This week Brad and Barry get insight from Relix editor (and the brains behind the Bonnaroo Beacon) Mike Greenhaus! Plus, as we get closer to Roo the guys have a request for you, the listener. Cool?
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The Bonnaroo Beacon
Hey Barry Courter from the Chattanooga Times Two Press.
Do you have a few friends that want you to help you raise some hell?
You got a few of those?
I got a few of those.
You got a few of those?
I do.
They gonna be at Bondrew in a couple weeks?
I think so.
Yeah.
Because when you look at me, you think hell raiser.
I know.
Yeah, that's not the type that we roll with, but it's the same thing.
Yeah.
Welcome to the What Podcast.
This is a Bonnarooo podcast for Bonnarooians by Bonnarooians, the Bonnarooians being
us.
That's Barry Courter from the Chattanooga Times Three Press.
I'm Brad Steiner from Hits 96W DoD in Chattanooga.
Just a few days away, it feels like it's right there in our grasps.
It's right there, Barry.
And I feel like, I feel the fever is coming on.
The fever is coming on.
Absolutely.
We had a probably best meeting that I've attended on Sunday.
We had our Bonnaroo group meeting.
Yeah, we got our whole team together.
We started planning and strategizing what our campsite was going to be.
Helped that it was over beers on a beautiful day watching minor league baseball.
Right.
It was nice.
Yeah.
But a lot of plans.
That's what we suggest you do, by the way.
You start planning what exactly camp is going to be.
We have decided to get the band back together this year and go all out.
The game got upped.
Yes, it did.
In which way?
In what way do you think the game got upped?
I don't remember so many of us.
Brad always is sort of the leader of the pack when it comes to amenities.
I like to make it nice for you guys, yes.
Brad brings the solar lights and the picket fence and that kind of thing.
And the 600 square feet of carpet.
And the carpet.
Yeah.
But I think everybody on Sunday was into adding this and adding that.
I don't want to give anything away.
Yeah, because there need to be surprises, sure.
Pretty crazy ideas.
Now, the reason why we're going all out is because the anticipation.
It feels like every single week there's something that makes us more excited and more excited
about the festival.
This week, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm really excited about the Grand Ole
Opry.
I'm glad to hear you say that because I was going to say, I may surprise you, but I'm
going by there.
I like.
Wait a second.
That sounds like a drive-by.
That sounds like a pop-in.
No, I'm going to watch.
I'm going to watch.
I like good country music.
I like old country music.
It's not something I live with all the time, but every so often I got to turn it on, turn
it up.
So, you announced the Grand Ole Opry lineup, which I don't really understand what this
is going to be.
Is this going to be a stage?
Is this just going to be a super jam?
What exactly is this?
I'm not 100% sure either.
I'm wondering if it's like when they had the kind of a New Orleans, was it a tent or a
tribute with the Alan Toussaint was there.
It was kind of a smaller deal, but it was a lot of New Orleans flavored acts.
I'm not 100% sure.
I know it's on the schedule, seems like later in the weekend.
And when you say that, now I'm not a country, it's on Sunday by the way.
I don't know country music.
I mean, I know the name Brother Osborne.
I know some of these people that were announced, but go through some of the names.
There's one in particular that caught my attention.
I think there might be two.
Dale McCurry is the headline.
That's the one.
Yeah, Dale is, he is the, gosh, I don't know if you'd call it second generation.
He is the Bill Monroe, the living Bill Monroe, I guess.
He and his sons continue to tour.
I'm not that particular a fan, not particularly that a fan of that type of bluegrass, that
nasally twangy out of tune.
That's not my thing.
Wait, I'm sorry.
Yeah, I said it.
Your combination that you're not into is nasally twangy and out of tune?
No.
Oh, come on.
No, not at all.
What kind of music fan are you?
He plays traditional bluegrass, which to me, there's really only one song played three
different ways, fast, faster, and faster.
Okay.
Just my opinion, I know a lot of people like it.
I do like a lot of the new grass, as it's called, but I've seen Dale and they're great.
They're all very good at what they do.
I'm looking forward to Bobby Bear.
He falls in that, again, right after the Hank Williams and those guys.
He's in that outlaw country.
The only song I remember his is Drop, Kick Me, Jesus.
Drop, Kick Me, Jesus.
Exactly.
Now, back to Del McCurry, because one of our campmates has a really great story about Del
McCurry because he's been to Bonnarooo before.
The story pretty much goes that Del McCurry is one of these guys that just doesn't care.
He will play anywhere, anytime, with anyone, doesn't matter.
He's just old school like that.
Absolutely.
They were walking around the backstage area, I guess it was before one of his shows or
some after one of his shows.
They don't really remember.
I don't really remember the story specifically, but they're walking around backstage and
Del's sitting there, a couple of his bandmates are sitting there.
Out of nowhere, during a conversation that our campmate just struck up with Del McCurry,
they just did a impromptu song right there on the spot.
That sounds about right.
I think Del fits into that Colonel Bruce Hampton sort of camp.
Right.
That's who I was thinking of.
Yeah, yeah.
I remember.
Let's just play.
Let's just play right now.
Don't care who, don't care what.
If I can find your groove, you can find mine.
Let's play.
That's absolutely Del.
And to add on to what I said, I've always respected that about him.
It's just not my go-to listening time.
Who else is on there?
So you got Bobby Bear, Brothers Osborne, Old Crow Medicine Show, Lucy Silva's, Blanco,
Riders in the Sky, and Nikki Lane.
Okay.
All right.
So it is, I got to imagine they're going to be bringing up some other people too.
Like random, hey, why don't you come on stage?
It sounds like that kind of group.
It does sound like that.
And it sort of sounds like this podcast.
If you can come on, we'll put you on.
