How Bonnaroo 2026 Survived the Storm (And Became Unforgettable)

Getting to that fireworks show on Sunday after Noah Kahan was pretty, pretty great.

How does this one rate?

Number one. This was my number one for me. Absolutely.

Oh my God. One of the best days I've ever had at Bonnaroo and it's not even lunchtime.

Welcome back to the What Podcast. I'm Barry. That's Brian. That's Russ. How are you guys doing?

Doing great. Doing wonderful actually. Fastest June ever. Holy Jesus, July.

It's already in July. It's Christmas.

My goodness. That June just blinked. Not just Bonnaroo the whole month. Everything in

preparation and the posts. But happy to hear to talk. See you guys. Haven't seen any couple

weeks and happy to talk about it. Definitely. Speaking of things going fast, 300 episodes.

Just like that.

Oh, is today 300?

All right. I knew it was coming. I knew you said it was coming. I wasn't sure it was.

This is it. This is our 300th episode. We started. The first one was February in 2018

and we're still doing it.

Wow. Can you imagine that anybody has an interest in hearing what either of us has to say 300 times?

No. No. But hey, thank you.

Me either. Along those lines, this is going to be a power packed episode. We have so much to talk

about. I'm going to go ahead and say if I start crying at some point, get over it. Because I cried

at Bonnaroo and I'm going to probably cry talking about some of the stuff that we did, including

a wedding. Amazing. Just amazing. But I want to do this. I want to start with this. Guys,

not a brag. Not a brag. But because of Bonnaroo, I've had some amazing opportunities.

I remember seeing Mavis Staples and hearing her talk about her dad

and the civil rights movement and crying. I remember being in the crowd with Nile

Rogers when he talked about being cancer free and I cried. Russ, you and I, we've talked about

it. Brian, we haven't since. But crying a couple weeks ago at the wedding. We had the opportunity,

we, the three of us had the opportunity to be followed around Bonnaroo by a film crew. And

right after we did a scene with them walking through the arch, Russ and I entered the wet

stage. And Brian, you took off to go see Youngblood. Yeah, I took off running. I took off running. And

a guy came up, Reggie. Maybe my favorite moment ever, ever at Bonnaroo. This guy was so real and so

honest and so emotional in the fact that he wasn't. But he just, and Brian, you weren't there.

Russ came up, Russ had gone to the restroom, but this guy just came up out of nowhere and was like,

thank you for everything that you guys do on this show. You helped me get through a couple of tough

years. Kept me motivated, kept me coming to this event. I needed some positivity. I needed to get

regrounded. I won't get too personal because it's his story. But man, that thing, that moment,

you remember, Russ, that was so powerful. I mean, he left a pretty heartfelt comment earlier on one

of our episodes that was, if you read it, it pretty much told the whole story. Yeah.

Well, I want to personally apologize to Reggie for my not so positive takes over the years. I

don't mean to bring anybody down if that's ever been the case, but thank you so much, Reggie. We

really appreciate the interaction in person, online, in the comment section. Thank you very

much, man. It was unbelievable. And Russ, we alluded to it last week. Again, Brian, you were

hiking, doing, you know, we were all catching up, but so many people stopped us and said,

thank you for the show. Thank you for what you guys do. But I just wanted to specifically reach out

and say that because that touched me more than anything. It has been a long, long time.

Reggie, if you're watching this or listening, we'd love to connect again and maybe have you

on the show if you're okay with that. Send us an email. Yeah, comments at the whatpodcast.com.

Yeah, we'll go from there.

All right. So that said, a lot of things I want to do on this episode, we had the opportunity

to get a lot of information because of our visit with none other than the man himself, Dale Green.

I want to get into some of the nuts and bolts of this past festival. I want to talk about the

fact that yes, it did rain and it got muddy, but you know what? It worked out just fine. And I want

to get into why it worked out just fine. Specifically, some of the numbers, as far as like how much

mulch, what they did with the water, what they're going to do in the future. Yes, it got wet.

It's going to rain. Why do they still have it in June and not in the fall? It's not moving to the

fall. Why did they get rid of Tuesday? They're not bringing Tuesday back. I hope they don't. I think

it was a bad idea. It was a bad idea then. It's still a bad idea. So I hope they do. I want to

be there Tuesday. I know you do, but it's a bad idea. I understand why they're not doing it.

It didn't really change much for me going in Wednesday. I actually still went to Manchester

Tuesday and went to Common John, my favorite local spot there in Manchester. Hung out with some great

people, but we can get into that too. Yeah, down the road here, maybe even a week or so, we'll get

into the census and we'll get into some discussion that's more around those kinds of things about

what did work, what didn't work. I don't think this is episode four, Barry, but I think a few

of these things didn't work, but that's something for another day. Overall, the weekend coming to

a completion, normally that's not something I'm going to sit around and be like, oh, thank God

we made it through, but clearly we're coming off that year. So a couple of years in a row now

that are considerably different than what we've been used to in the past and weather has a lot to

do with that, but that's a Bonnarooo discussion for 23 years. Let's do this real quick because I'm

going to assume we may have some new viewers, some new listeners right now. Let's identify ourselves.

I'm Barry, as I've said, I've been since the first, I attended the first one briefly. Brian attended

the first one, albeit briefly, but you've been every year since. Rush, you've been since 2018.

We love Bonnarooo. We love everything about Bonnarooo. We try to approach it from the sausage making

aspect. We love the deep dive look into it, but we are also fans and so we're going to get into that.

Let me ask you guys, how does this one rate? Number one. This was my number one for me.

Absolutely. Wow. Barry, you next. It's my number two and I have gone back and forth. I've said that

since I left. The only reason it's not number one is because 2013 with Paul McCartney will always

be number one because I got to see a beetle. As it should be. As it should be. I mean, I caught

the show last week and thank you guys for picking it up as me and Beth were off in the hills of North

Carolina and Tennessee chasing waterfalls and everything else was a wonderful weekend.

Not even like top 10 for me. It was a fine Bonnarooo and I have a very singular Saturday,

pretty much entire day, almost said moment, but if we want to call an entire day a moment,

I Saturday is a day that sticks out in the history of Bonnarooo to me as one of my favorite days

and it could be top three, it could be top five of days at Bonnarooo over the last nearly quarter

century and I find that to be very surprising. I didn't expect that and it was, it meant a lot

to me. You're talking about Barry, some things that got you emotional, a very emotional day on

Saturday. I'll get to it as we stretch out for a potentially long episode. So yeah, one day,

which only Bonnarooo can do for me in my life. Bonnarooo is the only place that I can semi,

somewhat rely on those types of things happening. But as an overall weekend, it ranks somewhere in

the middle of Bonnarooo's, but I mean, as you just mentioned, the timeline of our, I'll call it

careers at this festival or our longevity of attending this festival. My goodness,

I've seen some of the most amazing artists in the history of my life and none of them played two

weeks ago. So, but is it about just who's on stage? No, it's not just about that. It's about all kinds

of things and it's all, and it can be very anecdotal and very circumstantial. So I don't mean to come

in here and be like, you guys are crazy. It's your best. I'm not trying to say that at all, but as a

weekend at Bonnarooo, I mean, it doesn't even register on my favorites, but I've seen my

favorite, I have three favorite bands. I've seen all of them, most of them twice. I've seen

collaborations that would make my head spin when I went back and thought about it because the,

again, sorry to kind of word salad bounce around, but Grizz and I'm sorry, I forget

the lead person from Rainbow Kitten Surprise, that collaboration. I mean, Ella, people,

from what I can tell, it's just, it's life changing to some. So, and I thought, you know,

that's neat. It's nice. Grizz is, Grizz was a good, that was a good act. It was a better act than I

gave it credit for. Yeah. Yeah. And they just released that collaboration they did on Spotify

as a full-blown release. Free fall, whatever that song is called. And while, yeah, I agree that that

was really cool, I started thinking about the collaborations that have happened at Bonnarooo for

23 years. Again, personal preference on stuff, but John Paul Jones and Ben Harper 15 years ago,

Dottie Peoples and Widespread Panic and Fish and Bruce Springsteen. You know, I can come up with a,

I don't remember if anybody sat in with Stevie Wonder, but remember Stevie Wonder played this

festival. So it's tough. And James Brown. My God, that's the one I wish I'd seen. That is the one

show I wish I'd seen is that James Brown. But yeah. So it's, you know, it's just such a unique

place to even be able to have these discussions. So, yeah. Well, let me clarify my answer,

because I said this was number one for me. Yeah. It has nothing to do with the music I saw. It was

entirely because of what Barry called our media whore tour. I mean, all the stuff that we got to

do that I have never done before. The Bonnarooo's dinner, you know, it was a weekend of firsts and

just unique experiences for me that I don't know that it'll ever be topped. And like I said,

it has nothing to do with the music there. Sure. Yeah. You and I spent more time together than we

have in forever. I mean, Russ, you and I. Yeah. Yeah. I did see a lot of music. I probably saw

more music this year than the last two or three combined. The Wet Leg Show was amazing. Young Blood

was amazing. Geese. You know, if you guys are listening to long time listeners show, you know

that I hated, hated, hated Geese on Sideright Live. I'm coming around. That was a great show.

