point during the set were great. But the two things that made this unforgettable was the Huge ‘Macy Day Parade’-sized T-Rex that was being walked through the crowd during the show, and the second was the apparence of the Sexy Sax Man (seen here):

Bands I unfornately had to choose to miss, but might have made this list:

The Strokes, Florence + the Machine, Matt & Kim, Pretty Lights, Explosions in the Sky