It sounds like a Grand Ole Opry Super Jam.
Right.
But haven't they done that before?
Didn't they do a Grand Ole Opry Super Jam before?
Was that, am I just thinking of the normal bluegrass without Ed Helms?
Well yeah, Ed Helms has hosted a bluegrass thing for the last three years running.
Yeah.
It feels like it's a staple.
And I think it shocked everybody that wasn't going to be on the lineup this year.
I mean, who knows?
He might've been busy or it may have run its course.
I don't know.
But yeah, they've done that.
And I know they've had some, you know, it's an hour from Nashville.
So I know they've had some drop-ins before, which honestly, surprisingly not as many as
you might think or I would think being so close.
Right.
I know AC has gone after that.
AC Entertainment, one of the co-founders.
I know they now have an office in Nashville.
The Country Fest is that same week.
CMA Fest.
CMA Fest is that same week.
Well, see, the difference between CMA Fest and Bonnarooo is that the CMA Fest are paying
them to be there.
You know, and not often.
I mean, think about this.
I mean, if I'm an hour and a half away from you, Barry, are you just going to pop in and
help me out?
For free?
Yeah.
Probably not.
Probably not.
Maybe once.
You better feed me.
Right.
But yeah, they are.
I can barely get to come over to help me fix my plumbing, much less come down an hour
and a half, play a show.
So there are those conflicts, which in a way, it's kind of unbelievable that Middle Tennessee
is the center of the music universe for that weekend.
For that weekend.
It's unbelievable.
And because it's the center of the universe, it attracts so many eyes, ears, one of which
is Relix Magazine.
Would you say a Relix or a Relix?
I say Relix.
Well, you know what?
I'm going to go Relix then, damn it.
Fine.
You go Relix, I go Relix.
To see where the cards fall.
Tomato.
When we started compiling a list of people that we wanted to talk to, you know, we had
our list, but then more people started coming out of the woodworks who started listening
to the podcast.
And one of the guys was the editor of Relix Magazine.
And he reached out to us early on and said, hey, like the podcast, love to talk to you
about it.
And I didn't know the history of their connection to Bonnarooo.
I barely knew that they produced the Bonnarooo Beacon, the magazine, Relix Magazine, they
do the Bonnarooo Beacon, but I didn't know that they'd been there since the beginning.
Somebody asked did they do the very first one and I didn't know that answer.
I knew because he had told me in his email that he'd been there since the second one
or that they had done it since.
He had been there since the second one.
So I guess maybe I assumed that that's when the Beacon started.
But yeah, that was really cool.
He reached out about week three or four of us doing this and whatever he could do kind
of thing.
And so obviously we said we'd love to have you on.
Yeah, because that's a perspective that we don't really have.
We've got some industry people and we've got some Bonnarooo vet people that we've talked
to, but I don't know anybody that is sort of almost treats us like breaking news, like
a news piece.
Well, I think you mentioned it a couple of times in our discussion with him that he offers
an unbiased he's official but not official kind of like us.
I mean, he has an insider's view that we don't have to how the festival work and how other
festivals work.
That was sort of interesting.
Well, let's talk to a Mike Greenhouse from Relix magazine.
You going relics or relics?
Opposite of whatever you're going.
I'm going relics.
We talked to Mike Greenhouse and Relix magazine next.
Drop kick me Jesus through the gold holes of life.
End over in neither left nor to right.
Straight through the heart of them rises up right.
Drop kick me Jesus through the gold holes of life.
Make me oh make me Lord more than I am.
Make me a piece in your master game plan.
Free from the earthly tempest and below.
I've got the will Lord if you got the toes.
Drop kick me Jesus through the gold holes of life.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Thanks again for chatting with me.
I'm deep in Bonnarooo in my mind right now too.
We're working on the program as we speak.
What does that entail?
What does that mean?
Let's tell everybody who you are and what you do because you've got a pretty cool story
I think as far as Bonnarooo goes.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Well, my name is Mike Greenhouse.
I'm the editor in chief of Relics Magazine along with Dean Budnick who is the other editor
in chief.
Bonnarooo has had a really long rich history with Relics.
We've been there since the first year in various capacities.
I would say our most marquee offering is we produced the Bonnarooo Beacon which is the
daily on-site newspaper for the festival.
We've done it every year since the festival's inception.
For about the last 10 years we've actually also produced the official patrons program
which was given out when people drove into the festival up until last year and now it
is distributed digitally.
Yeah, we've had a really long history of the fest as well as being fans and friends and
promoters and kind of the whole world.
Wait a second.
Now hang on a second.
When you say the program, do you mean the book that we all get?
The book?
Yes, exactly.
Wait a second.
The book's leaving?
I love the book.
The book that started last year unfortunately it's now distributed digitally.
Oh no.
Yeah.
2018 I guess everything is moving online unfortunately.
Or fortunately, we are on the podcast right now.
The book was sort of like the thing that I brought back.
That was my token from each possible year.
I still have my very first book from 15 years ago.
Me too.
I know how you feel, when I was younger I used to go to Disney World with my family a
lot and I would bring back the map.
It kind of felt like a nice little reminder of all the things I've done.
I was sad that we moved digitally last year but it's all the same content.
We're still actually printing it as we've done producing it as we've done in the past
on PDF and now people just be able to print it when they get home or before they leave.
There was something, sorry to interrupt, but one of the things that I noticed and correct
me if I'm wrong, but about 12 years ago the program used to have artist bios in it and
then somehow along the way those started going away too, did they not?
Yes.
The bios were a mainstay in the program for many years and I think when the internet just
became such a go-to resource for the Bonnarooian community they moved all the bios onto the
website and we still produce original content for the program and have interviews with a
bunch of different bands as well as reflections and some other fun and games which we're kind
of plotting out right now.