I'm into it. I loved it. I loved it. The, again, the mud, we're not going to, I mean, we can talk

about it. But Russ, last week. Maybe save that for the census kind of talk because there's a lot to

talk about there. But go ahead. Sorry to interrupt, Barry. No, that's all right. Part of the reason I

think Russ and I had such a good time is we got to hang out with Dale again, Green. I do envy this

of you guys. You should. I do envy this. You missed it because you like this stuff as much as I do.

I know. You like the nerd stuff, the sausage making. I love riding around on a golf cart or a tractor

or whatever it is you guys. We didn't do a tractor, but we did do an air conditioned.

Have an air conditioned enclosed four wheeler. Yeah. That's what I meant. That's what I thought

to try. Yeah. Whatever those are called. Bad thing. And he took us to places I did not even

know existed on the farm. Yeah, I miss that. Do we want to get into that now or are we still,

we still, why don't we take a break and we'll dive right into that then. Yeah. All right,

let's do that. We'll be back. All right. And we're back. As we always do every year, Russ gets there

before the rest of us because he can. I mean, there's no other reason, but you went up a day

later than normal, right? You went up Wednesday. Is that correct? I went up Tuesday. Oh, you did

go Tuesday as usual. All right. But it's a day later. I usually go Monday to get in Tuesday.

This time I went up Tuesday to get in Wednesday and worked out great. Tuesday, I went up Tuesday

evening and on the way there as I'm traveling over Monteagle, it starts pouring and I mean,

just a torrential rain. So I'm thinking, oh, this is a great way to start. Great start. I can barely

see driving in, finally get into Manchester. As I'm getting into Manchester, the rain stops,

the clouds move away, the sun comes out. And as I pull into Cominjohn, the brewery there,

the most amazing double rainbow I've ever seen, just kind of appears. And I start to pull in

and this guy says, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, pull over here. I want to get a picture of you,

of the bus with the rainbow behind it. And just got this epic photo, which we'll put up so you

can see it. I forgot about that photo you posted. I'm the guy who makes fun of people who run out

and throw the pictures of rainbows up because it happens, I was like, oh, make sure you get

the rainbow picture. But I saw that. I was like, holy hell, what a rainbow. This was pretty special.

And yeah, I was like, okay, I'm here. The rain is cleared. This is a sign. It's going to be a great

weekend. So Tuesday, spent the night at Cominjohn in their parking lot. Once again, thank you,

LeBron. Thank you, everybody there. I have always said I want to do more local stuff at

Manchester because other than, you know, I go every year for Bonnarooo, but other than like the

Walmart, I've never spent any time in Manchester proper. So Cominjohn is a local brewery there.

They brewed the Camporetteroo beer for the beer exchange, which was awesome.

Inner Bloom, I believe it's called this year.

Yeah, Inner Bloom. I think it was inspired by a Rufus du Sol song. They're opening a second

brewery location, I think in Tullahoma is what he told me. So they're doing great. They're expanding.

You know, they've got to add a second location just to keep up with all the

beer and stuff. So good for them. Woke up Wednesday morning, got my credentials at the high school.

Can I jump real quick? Yeah. The Tuesday thing, the reason that I said what I said earlier,

I go back, and I don't even remember 15, 20 years, Brad Steiner and I were talking to Ashley Capps,

and he said, off the record, but I've already blown it up, I hope we don't add Tuesday. He could see

it coming. He could see this expansion. It's too much. It stresses the staff. It stresses the

festival. I know you love it. I know other people love it. But I get it. It's too much.

It's fair. Sure. Yeah. Especially when you consider logistics. I mean, that's an extra day of staffing.

It's an extra day of infrastructure. It's an extra day of all of that. Keeping up with credentials

and parking and everything. Yeah. It's a lot of money to just do one day, even without music.

But that's fine. Like I said, Wednesday morning, I did breakfast at Jiffy Burger. Have you all ever

been to Jiffy Burger in Manchester? No, I know they have one. And I've heard of Jiffy Burger

my whole life, but I've never been to one, no. I'm telling you, you got to go. This place is awesome.

It's like stuck in time. It's like a 50s diner. Oh. Everything about it, when you go inside,

it's completely retro. You've got my attention. Yeah. Even the prices are like a 50s diner. I mean,

it was cheap, but really good. They had a breakfast. They also do the Bonnarooo Burger,

which I didn't get, but apparently that's one that Jeff Cuellar inspired.

Super awesome breakfast. Great staff. The waitress comes by. She's filling up your coffee. She's

asking what you want. I got a couple sausage biscuits and some bacon and stuff. Just breakfast.

Cash only, though, I will say, if you go, they don't do cards, which is another retro thing.

This is a classic diner, man. This is a classic diner. We lost our, here in Chattanooga, our last

cash only diner over in the North Shore Longhorn. Not that Longhorn. Yeah, it's ours too.

Was their name Flo or Henrietta?

But yeah, I will definitely make that one of my permanent stops every time I come through Manchester

because it's so cool. They were really, really friendly. Great way to start Wednesday morning

and then roll on in to get set up and claim some spots for y'all. We had a great spot

backstage. Not as good as we've had before, but pretty good. Met up with David Bruce.

We got his camp set up next to mine, threw up some other easy ups and then just kind of

relaxed and hung out until y'all guys got there, what, Thursday morning? Yeah, we both got there

right around noon, right as the Live Nation film crew showed up. Yeah, I was waiting. Sorry,

real quick. I was waiting in credential line, kind of trying to hustle as I'm always a little late.

I knew we had some soft times that we needed to hit pretty soon and then some hard times that we

needed to hit shortly after that. I was standing in line, very few people. Over there at the

school, if you're dealing with them for anything, because it's a box office just for picking up

tickets or if you have wristband issues, you could be there for any reason. They do a great

job there. I look over and there's Brad Parker. I wondered where you saw him. Our old buddy,

Brad Parker. I look over and I'm like, I'll be damned. Look at this guy. Man, he gets on here

and we played up a little bit over the years and there was a little bit of a kind of back and forth

almost seemed like if he didn't know any better that we were angry with each other or something.

Boy, he couldn't have been any nicer. Just a little kid smiling. We're just having all that

tough guy. I'm here to not like tough guy, but I'm the boss. I'm the boss and I'm going to lay this

down very firmly. Boy, that was all gone. It was just like hanging out with a good buddy and not

somebody you wondered. I'm not sure if this guy likes me. I think he does.

No, he's awesome.

It was great to see Brad rolling in.

Funny because we ran into, Russ and I did, we ran into Tuba at one point, Tuba Smith.

I didn't see Tuba this weekend.

We ran into Shelby and they both said they ran into Brad and they were like,

how's your weekend? He's like, I'm great.

He said something like that. I don't remember the wording at all so I won't try to even paraphrase

it, but it was basically like, yeah, I'm wonderful. I don't have to do anything.

None of this is on me. None of the power outages of the rain or any of that.

David and I ran into Brad Parker and Yvonne Goulet, who we've had on the show before,

the photographer, kind of serendipitously ran into all three of them at the same time right

there in Centauru and got to hang out with them for a little bit. Brad Parker was the most relaxed,

laid back I'd ever seen him. He was having a great time. The same thing, he's like,

I don't have to deal with any of this.

I was like, you don't even seem like the same guy.

Not my problem. Not my clown show, not my car or whatever.

So that went excellent. Then our Thursday was really just kind of a lot of getting ready for

the afternoon and waiting around. I didn't think it was that hot. I tend to handle heat pretty well

anyway. Thursday was just kind of waiting around and getting ready for the Live Nation folks and

then the panel, which just another amazing gathering of people. Not a surprise. You guys

don't surprise me anymore. I trust and believe in this community and you guys deliver just showing

up. As you mentioned on the way in here, Barry, it's kind of crazy. Anybody listens to this

at all? Yeah. And you want to hang out too? Yeah. You still want to hang out. That's really cool.

