Bonnaroo

Swooping in over the scene, the cars are packed a mile back and the mood couldn’t contain more excitement. An array of guitar licks, base drum kicks and colorful melodies radiate up from the masses in the same way heat twirls and wafts up from concrete. 

Stories of Bonnaroos past are shared through open windows, and somewhere soon stories of Bonnaroo present will take form.

Somewhere soon a “noise-ician” will wail, a shaman will teach, a clown will laugh and an artist will redefine his medium.

And then, somewhere soon, they will all go home. They will pack their things and leave this place, and the dust they raised will slowly settle back into the Earth.

Early in the weekend when the vibrations are still sky high, the sputters and whispers of 300 conversations fill the air just outside the entrance to the Bonnaroo grounds. But above them all is the amplified voice of Ray Bong, screaming his song through the screeches and scratches of his music.

It doesn’t matter what you do.

The man will find a way to put his finger on you.

So you got to do what I do.

And come to Bonnaroo.

Where the man can’t get you.

He calls himself the President of the United States of Bonnaroo, “the only free country on Earth.” The squaking and thumping and buzzing and hissing of his music is as outrageous as his wardrobe.

His dirty bare feet kick sandals to the side and start pushing pedals on the ground. His knees shake beneath his camo shorts, and his arms flail freely from his sleeveless tye-dye shirt. And as he prepares for his solo on a 1978 electric toy guitar, his tongue whips back and forth against the grey stubble on his face, moving right in motion with his red, yellow, green, blue and purple hair, which sways across his sunglasses.

I refuse to be held down.

Now I’m going to make a wacky sound.

The solo begins and the crowd circles in on the self-proclaimed “noise-ician” from New Orleans, and he continues to tweak with an array of boxes, buttons and levers resting atop his keyboard. For the grand finale, he picks up the wireless drum synch and parades around the crowd. He holds the small black box over people’s heads and shifts it side to side like he’s adjusting the antenna of an old television, tweaking the pitch of the song with each motion.

As the song concludes and the crowd thins, a passerby tells his friend, “That guy is my favorite band.”

In another time and some space away, 40-year-old Patrick Ironwood sits cross-legged under a tent in a yellow T-shirt and a billowy, blue dress covered in pink and yellow flowers. He’s speaking, quite frankly, about drugs.

He’s not selling them and he’s not trying to label them as good or bad, right or wrong. He just knows the reality of this place.

“In this venue, people will be tempted with the experimentation and exploration of drug use,” he says. “I want to give you real information on how to explore safely … because the Tool mosh pit might not be the place.”

Since 1971, Ironwood has lived in the Sequatchie Valley Institute just an hour south of Manchester, Tenn. The community of 10 to 15 people uses limited electricity and eats only what they can produce themselves. He subscribes to the shamanistic belief that it’s possible to go into the subconscious and tinker with the world from within another dimension. Glancing at his notes, he tells the small crowd, “It’s been called prayer, but you can learn how to do it where it really works.”

It’s not so much a promotion of psychedelic drugs, but rather a promotion of their possibilities. A lot of people use them recreationally, but the important part, he says, is making sure people bring something back. “Bring the tools out of the tool box,” he says.

While Ironwood talks about mushrooms, ecstasy and LSD, his eldest son Sage – not even old enough for kindergarten – sits naked next to him, hunched over a piece of wood painting a picture of a palm tree and a wavy ocean. Then, unannounced, Sage interrupts to steal daddy’s attention. When the attempt fails, the naked boy takes off running and strands of hay fall from his long, golden hair.

Zipping through a forest of festival patrons, the look of elation on the boy's face is reminiscent of a young animal getting its first taste of the wild. And then, he is gone.

Perhaps that day, perhaps another, a separate group of children – these ones fully clothed – giggle and point at Flower, the clown who just made a fool of himself. Again.
Outside the Kidz Jam tent it is hot, it is loud and the smell of marijuana smoke can hit you at any turn. But inside it is safe. Cold water and shade are in abundance, and laughing too hard is the only real danger for the group of nearly 20 kids sitting on the grass.

In 2004 Rain Blanken, executive director of Kidz Jam, contacted the Bonnaroo coordinator to inquire about establishing a kid’s tent. “(The coordinator) has kids, so she liked it,” Blanken says. Now, anywhere between 100 and 200 children benefit from Blanken’s proposal.

Walking between stages, the first visual cue is the giant SpongeBob moonwalk. Then there is the sound of children laughing. Then a red fire truck brushes your leg as the 3-foot driver yells, “Beep beep.” Then the spray of water splashes off your face and laughter ensues as the man holding the water gun says, “Come donate to Kidz Jam.”

The nonprofit organization from Troy, Ohio, runs strictly on donations, and for four years Nancy Bennett-Cupps has contributed. Her two youngest kids, Zoey and Arlo, are 5 and 9, and every summer they come all the way up from Tampa Bay to play at Bonnaroo. To them, it’s a place where people dance, play hula hoop and burn lots of incense.

When Flower finishes his final act, Zoey and Arlo say thank you pack their things and head off to their next “activity”: hacky sack at the Ziggy Marley concert.

With time slowing and exhaustion growing, George Long and Jim Thomas take a break beneath the shade of their own artistic creations. Tucked deep in the corner of Bonnaroo is the Art of Such ‘n’ Such – a collection of interactive sculptures, paintings and games.

Just last night, fire jugglers whipped fire balls through the air as dancers ducked and weaved through the shadows that moved as much as they did. With the swing of a giant mallet against the lever of an old-fashioned carnival game, a metal ring shoots up a pole and clangs against a bell. With the toll of the bell, a giant fireball erupts into the night sky and lights up the awe-struck faces that respond with cries of jubilation.

But today it’s the sun that burns down on the faces of artists disassembling their work. From behind his large-rimmed sunglasses, Thomas describes the goal of the artists as an “organic aesthetic.” And Long, who speaks from the shade of his fedora lined with red and yellow flames, explains that many view art as something distant or removed. “We wanted to create an out-of-the-box gallery,” he says. “Bring it to people in a way that is approachable, in a way they haven’t seen before.”

For the past few days, this art was interactive in the sense that the people dancing around it were as much a part of the art as the structure itself. But today, the only interaction between creator and creation comes when the pieces are removed and loaded onto a wagon. Then Thomas and Long take a deep breath and march forward, dragging their work into the distance beneath the heat of the summer sun.

Swooping out, away from the scene, the cars line up again with their headlights cutting a path through the dusty haze. The excitement is gone and windows are closed, as Bonnaroo present becomes Bonnaroo past.

A man smashes his fist into a port-a-potty, over and over, screaming some inaudible obscenities. For the first time, frustration is a visible entity. And as he walks away, still mumbling to himself, he rubs his fist and shakes his head, finally able to feel the pain.

Somewhere soon the “noise-ician” will unplug his toys and the shaman will visit the distant dimensions of his dreams. Somewhere soon the clown will remove his makeup and the artists will drive away from the environment that empowered them.
And somewhere soon, as the last car leaves, the dust will settle down – back to the Earth – waiting to be kicked up again.