But unfortunately people will have to now look on their phones or on their computers
or as I said use that old printer.
What I was going to say, you mentioned the map.
I can always tell how active Bonnaroo it was for me by how many times that map had
been folded and pulled out of my pocket.
Well I guess this is the official goodbye to the magazine or to the program and I think
that there's only one way to say goodbye to something so important to us and that is of
course saying goodbye via voice to men.
It's so hard to say goodbye.
So should we use this moment just in quietness and silence to hug and say goodbye to the
Bonnaroo program.
It was as if we never knew you Bonnaroo program.
Thank you so much for giving us such an amazing run for so long.
Mike, that brings up an interesting point.
The internet has been a helpful and kind of hurtful in some ways for guys like you and
me in our business.
It's made it easier to find information but it's made it harder in some ways for us to
be more creative and find something unique.
Is that the way you look at it?
Yeah, definitely.
Absolutely.
You know, Relics for those listeners who don't know is still a print magazine.
We come out eight times a year and are distributed nationally.
We do have two websites, relics.com and jambands.com and both those websites have been right.
We've been around for about 20 years.
We've always tried to have a robust web presence but it's a different time.
I think that the pendulum has definitely shifted a little bit and these days people are getting
their daily news and their daily updates and their festival announcements and sit in reports
and all that good jazz online.
In a lot of ways the magazine is kind of like that classic vinyl record, something that
you have as a keepsake, maybe some more in-depth coverage, some historical coverage, obviously
a great place for large-scale photos and investigative journalism of some sort in the music world.
We love the magazine and it's still our marquee offering but it's a different world and especially
since the whole festival scene has started.
I do think that that's something that makes a festival like Bonnarooo or any kind of camping
festival so unique and so amazing.
It's because you are in a field where even though cell reception is a lot better than
it was back in the day, you are a little bit remote and it is a chance to kind of unplug
and at least wait to post all your photos, a little bit.
It is fun to run around Instagram on site.
People who haven't been, let me set the scene again with the Bonnarooo Beacon because Bonnarooo
becomes literally a city of between 60 and 80 or 90,000 people for four days.
It has its own post office.
You can actually send a postcard with a Bonnarooo city line there.
Which is odd because considering we were just talking about technology, you could just text.
You could just text but it's still cool.
But the Beacon is a broadsheet newspaper that comes out each day so not only, the only thing
missing is they don't deliver a quarter of milk at your front door.
One day, one day.
But it's really cool.
I've always loved, I remember the first time seeing the Beacon, I thought this is really
cool.
It's one of those things that makes Bonnarooo really special.
It's one of those really unique things that I don't know if any other festival does.
You know, we do do it, Relics produces the daily newspaper and a few other events.
Bonnarooo has been the longest standing.
We've been doing that, as I said, since the first year.
We do it at all officials festivals.
So we'll be doing it this summer at Curveball.
We've done it over the years at some events that the Dave Matthews band has done and we
do it every summer at a Lock-In Festival which is a festival in Virginia that's actually
our publisher, Pete Shapiro founded and programs.
So we do do it at a couple other events but Bonnarooo is unique in both that this is now
the 17th year that we've been doing it and also just because of how all encompassing
and diverse the lineup is.
You know, Lock-In has a very purposefully curated focus on kind of jam bands and collaborations
and obviously Fish and Dave Matthews events are very single band focused but you know
one of the great things about Bonnarooo is that it does have such an eclectic lineup
and there are so many different stages spread out over, as you just said with the map, such
a large footprint.
So I think that there's real value for the newspaper in the sense that people aren't
able to run and see all the music that they would like to because there are so many stages
and you have to kind of have it there.
You know, Lock-In has one stage with a rotating kind of stage on top of that so that there's
no downtime in music and Fish's events.
Again, it's one single stage where people could kind of camp out in front of that.
So you know, doing a newspaper at Bonnarooo kind of allows us to be the eyes and ears
for you know the places that everyone could get to and we do print locally in Manchester.
So our team stays up till four or five sometimes even six in the morning to get that last late
night set in there and get some photos and a recap of the super jams and kind of the
other late night offerings and then our marketing team picks it up right early and hopefully
it's there by the time people know roll out of bed at the crack of 11 a.m.
Well, boy, if you can sleep till 11 a.m. in Bonnarooo, good luck.
So how many people do you have actually operating that specific newspaper on a weekend?
You know, the editorial team is, you know, Dean Budnick who started the newspaper and
is, as I said, the other editor at Relics, you know, is still our editor in chief and
has been doing it for all 17 years.
I've actually been to 16 of the 17 Bonnarooo's but I didn't start working on the newspaper
till the third year.
So I've been doing it every year since then.
We usually have one or two other editorial members and a few photographers and that's
pretty much it.
You know, we try to solicit some advanced content like some previews so we have some
freelance writers do that and of course our advertising team, you know, helps make the
paper possible.
We have a team of three or four people and then we have one or two people from our marketing
team distribute it.
So it's a really small tight group of people and then, you know, once the papers come on
site, you know, Bonnarooo's volunteers and support staff are great about getting around
to the federal fairgrounds and everything.
That is shocking to me how lean that is.
That's shocking how lean that operation is.
Yeah, Relix also has an onsite presence.
We have the Relix booth where you can get the Bonnarooo Beacon as well as subscribers
of the magazine and we do have a little bit more robust team down there selling the magazines.
We know sometimes we have between 12 and 16 people there but, you know, between getting
the booth together, selling magazines, hosting some like meet and greets and dealing with
friends and sponsors and whatnot, you know, the actual teamwork in the newspaper is pretty
lean to me.
Is that the event that everybody on staff volunteers for around the year?