You know who I am? You know who Russ is? When you were saying running into people, to me,

Russ, that was kind of the theme for the week. We just consistently kept running into

cool people. The people we wanted to see. The Shelby's, the Tubas, the Listeners, the Reggie's.

It was like every time we turned around, somebody was like, hey, there's the What Podcast guys.

And none of it was planned. It wasn't said like, okay, we'll meet you at this time, at this place.

No, all of this just came out of the blue. No phones were pinned, right? The location pins.

There was zero plans other than those hard and soft times here and there that really didn't take

all that much time. It was just a lot of waiting around for some of that stuff. Outside of that,

zero coordination whatsoever. And it felt like, and I wasn't even with you guys for a lot of this,

I had a lot of the same stuff. I don't know. I'm sorry I haven't been at Buddy's name,

but it felt like I coordinated every single step. It felt like it was like, oh, we're supposed to

be meeting right here. Hey, what's up? It's just on a 700 acre farm with, we don't know how many

people, but I would guess 50 grand. It's him. 45,000 is about the number everyone's agreed upon.

Pretty wild. Pretty wild to have that serendipitous stuff.

We ran into Corey. We ran into Sandy. We ran into-

Corey, by the way. When did we see Corey? Was it Friday?

I think it was- He looked like death.

He was so beat up. But by Sunday, he looked great.

How much you want to bet a lot of the work that Brad used to do? Just got moved around. I'm not

taking away from Shelby. I know Shelby's got a gig and whatever, but I bet a lot of that stuff that

they maybe did together is now all on Corey because they were tandemed for sure.

That's why it's so funny to talk about Brad because as happy as Brad was, Corey didn't.

Corey was like- Yeah, and I think that power outage Thursday

night had something to do with it. Let's talk about that for a minute.

Where were you guys when this happened? All right, let's get into some of these

details. What I do know, the power outage was internal. A lot of people were wondering

whether it was a Manchester thing or a Bonnarooo thing.

Like a utility city. From what I understand, something inside

right where the power comes into the farm, something broke. I don't know exactly what.

I don't remember what he called it, but it was basically like-

Was it a solenoid or a capacitor? It was bigger than that.

No, it was more like a circuit breaker, but on an industrial scale. The little circuit

breaker you'd have in your panel, it was like that, but much, much bigger.

But it was on the farm. Yeah, it was on the premise side, not the-

And it took a while. It took a while. The funny thing there is because we were with Dale

that next day at his RV. He said, yeah, I got the call and I had to go run. I'm like,

what are you going to do, mow the grass? He got a big laugh out of that.

Well, while this show will be a big, a bunch of name dropping the whole time,

I do want to say where I was on the power outage, I was wandering around. So when was that? That was-

Thursday night. Thursday night, Thursday after nightfall.

And I'm wandering around near the Bonney roots and I don't really have anything to do the rest

of the night. We've already fulfilled our obligations for the day. I, you know, maybe we'll

talk, maybe I'll talk Skrillex, but you can see it in my face. I didn't enjoy it at all.

I thought Skrillex was meh. Noise maker. Noise maker. Anywho. Anywho. That was the only thing

left on the day to go maybe take a look at. So I'm just wandering, which is one of my favorite

things to do. And I go, I see Bonney roots, right? The new installation of beer.

Yeah. Bonnie. Right. Right. Right. Bonney roos.

Bonney roos. My bad. Bonney roos. And big screen. And I see some something on an hour.

I'llภe go take a look at this and our old buddy from at least one or two years at

Camp Nut Butter, Chris Cobb, a big wig in the in the national live music scene and got to start,

or at least some of it down here in Chattanooga. But I see him sitting over in the corner and the

Stanley cup is on the LA, LA nights, the Las Vegas nights and whoever they were playing.

And went in and talked to Chris for a few minutes and we were having a big time and having a few

like old, you know, old man like, remember back in 14, remember back in third man, that was crazy.

And then yeah, dark. Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah. You know, we're right in front of the huge screen

watching the hockey. Now we're not really watching it, but some actually were. And I thought,

okay, so the Bonney roos, there's too much power in here. Okay. They'll get this thing figured out

here soon enough. Well, anyway, I'm not going to sit in the dark with you, Chris. See you later.

And I started wandering down that main drag that would take it down back to the witch. So basically

cuts right between what field and the witch that whole drag. Yeah. About a third, no power.

And so I did a wander around and I was like, I would guess a third of this entire, as you just

said, about a third of this whole place is out of power right now. And a wowsers and I panicked

almost a little like, wow, you know, we're just getting started and this festival really needs a

redemption as everybody calls it. And we don't even have power and Skrillex starts in like an hour.

What are we doing here? And they got it fixed. Yeah, they got it fixed. Funny, Cob,

his son plays hockey. His son is a high school hockey player. He loves it. I talked to our good

friend, Mike Dewar a couple of days later and he was like, yeah, that's all Cob wanted to do was

watch hockey. So the fact that the power went out when he was watching hockey is even funnier. So I

was probably bothering him talking to him and he was able to watch his hockey. Yeah. And that all

tracks because I've actually always been amazed with how much youth hockey there is in Nashville.

We have none in the city of Chattanooga. Zero hockey whatsoever for anybody other than a roller

blade. And they have a huge youth program in Nashville. So yeah. All right. So real quick,

let me go through some of these numbers. Mulch, he told you Russ on Wednesday, right? Dale did when

he took 2700 yards of mulch. 2700 yards. We saw the pile. We were trying to figure out what that

meant in our pre-show meeting and it's a lot. I'm pretty sure half a ton is the back of my truck.

And I have a Ford F-150. So basically a half a ton. So I'm guessing yard is probably close to that.

So it's either 2700 truckloads of F-150s. It's a bunch. It was like 70 something semi truckloads

full. Yeah. And I assume they just bought every bit of mulch they could in middle Tennessee.

If you needed mulch this weekend or last weekend, sorry. Your yard project might have been SOL.

Yeah. A quick question that maybe neither of you know the answer to. I wondered if maybe it came

up when you were talking to Dale. Why mulch? Great question. Never done this before. Why mulch?

Well, if you remember Brian, what eight, nine, they use cardboard. Terrible idea. Do you remember

when they put cardboard down in the puddles? I mean, I've seen everything in the whole festival

used to try to get around puddles and lakes, but I don't remember. Cardboard was a horrible idea.

Sand was always the go-to. Another horrible idea. Well, they had sand too. It works for a little bit

until you walk through it and drive through it and then it just becomes squishy and insane with

mulch as we saw. So they don't, I don't think there is a right answer. It's just a try and

just trying it out. Yeah. Mulch is maybe better. It's better than cardboard and it's better than

sand. It doesn't smell good. No, but it gets, as we saw, especially in that stage and we'll talk

about that later. No, but it was mulch. I have seen comments from people saying that they spread

manure around. It was not manure. That is not what you spread down to soak up rain. It's fertilizer.

That mulch brought, with all the rest of the smells that come from a festival on a farm with

a 50,000, 45,000 plus thousand people sweating and everything else. Didn't smell great. It brought a

smell of a, let me think, oh, a farm. But no, it was not manure. No. So the other thing we saw in

Rust, you and I commented as we were sitting in camp, we saw the trucks loading in with generators,

big ginormous generators. Oh man, yeah, they were trucking those things everywhere when the power

went out. They had massive generators. They were taken all over the place just to get basic

infrastructure up and running. Just to get it back up and going until they could get it truly fixed.

Correct. And the other thing, and I don't know what these are called, but we saw them rolling in,

these big giant round metal grate things like, I don't even know what to call them. They would put

them over the road so that a big vehicle could drive across it. Big metal grates. They came in,

they were big rolls. 132 of those, if I remember correctly, and they basically, Live Nation put out

a clarion call, said send them all to Manchester. That's how they got there. That's so crazy to me

to think about how that worked. They said, hey, we need all your, I wish I could think of what

they're called. But yeah, so they had, they came from other festivals, whatever festivals were

going on, they brought those in. So that's how that works. You guys were in the tractor thing

with Dale, pretty much getting a tour of all that behind the scenes infrastructure that I even,

we have never seen before. And this is when you were getting Dale's insight on all this.

There is a back, we called it the back 40. This is like the back 60. We went to places I didn't even

know existed on the farm. He showed us the massive pump stations they have that just pump water out.

That was the next, that's where I was going next. And move it out. Yeah. They also, they have a sign,

they have their own sign, they make their own signs. They pay them. Yeah, that fascinated me.

