Well I made it back in one piece, one remarkably sore and sunburned piece. Unfortunately, I had to leave a day early so I missed out on Sunday's festivities. The downside is I missed Matisyahu, Sonic Youth, Atomosphere, Bela Fleck and Phil Lesh. The upside is I also missed out on the rainstorm that hit Tennessee Sunday night. Even though I missed those shows I feel that I got the full Bonnaroo experience so now comes the fun part, the recap.\nBest Concert of the festival goes to Radiohead hands down. They put on an incredible show that lived up to and surpassed my unreasonably high expectations. At first I wanted to slam them for only playing their hits, but then I realized they didn't just play their hits I just love every Radiohead song. I even loved the two new songs they played from their upcoming (sometime in the future if they ever figure it out) album. Second place goes to the Cat Empire, launched themselves from complete obscurity and really overshadowed a lot of the bigger names at the festival. \nBreakout performance was (no surprise) the Cat Empire. They were the band that really got the weekend off to a great start. Coming into the festival nobody had ever heard of the Australian band, but after their high energy set on Thursday night they were all that anyone was talking about (although some people including myself were calling them "the cat something-or-other"). Bonnaroo is not only a place to see your favorite bands, but also a venue for new artists to get their name out there and I don't think anyone did a better job than the Cat Empire. Second Place goes to Devotchka who really killed on the first day as well. They have a sort of Spanish folk-jazz-funk-gypsy thing going on that is hard to describe but fun to listen to.\nWorst concert I saw goes to Umphrey's McGee. All the hippie complaints can be sent to weekend@idsnews.com, you should receive your flippant response in three to five days. They were not bad but they definitely didn't bring it out for the festival like everyone else did. They tried with their Pink Floyd collaboration with the Disco Biscuits, but ultimately the entire thing was entirely forgettable.
My favorite moment of the weekend was when Patton Oswalt came out into the audience and hugged the IU student sitting next to me at his midnight show on Thursday. This was amidst his impromptu acid-tripping dance. Oswalt spent a large chunk of his show mocking hippies as well as Bush supporters, which prompted the humorless members of both camps to walk out on his show, and that just made me laugh all the more. Second place was probably my first shower after getting home from the event.\nMy least favorite moment was getting stuck in a three hour traffic jam in Louisville coming home. This narrowly edges out the moment when I realized that I had sun poisoning on my ankles… how lame is that.\nThat is all. Now go home and take a shower.