Yeah, I think that is definitely one of the most asked to attend events of all the festivals
we do as well as, you know, lock in the fish festival.
So pretty much the three papers where we do, sorry, the three festivals where we do our
newspapers are always in high demand.
You'd be a good one to ask and I'm not trying to stir anything back up because the ship
has sailed and personally I've understood it but from your guys point of view, how have
you seen the Bonnarooo shift, the line of shift?
Because, you know, it started as a jam band festival and so many people thought it should
always be that.
So particularly because of your magazine audience and your online audience, what has that sort
of shift been like for you guys?
Well, I think, as you said, there's definitely been a shift over the last 17 years and I
think in a lot of ways by the festival shifting, it's allowed it to continue on and thrive.
People's music interests change and the demographic of people who want to go and camp for multiple
days and have this immersive experience, you know, their interests change as that demographic
gets older and spreads out.
But, you know, I feel that a lot of the core ethos of the festival has remained and I've
always felt, especially in some of the middle years when you have a band like Radiohead
or Metallica or some of the classic rock and hip hop legends who have come through, it
was almost from my perspective, like how would these people do a show when they're placed
in front of a really live music loving crowd in kind of a classic jam band setting with
their show change, with the audience interaction change, with their set list change.
It's been a really interesting experience watching how that give and take goes.
I think one of the reasons that that first Radiohead show in 2006 was considered by them
and many others to be one of the greatest American Radiohead shows ever is because they
were playing for that passionate audience of people who were weaned on jam bands and
grew up in that world.
From people throwing glow sticks to them being allowed to play a little bit longer and look
a little bit deeper into their set list, I think that's one of the things that made it
such a special experience.
I think that there's still a lot of that improvisational spirit in the festival's DNA, whether it's
the super jam or some of the kind of more activity oriented events going on throughout
the festival.
At the end of the day, the fact that people are camped in a field in Tennessee that was
originally a farm, it kind of brings it back to that original jam band experience.
I love that note of yours that you're taking just artists and putting them in a jam band
festival experience and seeing how their show goes.
I never thought about it like that, but then now that I'm thinking about it, it's pretty
surprising how well certain artists do in that space.
Even this year, Dua Lipa going from a tent to a main stage, they must have really liked
that show to bring her back.
Kenny Rogers and Lionel Richie, how do these certain types of artists fit that kind of
mold is very surprising.
Yeah, and I think Lionel Richie and Kenny are great examples of that because not only
did they do their own performances which were really awesome and iconic.
I'm sure for a lot of music fans, especially a lot of younger music fans, the first time
a lot of people saw them perform live in person, both of those people really embraced the spirit.
Lionel Richie made a surprise appearance at the festival when he was in Nashville for
an awards ceremony I think the year or two before he did his own set and Kenny sat in
with Fish during their festival closing set.
They both really embraced that kind of spontaneous spirit.
I think that as the festival has evolved and become more eclectic and more wider in its
interest, I think there's been a shift in music listening habits in general.
This is the streaming era where people are able to listen to a lot of different types
of music and access that really easily.
It's a lot easier to be a fan of hip hop and jam band music and punk rock and classic rock
and electronic music than it was at the first bottom where the festival felt very squarely
a jam band and Americana festival, just much like Coachella at that point felt very much
like an Indian punk festival.
If you look at it now, both those festivals have kind of grown to absorb such a wide swath
of music.
At the same time, the jam band scene has always been a genre that has a really broad base.
There's electronic oriented jam bands, there's funk oriented jam bands, there's country oriented
jam bands, there's indie rock oriented jam bands.
I think that it was a lot more palatable for people to be able to embrace the fact that
there would be a hip hop band playing after, a rock band playing after, a folk band than
maybe in another setting, especially as I said in the early years before, having kind
of eclectic festivals was more of the norm.
That's one of the things that we had Jim Burris with Columbia Records as our guest last week.
He pointed that out and I think Ashley Caps did during like the third week of doing this.
We had asked, 17 years ago the music scene was way different.
You didn't have nearly the streaming, you didn't have the options to locate music, but
you also had an audience that I don't think was looking for new music quite as much as
they do now and I don't think they were looking for live music quite as much then as they
do now.
Does it feel like to you that Bonnaroo had something to do with that because it sure
does to me?
Yeah absolutely.
I think that in certain ways it's the chicken and the egg thing.
Going back to the very first Bonnaroo and I was there and I remember a couple of my friends
who at that point were not into the jam band scene and the Americana scene.
I came back and I had the t-shirt but it had all the bands who played that year less in
the back and they were looking at it and they were like, you don't have to be a jam band
fan, you could have gone to Bonnaroo.
This is after the first one and they appointed the people like Nora Jones and Jim White and
Blind Boys of Alabama and bands who were kind of outside, at least at that point it was
considered a traditional jam band line up and the next year they really started opening
the floodgates.
You had everyone from Sonic Youth to Young Perform as well as a little bit deeper focus
on some of the jazz and funk stuff that has always been kind of part of the jam band experience
but definitely wasn't kind of a core late 90s, early 2000s jam band scene mainstay.
But at the same time I think that when a band, especially early on when a band played Bonnaroo,
they definitely almost like a seal of approval for kind of the jam band world.
And I think Tool was a great example of that after they played and did such a great psychedelic
performance.
I know a lot of people who came back and started listening to Tool albums and now I feel like
they're really part of that ecosystem.
At the same time I think that knowing the people who have programmed Bonnaroo from the
beginning as well as some people who have programmed it more recently, I think that
there was also something in the air of music becoming more open minded in terms of how
these different scenes fit together.
And the jam band scene in general was expanding at that point.
There were the first wave of what we call the live tronic of bands, the jam bands who
had incorporated a lot of live music.