All those signs that you see at the farm, they make those on site. A sign shop at Bonnarooo.

Let's talk about the water. If you noticed, and Brian, you and I will know from the, back in the

day, the roads were sand, they were dirt, and they were dusty. And remember, they used to have to

bring a big truck, water truck to keep the sand down. Now they're either paved or gravel. Next

to them, if you noticed, was a gravel, maybe two foot wide. Those are French drains. Those are new.

The is funny, Russ, you remember when you and I went to go see the wear stage? Was it on Saturday

or Sunday? And people were lined up to get into the pit. I guess it was Sunday, wasn't it? Sunday

morning? Must have been Sunday, yeah. They were all lined up and they were standing on that.

Those are French drains. That is the reason we were able to even have Sunday. Not only the water

was carried out, but I remember hearing at Sunday when it was raining and we thought, man, there's

no way. There's no way. Because we were standing ankle deep in our camp in water. And somebody

said, they're pumping water out of Centeroo. And I remember thinking, what? No. If you remember,

I think Dale showed us, they dug holes and put sump pumps down in those. And they redirected the

water into these holes and then pumped them out through pipes out into the woods. And he showed

us where? Next to Outeroo. And I think Tuba told us they've done a great, not a great job, they've

done a better job redirecting the water in Outeroo. Next is to do better in Centeroo and in particular

the wet stage. And I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but I asked Dale specifically.

Well, the wet stage needs it. I asked him specifically what's top of his list and he said

the wet stage. Well, a spoiler alert, a spoiler alert, which we can get into later. You get rid

of that tent back there, you don't have as big a problem with the field is one man's opinion.

I think the added traffic for four days, especially when the only thing going on Thursday was that

field, that field took more beating than it's ever taken. And I think that's a big part of it.

In the past, if there was a chewed up field, which there always would be eventually,

you could kind of do one of these, kind of go around and come on in and come, you know, you can

go around to the B's side, right? You can go all the way around. Well, that tent took that away.

And now you had to kind of weave your way through everything. And I'm not saying

functionality wise from music to show to show back, that might've worked beautifully.

I thought that worked great. Yeah. I don't have a commentary on that, but the field was,

and you know, this is a special, of all this farm, that what field is a very special place to me.

And it was ruined. It was ruined. It was not a fun place to be to see music.

I think it worked logistically this year just because it was a lower attended show. I think

if you get a year where they get 80,000 people out there, that's too close to have that one stage

right there to the what? All right. Lots of comments. First of all, they're never going

to get 80,000 again. Too much VIP, too much extra, too much. I think that number is never

going to be seen again. Hopefully not. Two, from what I heard from several different people,

I disagree a little bit, Brian. I think that field has always been prone to flooding and water.

But to your point, it's never had that much traffic. So it's a little bit of both.

My biggest point is the foot traffic. Sure. Is the foot traffic.

Sure. I have heard some people say, put that stage there, but take the tent part of it down

and just make it a stage. The other thing, if you guys remember, they moved the fence in.

So I mean, it can go back. So back to your point Russ, about like if it's 60,000 or 70,000,

they can move it back. That's true. So it's a little bit, again, it's a little bit of both.

I've liked it there. I have heard people say they didn't like there was so much time. It wasn't like

a true A-B. Remember when A would stop, B would start. But if you remember back when

Corey was on with us, he said that was intentional. He wanted it to be kind of a, hey,

hug and howdy, spend a few minutes, get to know your neighbor. I don't think that worked. I think

it felt, you know, just play music. But that's a minor, minor thing. So when we ran into Shelby,

Russ, you'll remember one of the things she said was, what do you guys think of that stage?

And then she said, nevermind the mud. Remember that was the caveat. And she was like, we're

going to put that out in our questionnaire. We know the mud sucked. We know, we know, we know,

we know. But you know, what do you think of that stage? Yeah, it's, I have it right here. It says,

parentheses, pretend there was no mud. That's what she told us. I can't pretend there was no mud.

Nevermind that poke in the throat. But it's a work in progress. I mean, every year there's

going to be more and more investment, more improvements, more infrastructure.

I love being able to stand back there and go to that bathroom and see our buddy Reggie now.

And you go to the bathroom, get a beer, young blood ended and geese started. I liked that.

It felt more like the what stage was now part of my universe rather than some

special thing. That's fair enough. Totally fair enough. And we will dive on this more when we,

especially when we get into the census. But, but I, you know, the one thing I did want to say that

I got sidetracked when I, I'm just, I'm, I'm hung up on that tent as y'all know for six months,

I'm hung up on that tent, is that the idea that, that, that Bonnaroo isn't doing enough to work on

these grounds, which it's, it's been a common discussion since 2021, really. I mean, for many

years now, clearly we're proving right now with this information that we were given while we're

there, this, the proof is here that they are. I, my contention has always been, there ain't a hell

of a lot you can do. There's not a, there are things you can do, but it mean, if you're going

to get heavy, heavy, heavy downpour storms, you're going to have these issues no matter what you do

to improve. And I will say too, again, we can do more later. I'm sorry to say, let's do something

briefly and then go longer, but there was a lot more asphalt out there. Careful what you wish for

with all that asphalt. Yeah. Yeah. You know, some people say, well, you should spend more money on

headliners. They have to choose. It's, you know, do we do improvements? Do we do this? You know,

there, it's not like they have an unlimited amount of money. Kind of to Brian's point,

the infrastructure, there is some things they can do like with the pump.

Well, the French drains is a great, and the brand and the pumps. It made a huge difference.

We would not have had Sunday five years ago. No way. Correct. Probably not. And I'll tell you what

too, everything that the what stage took the beating of because of the change of schedules

and traffic, it actually led to a much better right. The other side of center, the witch stage

was in great shape most of the weekend. And might I add the witch stage sounded incredible. A stage

that has a 22 decade reputation for constantly having bleed issues and several audio issues

and visual issues as they added that much later into the life of the festival. I would say if

we're talking about just, let's just talk stages and certain little carved out portions of the

farm and its effectiveness over the weekend, that may be number one, that might be the best,

the witch stage has ever looked and sound. And held up. Some of the best shows I saw were on

the witch stage this year. It was fabulous. And I have never sat here and said a lot of really good

things about the witch. It's usually just like, yeah, it didn't suck as bad as last year. Right.

Didn't suck as bad. Now I'm walking away saying, you know what, this witch stage field is so chewed

up. Give me a show on, I mean, excuse me, what? Give me a show on the witch. And I've never said

that before. So where one thing needed, you know, had some changes and then had some unintended

consequences, other areas, because of those changes had unintended consequences that ended

up being improvements, like a better witch field. So that was really nice. I'm telling you the fact

that they had shows on Sunday night that they got Noah Kahan on was amazing. And I said last week,

the fireworks, you know, was orgasmic. I mean, it was just good for them. And I'm proud for them

and happy for them. Well, I took off on Sunday because Saturday, which I'll get into in a minute.

I mean, it beat me into the ground. I was, I had zero energy and Sunday was already a day that had

no music I cared about. I mean, trucks, fine, Tedeschi, I get it. But I, and I leave, sorry,

guys, everybody, I leave Sunday every year. Like, so that's not unusual. I was coming back though,

because of several different reasons. But one being the Bonnaroo dinner. I did want to do it

six o'clock Sunday. I was going to, I was going to nap, come on back. And when that next storm

came through and I was communicating with people and there were concerns that might not have been

based on facts that we got from people, but because of, you know, I hate to overuse PTSD,

but from a year before that there was a feeling that Sunday just might not be completed.

I heard that from more than a few people. And so I was like, I can, I'm going to come up there

and get stuff. And Beth, you know, we were communicating like, I'll come get you, pick up

right now. She didn't want to leave. She, you know, she, Beth, Beth's in the same kind of world as

you, Taco. She wants to get there as soon as she can and she'll stay as long as they'll let her.

She worked her ass off. Well, she was working too. I know. She got so many photos. She's not

interested in leaving. And put that link to her, that awesome work that she did. Yeah. She's also

a solid sound. I was supposed to tell you as soon as the show started up in Maine right now or Vermont.

So we'll talk about that more here soon. But she posted some photos from that. Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. Wilco set going on this past weekend again, more later, but

after that rain came in, I was just like, you know, I can't go slugging through this stuff again.

And then just be told, Oh, no more music, go home. And so I didn't come back. I did intend to,

but the fact that they were able to even have, I would call it even more than a half a day,

right? Probably closer to two thirds of a day. Really? They cut three hours, two and a half hours.

Yeah. The fact that we're able to pull that off is pretty impressive. It's amazing. We went back out,

Russ and I, we went to the dinner, which was incredible. Going to do that again.

I'll never miss that. Yeah. Yeah. That was amazing. That food was awesome. The only thing there,

I wish the, I didn't mind that there was music. I just wish it wasn't a funk band

because I couldn't hear Russ and he was right next to me. I wanted to talk to my neighbors.

Yeah. That's part of the point of the dinner is to be able to like meet your neighbors and

talk to them. And yeah, we couldn't hear at all because of the band was just so loud.

Yeah. I know you will, but you'll put up the menu. But on the other side was like

some talking point questions. Why are you here? What's your favorite? I mean, so it was,

you know, it was designed. It's encouraged. Yeah. It was so much fun. It was awesome.

And the punk band was playing on the same stage where we were. In the Planetary stage. Yeah.

And they were great. They were just really loud. Just loud. Yeah. Yeah. That was so much fun though.

That was a treat. That was that and the Tedesky Trucks podcast, which got cut short because of

Yeah. The 10 minutes of that was good. It's like 1 45 and Russ said,

Hey, I think you're going to want to come back to media because Tedesky Trucks is about to do a

podcast with the guy from Rolling StWhat Podcast. And so I picked up and ran over and what 2 10 or

2 11. Mr. Weinstein said, y'all ain't got to go home, but you can't stay here. And he literally

pushed us out into massive rain. Well, yeah, it was, it was rain, but the reason we had to

cancel everything was lightning. They had to evacuate that media building because there was

lightning in the area. Cause I thought we could just wait out the storm in media. Cause it was

raining pretty heavy, but yeah, we had to do the walk of shame back to back to camp. That's what I

would have thought too. And I would have, that would have been a rude awakening. Yeah, we were

no, but anyway, it was, you know, it was fun. And like I said, I was amazed that they were able to

pay center will be open at 5 30. And from there on, it was great. The rest of the night was

pretty awesome. And then Monday morning, the weather was incredible. I know I saw, I knew that was

coming as I was looking at it over there. I was at home. I was like, tomorrow's going to be like 80

degrees and sunshine. I mean, I've never packed up when it was that comfortable. Yeah. The rest of

the week was that comfortable. If Bonnarooo was three weeks later, it'd be a hundred degrees.

Well, it is a scorcher here in Tennessee right now. And because I think it's part of the story,

Beth stayed with you. David Bruce, I am Bonnarooo came and, or actually he went to Nashville and

picked up his wife, Kelly, who is awesome and came back and stayed with my wife, Kelly and I for

Monday and Tuesday night. So we had a pretty great visit. So the Bonnarooo, what's the traditions

continue to grow. They go well beyond just the weekend. I look forward to doing that again

next year with them. Russ and I fight over whether David's going to stay with me or him.

I got him again this year. He's my friend. He's my better friend. I just asked him, which,

whether he preferred that I rename the downstairs room, the Bruce suite or the Bruce wing. I think

he said, Kelly wants the wing. So we're going to go with that. So nobody's allowed in my house,

except for Beth. So that's it. Yeah. I've never been inside your house.

It's getting so weird into the lore. Now I can never let anybody. I know. Right. I get it.

Yeah. I get it. Point to me is, is that it's so much, this is why this event is so

amazing. Little things like that. So do you guys want to take a break and then do you want to

hear about my Saturday by chance? Let's do it. Yeah. All right. Let's, let's do that. Keep going.

We'll be back. All right. And we're back and we haven't even talked about the wedding. Yeah. I

jumped the gun. We'll, we'll kick my Saturday down the line on the show for a minute. Let's,

let's get to the wedding that I got to tell you guys quickly, just a few words before I'll let

you take the lead, Barry is that the whole time I wondered what this was really going to be like,

yeah, some people get married at Bonnarooo all the time. So in various different ways, sanction,

not sanction. And I gotta say, I was pretty impressed with how it came together. The whole

time. I thought, I don't, don't know that we need to follow this thing around. I mean, I'm just

thinking to myself, I don't care. I'll do whatever. I'm, I'm pretty easy. In most cases at Bonnarooo,

we don't run over here, especially if there's a golf cart included. Yeah. But boy, it, boy,

it was a really, really, really cool thing. And Barry, I'll let you take it from there.

And, and Russ jump in too, because I mean, this thing, if you guys remember,

we give away tickets every year. Thankfully we're fortunate since we've been doing this podcast,

we have two tickets to give away. Our winner this year was Kira who, how many 40, 40 times?

It was like 47 maybe, just phone calls. That's not even counting emails. Yeah. All the other

people that she had call in for her, including her boss, her grandma, grandma, coworkers.

She did a PowerPoint. She sent videos in. I mean, and this wasn't like a, whoever sends us the most

entries wins kind of thing. It was not. Right. Yeah. It's whatever we want it to be. I wouldn't

say that this formula will work every time, but this time it did. And then at some point in the

conversation, one of her phone calls, she said, by the way, Tyler and I are going to get married

on the farm. We've always planned to do that. And then at one point she said, Oh, I just took

a pregnancy test and I'm pregnant. And I think I said, please tell me you've told your family

before you told us. And she was like, Oh, you were second. And then I got it. Action packed life for

these two young people in the last six months. And at some point I got an email from a guy named Mark

who said, I live in the area and I am ordained. I can marry them, but I insist that they actually

get on the phone with me and do some zoom calls so that I can basically be sure that it's legit.

Pre-marital counseling. And I'm like, a hundred percent. I would totally agree with that.

And he did. And then he reached out some weeks later and said, I love these people. I've been on

the phone with grandma. I'm now one of the, I'm now part of the family. I love these people.

I want to do whatever I can. And so anyway, long story short, we reached out to the Bonnarooo folks

and the live nation folks who were doing the filming and said, Hey, we're going to this wedding

on Saturday at four o'clock in the Grove. Might be some pretty cool footage. And they were like,

love it. We're into it. And we're going to go ahead and videotape all of it so that we can send

the tape to grandma. Right? That was, that was the first cool thing.

Yeah. It was actually Gabe, the director of this whole thing, who was just a joy to work with.

So sweet. It was his idea to cut B-roll from that and get it to them for like, almost like a gift.

And I mean, we're talking, I mean, I don't mean to be overly judgmental, but we are talking about

LA film crew. Oh my God. Los Angeles. At least that's legit. Yeah. Like we're talking about

people who, I mean, there's no telling what kind of attitude they could have had. There's no telling

what their, you know, where their minds are and what they do on a daily basis. They're in a different

galaxy out there. Yeah. It wasn't like they set up an iPhone on a tripod and hit record.

No, that's what we do. That is high, high, high end stuff. And the fact, excuse me, that he would,

even, you know, whether they do it or not, we'll see. But the fact that he went on about it and

then got with Yana, who was kind of the lead of the, we'll call her the chaperone of their little

crew. Yeah. She's the producer. Producer. And the fact that they went on and on about that to make

that a reality, like that's not something they asked. And he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Talk to them about that. It was their idea. And how cool is that? So that's one thing. Yeah. Well,

we kind of parlayed that because they wanted to meet up with us and get some photos of us. And

they said, will you be back at camp around five? And, you know, my answer was, yeah, but we actually

kind of needed the golf cart ride back from the wedding. So I kind of like said, Hey, can you meet

us out here at the Grove and pick us up by the way, there's going to be a wedding if you want to

shoot that too. Yeah. And that's when he jumped on it and said, okay. Yeah. They, their crew was

doing something else. He had to redirect them. Yes. They rerouted. Yeah. We had the wedding got

stalled by about what? 15, 20, 20 minutes. And there was a little bit of a, in the air of like,

because I mean, people are nervous and you know, and it's like, are they ever coming?

We can even do this. Good point. I was a little distracted during all of that. And I'll explain

why when I get to my Saturday, but I was, you know, I saw a lot of this and I thought, I hope

they get here. Yeah. Gabe was there with us and he was on the phone like y'all need to get here.

Come on. We're holding up this wedding. That's a good point. Yeah. And if you're

Keira or Tyler, the ones getting married, you know, a 15 minute delay feels like ages. Oh,

it's 400 degrees and you're getting married. You're already nervous. Yeah. And then here comes us

and then here comes us with a camera crew. Yeah. And there's, and there's the harp lady and it's

like, you know, all these things. And so the whole thing, I mean, it's just, it came together, right?