There were some hip hop bands like Jurassic Five and Blockalicious who had kind of come
on the scene.
And you also had even your core jam bands like Fish and Widespread Panic incorporating
some covers and some styles that weren't maybe part of the Grateful Dads language whether
it was covering Talking Heads or Velvet Underground or inviting some people like Vic Chestnut
who weren't part of the jam band world into their shows and onto their stage.
When you, you're being a, you're the first person that we can probably ask this who's
completely not partial to one side or the other, but can you see a big difference in
what Bonnaroo was pre-live nation to post-live nation?
You know I think that I could see a little change in the booking just knowing that there
are certain bands that C3 who books the festival now has relationships with and books at their
festivals versus some of the bands that maybe some of the other promoters had booked.
But I do have to say from my perspective and also from talking to people who still run
the festival, a lot of the people who have always been part of the booking conversation
like Ashley and members of his team as well as some people from the Super 5 family and
their staff are still involved in the booking of the festival and making sure that the vibe
is continuous.
And I think that there's also been an evolution since Live Nation originally purchased it.
If I'm correct, I think this is the second year where the booking team has been a little
bit different, I think three years ago when Live Nation owned the festival they had the
Dead End Company and LCD Sound System and Pearl Jam, three bands with very long histories
at the festival as their three headliners.
So I don't think it was as clear a break as maybe people like to make it out to be.
But I think that there's been changes in the booking throughout the festival, but that's
I think really important if you want to keep the festival feeling fresh and also feeling
of the moment.
A lot of the bands who were at the first Bonnarooo who I was really excited to see and who I'm
still really excited to see when they come to come through New York either don't play
anymore or they play sporadically or have kind of changed their touring approach and
kind of are part of the festival conversation right now.
Okay, so the reason I ask that is because this year is the first year and I don't mean
this negatively or positively, it just is, but it's the first year where I can absolutely
see a specific or I think a specific Live Nation decision.
It's not bathrooms, it's not pushing the walls in closer because the attendance was bad.
The set times, the set times are different.
The set times are shorter.
The set times are down to an hour for some of the headliners.
I don't recall that ever happening before.
I don't recall that being in the Bonnarooo spirit and I'm wondering if it is a decision based
on business, if it's a Live Nation call or if it's something that you alluded to earlier.
The audience is, the way that they absorb this thing is different these days.
Their attention spans are different.
They don't need an hour and a half show, two hour show anymore.
To be honest with you, I'm not 100% sure whose decision it was to change that and how they
went about deciding the set lengths for the headliners down throughout the festival and
I'm not sure who would be the best person to speak to about that.
It just feels like a Live Nation move.
It feels like the first time and it may not even be a Live Nation move, but it's the first
time I feel like something changed.
Yeah, we just heard today, they added 15 minutes to Eminem, which means they took that from
Anderson Pack.
Is that the theory?
It is different.
Going back to what you said earlier, Mike, it was always sort of as a fan, you kind of
went expecting some of those legend acts or classic rock acts or whatever to open the
engine up so to speak because they had time.
So I don't know, we mentioned it a little bit last week about this change and I don't
think we know either.
It just has struck me ever since somebody pointed it out.
It must have been Reddit.
It was somebody that listened to the podcast.
I can't get it out of my head.
I don't know why it's consuming me so much, but it is just so strange and I don't know
if I'm angry about it.
I don't know if I'm happy about it.
It's caught me by surprise and I don't really know what to make of it.
Mike, I don't know how many of these podcasts you've listened to, but this is typical of
Brad.
He has to find something to obsess over that's a change that he's convinced is a Russian
conspiracy.
How many of us have we spent talking about those walls two years ago?
Yeah, and then he gets over it immediately.
I don't even remember.
Yeah.
This is before Baru was part of that nation, but I remember a couple years ago, one of
the most impactful changes was when they moved to one night having the two headliners.
It was Stevie Wonder and Jay-Z almost like co-headliners.
That was an interesting change because early on, there was almost this energy break between
when the main 10 stages wind down and the big headlining shows took place.
Once they almost had this dual headliner thing, it was almost like you had people... I won't
say that anyone stayed in the campground to miss Stevie Wonder, but people just spread
their attention throughout the festival a little bit more because those 10 stages weren't
done yet.
Then some people were running up to the stage to get close to Stevie Wonder really quickly.
That's a great point.
I didn't really think about it in that light, but the parade went away.
What you're talking about is that early evening, right before the headliner, people used to
go back to camp and shower maybe and catch their breath and get a beer or a nap or whatever
and then the big push for the all-nighter.
That went away with the earlier headliner, didn't it?
Yeah.
I think this year, actually, I'm just looking at the schedule now, it looks like some of
the headliners are even later than usual.
I remember, I think last year, it might have been a little bit later too, which is kind
of cool.
I think it's something that they do a lot of European festivals.
The headliner will go on at about 11 o'clock instead of 9 o'clock, which one, because the
heat and everything, and two, where else you have to be, right?
Yeah, exactly.
See so much music.
One of the great things about whoever gets the headline boner, whether it's a band like
The Killers or Headline the first time or Wadsworth Panic at the first one, is that
it's the only time during the entire festival that people from all different backgrounds
who came to the festival for all different music kind of come together and have one shared
experience.
It is a really cool energy.
I was thinking about, especially when you talk about some of these rock and roll legends
with devoted fan base, whether it's a Billy Joel or Bruce Springsteen, they're playing
for, probably for the first time in a long time, for a fan base who maybe is familiar
with their music and some of the hardcore fans who go to their show, and it's really
interesting to see how they respond to that, both musically, as I said, and as well as
with their set list and just with the kind of the whole energy of the experience.
As a professional editor of a well-received publication, how do you absorb this festival
15 years, 16 years in?
How do you do it?