I mean, it just came together. Well, thankfully for the delay because, and we need to get David

Bruce, cause I'm not sure maybe Russ, you know how this happened. Yomi, that harpist plays in the

Grove in the mornings. And I think Tyler and Keira met or listened to her last year, right? And

invited her, but it was kind of one of those, Oh, Hey, we're getting married if you're around. Sure.

And then David, let's go get a beer sometime. And you probably, you probably don't. And then I think

David kind of looked up and said, well, there's a harpist and went up and said, it'd be cool if

they had a harpist that there. And she was like, Oh, I have to do this. That's when I walked up and

she was like, I have to do this. I have it in my car. I'll go get my harp. I have to do this.

And she was back in like five minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She set up. I mean, and that's,

that's when I started, it's not crying. Oh, me too. Cause Mark had brought, you know,

a Bluetooth speaker and he had like just a playlist of just generic wedding songs.

I'm sure it was going to be great, but there is nothing like live accompaniment to a wedding

versus a canned playlist. It did. It totally transformed the event. It was a beautiful,

you know, that's an interest. I'm glad you said that that way, Taco. I mean, I know it's easy,

easy thing to observe and understand. I didn't quite think about it that way.

That really is, I've been married a couple of times. Hey, the expert over here. Whenever they

get divorced, we can talk to you about that too. Sorry. But to, to insert that live element and

take away the more traditional simplified, but in that, in that setting, the simplified version

is just fine. But to move, to move away from that in on the fly in the moment had to be such an,

an enhancement for them and everything involved. Wow. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. And,

and Yomi was like, I have to do this. I mean, I, she probably said it 12 times. I mean,

she's such a pro. She can just, she can just pivot on a dime and go from just hanging out

and kind of piddling around with cool people in the Grove to, oh, now I'm official wedding harp.

It was, it was amazing. How cool is that? How cool is that? Do you guys remember Robert,

the guy from their camp? You know, Kara's mom and dad have passed away. Her dad's name was Robert.

And there was a guy named Robert in their camp who stood in to give her away. Yeah.

Is that the story? I wondered who he was. And I guess it was a joke because he said something

about, I don't remember who it was that he wanted to see. He was like, are we going to get this done

time for me to go catch this show? Yeah, we have a Robert. We needed, we need something else. And I

wonder if girls from the crowd just like, I'm a Mary or what? I don't remember what it was, but yeah.

Okay. That all makes a little more sense now. Cause I thought it was her dad. And then I thought he

was complaining about missing a show. I think it was a joke. I think it was a joke, but even,

but I thought it was her dad. So I was like, that's not a great joke. She's lost her sister

and her parents in the last year. She's lost her sister and her parents. I don't want to, you know,

talk too much about her personal life, but pretty special for it to have somebody there to survive.

This is all coming, this is all coming together for me better right now. Yeah. I didn't know a

lot of these things. All these little coincidences. It was amazing. It was awesome. All right. Tell

us about your Saturday. All right. Well, and, and part of the reason I didn't know what was going on

as much during that and might've seemed a little distance on the outskirts is because I was in the

euphoria afterglow of everything I had just did. So I'm just going to be very honest and say I was

being very selfish. All I was, yeah, shocking, right? Shocking. So I'll, I'll end with that. So

we get the, the Roo Run is at 9 AM. And at this point in my life, a year ago, I was very nervous

going into it. I've never done such a thing, barely had done any jogging and running and

were just starting to build up for that year and use that as an excuse to turn this into something

that I now make a pretty regular practice. So, you know, Bonnarooo gives again in another way,

right? And so this year I wasn't nervous. It's, it's three miles. It's not even three miles. It's 2.86

miles. And, but it wasn't, boy, it got hot on Saturday and it got hot quick on Saturday morning.

Thankfully though, dry and, and good conditions for all that. So I get out there, I go to bed very

early because I, I'm, I am, I'm anxious. Let's put it that way. I'm not nervous. I'm anxious.

So I get to bed at like midnight on, on Friday and the Strokes, by the way, I was listening to

from basically our camp that night. Boy, I should have known that band better and listened to them.

That was a good, that was a better headliner than I gave a credit for. That was, that sounded great.

Yeah, it was great. I was like, wait, they play all these songs? Wow. Dummy Brian once again,

messes this up. But so I get out there a little early. It's over by the old exit for the old,

you old regular Bonnarooians, veterans, you know, that, that exit, that designated one 11 they made

or one, I think that was a number they actually used for the, just to get traffic directly off

the interstate. Turns out that wasn't such a great idea. So if you know where I'm talking about,

that's where it starts. And we get over there and Dr. B, Dr. B, you know why I do this.

Barry, we had a guy here in town. Dr. B was on talk radio here in Chattanooga. Yeah.

This is wow. What a pool. Mr. B.

Mr. B. Brendan Festival Needs. He's out there and boy, he is a runner. Holy geez. He killed it.

I love it. Our friend from Rue Fitness, Kristen was there. She also had incredible fitness

or finish of course. And then Kyle Bonnarooian and the guy dressed up as the what stage beekeeper.

I thought that was, that was pretty slick. I said, you are getting in a picture with us right now,

beekeeper guy. Get over here.

Especially because Kyle Bonnarooian was number 420. The beekeeper was number 69.

69. I could not get a clever number myself, unfortunately.

All the good numbers were already used. Yeah.

That's true. So that was pre stuff that it's sponsored by or at least in partnership with

Bee Love that drink that electrolyte filled lightly flavored. Boy, I had about seven of those

are actually quite, they're quite tasty and they are, they're, you know, Gatorade-esque kind of

stuff. Anywho, so we get up there. I hear the top 200 and I think there was like 600 people out there.

I never got to the exact number, but there was a lot. Top 200 get a ribbon. So, you know, you get

a just a top 200 finish. And I thought, you know, I think I can do this. I think I could do top 200.

Let's go. I think I can do, let's just go, just run, get as fast as I can.

About a mile in, I realized that was a horrible, horrible idea.

Yeah. What the hell? I don't need a ribbon. I don't want a ribbon.

I was. I'll buy a ribbon when I get home.

Dying. I was dying. I was refreshed. I slept all night. I got up at about seven. It took me two,

you know, I, it gave me two hours to get ready to get over there. I felt great.

So it was fun. You know, the people do, they had to have fun with you. They make jokes and say,

you know, there's one that says run bitch run. I'll put that up. It was, it was a hoot. It was

really neat. By halfway through, I started going down to a jog and a walk and, and then picked it

up and got about a 35 minute, 35 minute time. Yeah, you did it. The, the, the winter, the, the

ribbons, you know, those types were getting more like 20 minute times. So, you know, that's, that's

kind of the difference. 20, 25 minute times. So I get done with that and it's, oh, and we'll post

this too. I know you retweeted and reposted this. The, the, the very last dead last guy was trying

to reach the end and you'll see it here very late. It was all, it was all, it was all performative,

but it was, it was hilarious. It was the guys that did the MC in and the DJ and the same guys

that do the, the MC in at Planet Rue and on this, on stage. So you've, you've seen them anyway.

They're animated. They're having fun with everybody. It was a wonderful event. I mean, I was so happy

to do it. So it's about 10 AM and I'm done and I feel really good. I'm wide awake. I've been,

I'm so hydrated, more hydrated than I need to be. And I just, I feel it's almost that

runner's high people talk about. I'm like, all right, cool. Well, it's 9 50 in the morning.

I guess I'm just going to wander around GA and I go see our buddies, church boners.

And, and they, boy, they, they kill it over there with their camp right there in front of the arch.

Like always just beautiful over there. And they give me a bunch of stickers and some trinkets,

which was great because out in GA, the, the, the give a penny, take a penny thing,

give a trinket, take a trinket is everywhere. And there's so much cool stuff. And I was trying not

to overdo it. Yeah. I found, I got so many great stickers, which I'll showcase later. I'm putting

them on a, it's dedicated Yeti. I bought a new Yeti the other day to put just my Bonnaroo stickers

on. So all of the, stay tuned. A two week tease eventually I'll show it. But so I talked to the

boners and I, and I say, I want to see shakedown street. I haven't been on Bonnaroo shakedown street

in 15 years potentially, which is just their vendor row. And they're like, yeah, it's right

around the corner. So I, I hit it that way, hang a left, get close to what I believe is the house of

yes. It's one of the plazas over there. I think it's the house of yes, but they all look the same

to me, but getting close to, to shakedown, I look over on the back of a pickup truck, turns out it

was Corey, Corey Smith's pickup truck. They use his truck for everything. The squeegee guy for this

and everything. I look over and a guy named, you might be familiar with them. You might not be,

I think eventually someday soon you will be Jesse Wells was playing. He's kind of this folky,

Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan ask type sort of people. I bet he'd hate to be called that, but just to

give you an idea of what kind of music he plays. And I have been a big fan of this guy, not for

a few weeks or a few months for going on a solid year or more. I'm going to see him in Nashville

in, in a, in a month because I was, I was like, I can't believe I haven't seen this guy yet.

I can't believe he's not at Bonnaroo. I can't believe he's not anywhere that's nearby me. And

boom, there he is on the back of a pickup truck, playing acoustic into a boom microphones because

that's his shtick. That's his gimmick is he goes around. He started it with just him being out in

the woods or by a creek or by a farm, a barn or on top of a mountain and just playing a song,

recording it, posting it on social media. That's how he made his, his, um, traction in the industry.

And now the, the record company funds that. So they just take him out. He was in Chicago at a

hot dog stand the next day. Like, so they take him around the country, drop him in. He plays to a

small audience with a late notification to, you know, people who follow him. It was one of the

most amazing things I've ever seen that was serendipitous like that. Right. Like, like,

I, like, I not just know who this guy is. I know every song he sings. I follow every social media

he has and holy sht. He's right here in front of me, five feet away from me. I record basically

the whole show on, on my phone. And, and, and so if that was it, if that was all, that was enough

to make my, and this is not even noon yet. And I'm just, I'm glowing of how crazy this is. So I

walked to the house of yes. And I see, I think he went back behind and y'all know me. I like to bother

people and get pictures. And I wander out to where it has this little backstage area of, of, of the

house of yes. And there's a kid and I'm just like, Hey, um, yeah, I gotta, somebody's meeting me back

here, man. He's like, Oh, uh, I gotta go ask my boss. I was like, okay, that's fine. He gets up,

walks off. I walk right on in and turn the corner and there's Jesse Wells. And I, uh,

chatted up with him for a minute, get a picture. And I forgot about this because I follow his

personal social media too. He is a runner, like a use the app, track your run, post it on social

kind of runner. And he looks at me in this ridiculous running, you know, gear thing.

You know, I look stupid and, uh, and, and he's like, did you just run a race or something, man?

I was like, yeah, I actually did just a minute ago. He's like, what time did you get?

And so now we're just, now we're talking, running and, and, uh, cause he's, he's an avid runner

and, you know, a picture little yuck it up and that's it. And then I just wander around for hours

thinking, what did I just do? What did I just see? Who did I just meet this? Because I did not know,

I didn't get the modification that he was playing. He just happened to be sitting on the back of a

pickup truck. Oh my God. One of the best days I've ever had at Bonnaroo and it's not even lunchtime.

I think serendipity is the word. Did we use that Russ? I mean, that was, but that was this,

that's why this was such a special Bonnaroo for me because of just what you just said,

how it came together, how every day, every hour, there was some one thing just like that. I turned

a corner and there's Tuba. I turned a corner. There's Shelby. I turned a corner. I mean, Russ

and I, how many times were you sitting at camp or even just walking around and said, I can't believe

that just happened. Yeah. Oh yeah. Incredible. This was weekend. This was that I didn't have it

as much all weekend because I wasn't tacking along with you guys enough. But this day was that all

day. And so then I ran off to find, to media for a minute to get all my footage to try it. Because I

wanted to be first to get something on TikTok or Instagram of something from Bonnaroo, just because

I knew it would do well. And it did, not millions, but several thousands. So that's big for me. And

I was happy about that. So I get that done. And then you guys were like, come on, we're leaving

to go. I was late to get to our ride with Rumi. And that's partially because I'm like, hold on,

I got one more thing to, one more, one more. And then we get over there, we get out to the grove

and then we're kind of waiting around a little bit. And I have some connectivity out there in

the grove for some reason. My internet was working and I couldn't stop. Service everywhere was work

great all week. Mine wasn't, but I have a cheap phone plan. But anyway, I was locked. I was so

obsessed with what I had just, who I had just met and what I had just heard and everything I had just

filmed and recorded. And I was just watching, it's like watching the, when the Braves win a big

postseason series and I watch it over and over and over again. I just, I was like, oh my God,

I can't believe I just met Jesse Wells. I just met Jesse, I just did this. And so I was kind of

distracted if that's, anybody wondered, that's why.

Sgt. Dave R. Rumi Remind me real quick. Last year, I thought the volunteers and the staff

were awful. They were about as bitter and angry and unhappy as I've ever seen. This year was a

complete opposite. I can't tell you how many people have a great day. How are you? I mean, my God,

Brian, every single time. Remember we gave the, the, the woman who was always singing, gave her a shot

of Margarita. Oh, I got to pull the videos. Y'all see the, the, the, the lady, I think that in,

in our area that was directing traffic and dancing the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yep. Like she was there every day and every day it was a trip. It was a, she was directing

traffic. Well, we'll, I'll try to, I'll try to pull the video. It was fabulous. They were great. The

bathrooms were amazing. The showers were amazing. I mean, you know, I just want to give, give that

good job, Shelby. Good job, Corey. Every, I thought everything, you know, as far as that goes was.

Yeah. All the way up until I mean, it was not without it's, you know, with the mud and the,

the power and all that. The early storm that we had to, had to weather and, and, and deal with. But,

so that night, so Saturday, I have yet to see outside of Jesse on a back of a pickup truck

at the house of yes. I haven't seen any music all day. And I get, I had 10,000 steps by 9 30 a.m.

So I, I had 30,000 steps by 12 40 at night for weird Al. I was in pain standing up straight and

not moving. I was hurting just standing there. Welcome to my world every day.

So I was thinking, you know, I know I'm going to take off in the morning. I'm going to come back,

but I don't know what I'm going to see. This is the thought process of time. I'm not sure what

Sunday is going to, Sunday might just be a pack it up and hang out and say, talk to people day. So

I need one big show. I need one last thing. And that was weird Al. And it was too late

for that day for me. I was like, but it's at 12 40 and it goes to 2 a.m. And I don't know,

I don't know that I can sit here and do this. And it was so good. It was so damn good. I couldn't

leave. And it would never end. He just kept going and going and going. And the show that

that guy puts on, you've seen this before, Russ? Oh yeah, several times. Okay. So you know, you knew.

I didn't know. I've known, I've been a weird out my family on our vacation trips when we were in the

teen teens earlier than that, we'd listen to weird Al albums driving to Chicago and back. I know all

that stuff. I think I told you the first tape I ever bought was weird Al in 3D. Yeah. And we would,

of course, because we was a kid, a family of four kids, and an overworked mom and dad, we lose all

the CDs and have to buy them all again every time we would go on our next vacation. And so weird Al

is big in our family. And so this technically meant a lot to finally get to see him. And boy,

did he deliver the goods. Oh yeah. Like, oh God, it was so entertaining and so high quality.

And it went forever. And 2am, I barely crawled back to the car, got in the back of my Chevy and

just, yeah. And that was it. And I saw one act or two technically. I mean, it was, like I said,

Wetleg, Youngblood, Geese. Rainbow Kitten Surprise. Rainbow Kitten Surprise was great.

I thought Skrillex was meh. I thought Grills was great. I thought LSZ, maybe my favorite EDM.

Really? I like that bass drop, man. I like when it hurts. And it hurt. It was great. It was good.

If we're just given a quick list, I'll do it quickly. Blues Traveler. Yeah, fine. Fine. I've

seen Blues Traveler countless times. Youngblood lived up to it because of our obligations.

I missed the beginning of that set and it was so good. But I caught two-thirds of it and it lived

up. It was a rock and roll show. And that guy is so Britishly, asshole-ishly awesome. I just,

God, I love the showmanship, the look at me. Look how awesome I am. I thought it was absolutely

great. Wetleg, we were all together for a little bit. God, that rocked. Rainbow Kitten Surprise,

absolutely fabulous. I did not intend to see that show. Loved it. It was great. And then

Mount Joy, who I do like, I would have taken it early, left it. And I was walking out with

the Velen family and I hear this band playing. I don't have a schedule. And I'm like, they are

rocking. Mount Joy's a little softer, softer rock, Americana-ish. And they're rocking. I'm like,

okay, well, you know me. I hear some rock. I got to go find out what it is. As soon as I get over

there with them and they all laughed at me and everything, I'm like, half the time I'm kind of

like, what am I doing here? All of a sudden, I Know You, Ryder, Grateful Dead. I know you, Ryder.