Do you set a playlist?
Do you set a graph for yourself?
Do you find the artist that you want to find?
Or do you just throw it up against the wall and see what sticks?
What is your plan?
How do you go about moving around the farm?
A lot of it has to do with what we're playing to cover and who I wanted to also check out
for the magazine.
But still to this day, whenever they announce the lineup, and especially when they drop
the set times, I check it out and see who's playing which days.
And if there's bands I haven't heard of, and as I've gotten a little bit older, maybe
a little bit out of touch with some of the new electronic music and kind of new rising
rock bands, sometimes I'll check some of them out in advance to get a sense of what they
sound like, if they want to see their show or talk to friends both in the industry as
well as out of the industry, and get their recommendations.
And once I get on site, I like to bounce around and check out as much music as possible.
And over the years, there's been so many times where I've seen a band for the first time
at Bonnarooo, and on the flip side, if there's a band that we're covering for the magazine
who are doing their Bonnarooo show, it's really cool to kind of see them during that moment
as their career is rising.
If you see a band at a smaller club in New York City and you see their big Bonnarooo show
playing in front of 10,000 people, and then when they move back to New York, it's almost
like you had a shared experience with them down in Manchester.
How fluid is that decision?
Do you guys go into the weekend knowing who your cover is going to be, or do you come
out of it saying A, B, or C killed it?
The cover for the magazine?
Whoever's on the cover of the magazine doesn't necessarily correlate to who's playing Bonnarooo.
Our June issue is always our festival issue, and we try to either put somebody who is playing
a lot of festivals on the cover or a younger band who we kind of feel like captures the
spirit of the festival experience that summer.
For instance, Jack White is on our June cover this year.
He's not at Bonnarooo, but he's at a lot of other great festivals this summer like Governor's
Ball here in New York.
In the years past, we've had Benoit and Jack on the cover when they played Bonnarooo.
We've had Dawes on the cover when they played Bonnarooo.
We've had Real Estate on the cover when they played Bonnarooo, and we've had a bunch of
other bands who I feel like kind of capture that entire festival vibe, that mixture of
a high-energy live show and a passionate fan base on the cover, even if they weren't playing
Bonnarooo that specific year.
I'll go to the same question for the magazine, or for the Bonnarooo Beacon.
I was going to ask the same thing.
Yeah, just take the same theory.
Is that how you work it for the Beacon, or can you be swayed in one direction or the
other based on the events of the night?
We always try to have at least one shot of the headliner on the cover.
In the past, there's definitely been times where maybe a performer seemed like something
of the underdog going in, and we're like, wow, these guys are great, or they clearly
were the breakout band of the day, and we put them on the cover of the Beacon the next
morning.
I think two great examples of that are Boyd Mumford and Sons and Phoenix both played the
witch stage and kind of drew those capacity crowds that almost felt like headline performances,
even though it was the second stage.
It was the biggest crowd I've ever seen at that stage.
I've never seen a bigger crowd at that witch stage that day.
Yeah, I think that when they had Phoenix the year before, I'd never seen a bigger crowd,
and then the next year when they had Mumford and Sons, they managed to top that.
And didn't you, am I wrong or misremembering that Courtney Burnett, you guys did that Thursday
show, wasn't that one of those where sort of the buzz around her caused you to reach
out or had you already planned that or am I completely misremembering?
Yeah, well, I think the Thursday night at Bonnarooo has always been a great night of
surprises.
And again, for people who haven't been to the festival, the two main stages are dark
that night, so people are able to kind of run around and check out some of the smaller
bands in the tents instead of finding their spot in these big fields.
And every year I feel like there's been a breakout band dating back to the early years
when I think I saw Ray LaMontana for the first time there.
And I saw Steel Train, which featured Jack Antonoff who became a member of FUN and leader
of Bleachers and a great producer maybe for the second time on that Thursday.
And in recent years I feel like there's always been one act who maybe we've gone in with
our antennas up and then come out being super fan of and Courtney was definitely one of
them going back a few years before that.
I think all Jay did a Thursday night spot that really swept the depression.
The Thursday lineup, if you just compiled what they've done on Thursday into one lineup,
oh my God.
I mean, it is just such a wonderful, what are the things they grow little hatchery,
they grow the eggs in?
The incubator.
It is an amazing incubator for the industry, whether it's the Shakes, St. Paul and the Broken
Bones, Courtney Barnett, Moon Taxi, Alt J. I mean Thursday is so phenomenal for that reason.
It's my favorite day of the entire festival.
Definitely.
And I think the ultimate example of that was in 2008 on Thursday when you had MGMT and
Vampire Weekend and I think battles all in a row in one of those tents.
And that was the first time too where members of both Vampire Weekend and MGMT were at the
first Bonnarooo and they came back at that point, I guess six years later as these kind
of buzz bands and it almost was like cemented Thursday of the night where you better get
there early because that's tomorrow's headliner.
And those bands, even playing in the same bill just feels crazy now.
And the fact that they were playing within an hour of each other is insane.
Well, who's your Thursday pick then?
Who do you think it's going to be?
I need to look at the schedule here.
I'm putting my money on pigeons playing ping pong.
I love pigeons playing ping pong.
We actually have a big feature of them in the magazine.
Spaffords in the jam band scene too.
Those bands kind of feel like the next vanguard of kind of the classic jam band festival bands.
But yeah, I think that pigeon set from 1 to 2.30, that's a great time to make some fans.
Don't sleep on floor either.
It's a little poppy, but floor is very nice.
I thought you were going to say a little punny.
I think this is great.
I think unintentionally maybe we summed Bonnarooo up by the whole Thursday thing.
Everybody's in a great mood.
The attitude is great.
You're still fresh.
For the most part, there's bands there that you maybe haven't heard of.