Oh my God. And they're like, oh, this is what it takes to get you happy around here. And they

rocked on I Know You, Ryder for only a couple of minutes. And then I finished the set and they

played a few songs I knew. So Mount Joy, big time, big time set. And then Weird Al ended it for me.

So I wouldn't change how I did it one bit. I really wouldn't.

How about you, Rod?

Big one, big show for me. I hate you guys missed it was the chats. They were incredible.

Yeah.

I got familiar with the chats going in because I was told I should, but that was good, huh?

I saw it with David Bruce. Yeah. And he had never really heard of them. And I was like,

you're going to love it. They're just Australian punk rock. Just awesome. I mean, you know, they

get a lot of this is a song about a car.

Sounds like some good indie, good indie sloppy rock is what it sounds like.

It's exactly what it was. Yeah.

All right. God, we could do this all day and we will. We're the plan is to have a bunch of

guests on that we met over the weekend. But if I have to wrap things up, I think serendipity,

I think the fact that everybody does Bonnarooo their own way is a takeaway for me. I mean,

all three of us did it completely differently and I wouldn't change a thing about that.

I can't wait to go back. I'm not sorry that I'm not there right now. I know Russ is,

but I mean, it's yeah, I don't miss the porta potties. I don't miss the porta showers. I

don't miss the mud, you know? Yeah, I actually, yeah. Yeah. I didn't even use the showers. I

bird bath every day. Oh my God. They were all, but there's nothing better than a hot shower.

I took a shower every day. It was awesome. They were good looking showers and our accommodations

were very nice. I'd say I wouldn't change a thing. I'd always change something in everything in my

life. Always. There's always something I would do a little differently, but I can't think of what

they would be at this moment. I appreciate you guys helping with, you know, picking up my slack

on getting some of my stuff out of there. I did kind of dump that on you guys. Not to mention

Beth. Yeah, we'll make fun of you for that later. It's still a little too soon.

A little too raw. Thank you. But to my defense, I told Beth. No, no, no, no. All right. I have a

defense, your honor. No, you don't. I have a defense. No, you don't. Let it go. It might not

clear the jury, but I have a defense. No, you don't. Let it go. Love you, Beth. But anyway,

that's a bulk of the weekend. It was awesome. It was a great Bonnarooo. Congratulations again.

I think it's funny to say that. I think it's interesting because we're not the only ones. I've

heard from so many people who said thank you or congratulations to Corey and Shelby and Tuba and

team. Getting to that fireworks show on Sunday after Noah Con was pretty, pretty great. So,

all right. We have lots and lots coming up. Lots of changes, lots of plans.

Before we get out of here, I think we got to talk about Oliver Tree though.

Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know anything about the guy other than the little I learned over the weekend.

Passed away in a helicopter. He passed away. It was a helicopter crash. While we were at Bonnarooo,

the news kind of came out. Yeah, I remember now. I don't know if you guys know much about Oliver

Tree. I wouldn't say I'm a big fan. I don't know anything about him. I don't think he ever played,

I don't think he ever played Bonnarooo, but he was on the 2020 and the 2021 lineup,

both of which were canceled. Oh, is that right? Yeah. That's where I was introduced to him and

I've kind of kept up with him since. I wouldn't say I'm a big fan of his music, but he has an

interesting or had an interesting career. His interesting look. Well, yeah, he kind of built

a persona around each album. It was almost like he was playing a different character. This is almost

kind of like an Andy Kaufman type person because you never really knew if he's being serious or

doing a bit. But yeah, he was on a world tour and died in a helicopter crash in Brazil.

I do remember. Yeah. If you've seen one of his album covers, he's got one album cover where

there's like flames behind him, which is almost, I'm not saying it's prophetic,

but because of the way he died, it kind of reminds me too of the Leonard Skinner album

cover with the flames. I mean, that kind of struck me when I found that out. He had said before,

he wants his royalties and his whatever he earns from his career to go towards

helping new emerging artists, support them and get them started. So that's what's happened.

They have started a, let me get this right. This is called Dr. Oliver Tree's Extremely Epic Art Grant

for Baby Geniuses is a new website that they have opened up. You can donate, you can apply

if you're kind of an up and coming artist, you want to kind of learn how to get started.

So that's kind of cool. Figured it's worth mentioning just because of the history and-

And the timing.

And the timing, yeah. When I saw the news, I almost thought, is this like a joke that he's playing?

Because he kind of would do that, kind of play jokes. But no, this was serious. This was kind

of a tragic accident. 32 years old.

That's so young. That's so awful. And this just quickly to the helicopter thing. I love a golf

car. I don't want to get in a helicopter. Helicopters terrify me. Too many accidents

with these things. And I know now there's a private company doing helicopter rides over-

There was helicopter rides over Bonnarooo. Yeah.

I don't think I'd do that either.

There ain't a damn chance I'm going to get in a helicopter with some random company. Oh,

and they gave away a free gummy. A free weed gummy. It was sponsored by a weed company.

And that's just one man's kind of almost phobia. This goes to Kobe Bryant, to I wish I could think

others. I had a list the other day when I was thinking of who has died in helicopter. Because

that's a unsurvivable crash situation normally because of those propellers.

So that is a terrible story. And it made me think immediately, I wish Bonnarooo wouldn't allow

those helicopter tours. But anyway, that's another discussion we can do in the off season maybe at

some point. But terrible story. And I knew that name. I've known that name Oliver Tree for years.

I just didn't know who he was. But thanks for, yeah, good on you for bringing that up.

And then before we get out of here, Russ, help us out. Help me out.

You want to get people to tag some stuff for us or something, right?

Oh, yeah. I wanted people, we gave away a bunch of stickers all weekend as we do.

If you'll send us what, how do you want them to do it, Russ? I always ask people when we give

them stickers, put it someplace cool. Don't put it someplace illegal. Don't put it on the Mona Lisa

face. Don't put it on a statue. But please send us a picture. I prefer to be on your cooler,

personally. Yeah, your cooler or your Yeti cup. I'm figuring it's in some urinal somewhere in some

dive bar is what I, somebody peeing on my face is what I'm doing. I'm completely good with that.

But I love it. Some people pay a lot of money for that, Barry. Good point.

But so maybe get people to on social tag us or something. We'll maybe feature something like that.

You got a sticker, send it to us. Send us a picture, tag us on social media,

Instagram, Twitter, wherever. Send it to us. Comments at the webpodcast.com. We'd love to,

you know, show all these off. We love to see it. I didn't do as good a job of that. Sorry,

go ahead, Russ. And if you got a selfie with us, I know we took a lot of pictures with people.

We'd love to see those too. Please share. And all you folks that came up and said, hello,

my God, I can't thank you enough. I can't tell you how much that meant. It really is special.

It really is. Thank you. There was a guy at Comin' John, Tuesday night. He came up, he sat down

next to me and said, you know, love the show, love what you do. I'd like to buy you a beer.

Let me not forget this too. Let me. Well, I said, you know, thank you. You don't really have to do

that. I appreciate it, but I am here to drink beer. So I won't say no. Thank you for buying me a beer.

But let me not forget that after that Jesse Wells experience in Shakedown, I walk out of there,

walk just a few more steps and there's a guy with a Jesse Wells shirt on who's like, hey,

what podcast? And then we sit around and BS about Jesse Wells, Bonnarooo and everything else. I'm

told, I'm so sorry. I forgot about that part. So that's even another part of that kind of euphoric

day. And that was not the only one on Shakedown Street that I talked to. Somebody else, a vendor

lives five miles from my house. And so we're sitting around talking about Chattanooga,

I don't know, politics or something. It wasn't that exactly. But even that was a very special,

out of nowhere serendipitous kind of thing with these vendors. And we're just chatting it up. And

people are really interested in people who do the Roo Run because they think you're crazy.

Well, the worst part, and you didn't even mention was the walk to get to the starting

was longer than the run, wasn't it? I don't know if it's longer than the run,

but it could be comparable. And yeah, cool. Because I did mention, is that over at the old

exit toll booth, but not everybody necessarily knows how far that is away from where we are.

It's a little ways. That's why I got up two hours early, but you'd be proud of me. I got up at 7am.

When you told me that, I was like, oh, hell no. Not only am I not doing the run, I couldn't get

there. It's like, y'all don't want to follow me and take pictures of me? None of y'all want to

take pictures of me? Good on you, man. Good on you. Happy 300, guys. Neither one of you

are entertaining enough for 300 episodes. I can't believe we got it. All right. Love you guys.

We'll see you.