So you're experimenting and you walk away with a favorite new band kind of thing.
And that to me is...
It started my love affair with Alabama Shakes.
Because I saw them at Bonnarooo, I saw them 15 more times in one year.
I got obsessed because of that show at Bonnarooo.
That Thursday night show they did is one of the most iconic Bonnarooo sets in my mind of
all time.
Just the way that they kind of came in there and had this energy that felt very Bonnarooo
and a mix of all these styles that felt very Bonnarooo and just walked away with so many
new fans.
I've been lucky enough to see Brittany and the band in New York maybe a year beforehand
or almost a year beforehand.
And just to come and see them play for so many people was...
It was amazing.
It's the last time I remember hearing a band on say like a social media site or a Spotify,
not knowing anything about them and then being introduced to them in that space.
And that's the first time I'm being introduced to them live.
Oh my God, how unassuming she was, how it looked like they came off the street and it
just blew everybody away.
And I'm glad that you think of it as highly as I do because I can go right back to that
feeling that I had the moment that I set eyes on her for the first time.
I didn't know what I was expecting, but I sure as hell wasn't expecting that.
Yeah, it's just an amazing show.
And you fell from that moment there that they're now a Bonnarooo band and they will be with
the festival for a long time and they have and they've returned as higher on the bill.
They've been part of Super Jams and other special events and I've seen members of the
band come just wandering around the festival.
I'd say they haven't even played.
We mentioned it before that you can feel it, right?
There is a different feeling with a song.
We'll hear one on the radio and think I can imagine that at one in the afternoon off the
that tent or I can picture this at one in the morning.
It just has a different feel to it, at least for me.
Yeah.
And that's why we love it so much.
That's why we love Bonnarooo so much.
So if you were to rattle off the bands that you are absolutely on your must list, who
are you going to see?
Let me pull up this schedule here.
Let's get Mike's picks.
We're going to do Barry and Brad's picks here in a couple weeks.
Let's get Mike's picks.
You're a professional at this.
You're much more qualified than we are.
I feel like this year there's a couple different groups of bands that I'm really excited for.
There's what I would call the Bonnarooo Hometown Heroes coming back as now kind of these big
marquee bands and I would say Revivalist and Moon Taxi definitely top that list of bands
who have been at the festival for a while and kind of capture that ethos.
You know, Fluminesso, I'm a huge fan of.
I think they're great and capture such a great element of the festival and just second-to-last
music in general.
For some of the more indie rock side, again the broken social scene is always someone
who I love seeing and really seem to be coming back to the ranks.
St. Paul and the Broken Bones, again, they're a classic Bonnarooo band of someone who went
from being a fan to volunteering at the festival to now being pretty high up there on the marquee.
I'm personally excited to see the Grand Ole Opry stage and see how that plays out.
That seems like a really cool, unique way to kind of have that jam band Bonnarooo spirit,
but yet something completely different.
And at the same time, you know, see a band like Old Crow who were at the first Bonnarooo
comeback.
It's great.
They were at the first Bonnarooo, I didn't know that.
Yeah, they were at the first one.
I believe they might be the only band in the lineup who played the first Bonnarooo and are
playing this year in the same form.
I think there's probably members of various bands who have had this year's lineup with
different projects.
I believe they might be the only one who was there year one and year this year.
And a little bit in the smaller font on the Seeing Eye chart.
I love Pond, which are part of the Tame Apollo family.
They're great.
Southern Avenue is a really great soul band from Memphis who actually just played New
York last week.
They're really awesome.
The Texas Gentleman kind of remind me of the band in that they both back other bands as
well as have their own material and I think are going to walk away with a really strong
following.
Bruno Major is really great.
I had an opportunity to see him last year.
Going through here, there's just like the legends like Mavis Staples and I'm going to
do a Miriam.
I'm excited for both of them.
And we touched on this a little bit before, but some of the Thursday bands, again, that's
a great time to check out a band like Friendship, who I've never seen or get a little bit deeper
into Pidgey just playing ping pong and Spafford and kind of see what they bring to this big
stage.
I don't want to give away my pick, but I'm going to say this as many times as I can.
Japanese Breakfast, Japanese Breakfast, Japanese Breakfast, Japanese Breakfast.
I love her so much.
I cannot wait to see that show and whatever it is, that spacey album of hers, I cannot
wait to see that live.
We ain't in New York.
We don't get them coming through very often.
Yeah, so I mean, you know, that's so much music to jump into.
And probably if we talk on the Monday after the festival, I've seen like another five
bands who we didn't even mention now.
I guess the way that I think about you is you're removed from the product, but if you
didn't really love the product, you wouldn't be doing it on a yearly basis, right?
Absolutely.
I mean, Bonnarooo is, it's like Thanksgiving, you know, it's every year, it's on that calendar.
You know, it's something that I look forward to throughout the year.
It's very busy, obviously, with the newspaper and the program leading into it and just having
such a big team down there, but it's always a really special experience.
There's a lot of friends and industry contacts that I pretty much only get to see in person
that weekend, so that's always really special.
You know, I have some friends from college who I always run into at the festival, and
it's really nice to be able to, you know, reconnect with them and see new music and
kind of see how our tastes have changed and expanded and in a lot of ways stayed the same.
And it's just a great weekend, and it's also been great to see how the festival's grown.
I think there's very few things in life where I could say I've done it pretty much every
single year for 17 years and, you know, kind of pinpoint what I was listening to, where
I was in my life, and then coming back to the same place with the same, you know, largely
the same infrastructure of the stages and the tents and the fountain and all that jazz
and kind of assess, you know, where things are for myself and for the music scene that
we love so much.
That is a great point.
I have committed more of my, I've committed more years to Bonnarooo than I have anything
else in my life.
Yeah.
I mean, anything else important to me, not even close to meet the amount of time that
I have dedicated to this festival.
That is insane now to think about it.
I'm going to guess Hillary would like to beg to differ.
She's number two.
I've been to more Bonnarooo's than I've been with the wife.
Okay.
Well, I can't do that with children, but yeah, I'm the same.
It's been fascinating for me to watch literally the music world change and that four days
is a big part of it.
I also wanted to say, Mike, because you and I are in the same sort of business, the newspaper
and the magazine, people don't understand.
It's a lot of work, isn't it?
I mean, we're up there, there's nowhere else I would rather be, but it's work from...
Guys, you don't, I mean, you see me work and I work very...
Notice I didn't mention his name.
I didn't bring him into this.
Very hard doing this radio thing, guys.
It's a lot of work and then a lot of fun, but even the work is fun.
Man, thank you so much.
Let's grab a show together when we get to Bonnarooo.
I'd love to be there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'll be there.
We'll look you up.
You're going to be in the media area most of the time, right?
Yeah, I'll be in the media area and running around and seeing music.
Where do you camp?
I actually stay at one of the hotels because we're getting a newspaper.
Well, come on back to Camp Nut Butter.
Over the years, I have camped many times.
I've done it all from a tent next to a car to an RV to a tour bus to the hotel.
I've done the whole thing.
We're back in guest camping, so come on back to Camp Nut Butter.
Absolutely.
Come back and get a Bloody Mary.
Yeah, right.
Sounds great.
That sounds awesome.
Thanks so much, Mike.
We appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
We're looking all around this world, young and running wild, waiting for the fire that
burns.
Now we live on the highway now.
I'm falling through the bauldo time, about to the end of the line, but every light that
flickers and shines will come together on the glory side.
Fall together, we fall together, we ride together, we ride together, we fall together, we fall
together, every little light will flicker and shine.
Well, it rained the river dry, and I rode the stars from the sky, I made a deal with
the devil's fly.
I forgot to live on the highway till I died, but time is not an arrow is the way, but every
light that flickers and shines will brighten up the darkest day.
Fall together, we fall together, we ride together, we ride together, we fall together, we fall
together, every little light will flicker and shine.
The What Podcast with Barry Courter and Brad Steiner.
That's Barry.
I'm Brad.
That was Mike from Relix Magazine.
And we've asked for his picks.
We've gotten our campsite picks.
Now we want your picks.
We want to hear what you are going to be seeing at Bonnarooo because in the coming weeks, as
we get closer, we only have like three weeks left, three more podcasts to go.
We're going to do Barry's picks here in a few weeks.
We'll do my picks.
But we want to get your picks, the bands that we must see that you are suggesting to us.
And we want you to send them in to us at the whatpodcast.com.
Yeah.
Are we more interested in the obvious ones or the surprise ones or just whatever they
want to, just whatever they think?
Well, here's the way that I'm going to give you mine.
I'm going to say, here's what I'm going to go to.
Here are the ones that you cannot miss.
If I'm suggesting something to my campsite, these are the ones that I want our camp as
a group to go to.
See, I don't really care if you go with me to insert, you know, Muse.
I don't care.
But there are some artists that I absolutely want my camp to engage with.
So that's sort of the way that I go about it.
You can do whatever you want.
I just want to hear some of your picks so we can compile them and have our very final
podcast right before Bonnarooo be the what podcast listener picks.
I'll do it the same way.
I'll do the ones.
These are the ones that I'm going to.
And then I'll do the music snob ones.
These are the ones that I if I turn you on to this person, it will have been a good weekend.
Oh, there you go.
That's exactly right.
So the whatpodcast.com send us your list of bands that will feature on the podcast.
We will pick and choose some of your suggestions, bands that we should see that can't not be
missed at Bonnarooo 2018, the whatpodcast.com or you can do the what underscore podcast
on Twitter.
I guess next week will be my picks.
Yours next week and then mine.
And then we'll hopefully get some input from from our listeners who we say it every week.
But thank you guys so much.
Yeah, thank you very much.
The emails and the notes and the watching the numbers climb has been really very cool.
I wonder if you could based on now doing this with 10 weeks, if Barry, you could figure
out my list.
I wonder if you could go ahead and pick what do you think I'm going to be choosing for
next week?
See, that's one of those tricks, because if if I say yes, you're going to throw curves
just just to be, you know.
Yeah, I can probably get close.
I can't wait to see Walden.
I can't I can't wait.
I know.
Yeah, I think you can do it.
After all this, I think you know exactly where I'm going.
What was it?
What's the term that Mike used?
Small font bands.
Yes, right.
Those guys.
I wanted to add.
We've talked about Bonnarooo being more than just the live music.
I had a chance to talk to David Conover.
It's been a while ago.
There are so many things from the green efforts that they do, the money that goes into Manchester.
A lot of you guys aren't you know, you don't live around here, so you don't follow it as
closely as maybe we do.
But Bonnarooo pumps a ton of money into Manchester, a ton of money into the state.
They have all kinds of initiatives.
If you're coming for the first time, spend some time in Centeroo to see what all is there.
One of those is Grundy County Food Bank.
David Conover and his family, they started a program or they actually picked up a program.
They go around at the end of each day and get the extra food.
No kidding.
From the vendors.
Really?
And then they give that to the poor in Grundy County, which is literally, I think, the poorest
county in the country.
Yeah, which yeah, they're everywhere.
And boy, if you came at me, if I was, bring me some Cray Musties.
Yes.
He's my kind of guy.
Yeah.
That's a really amazing thing for him to do.
What is it?
He's a saint.
Yeah, there's a ton of that.
And you talk to him.
Yeah, I talk to him because, you know, they're relatively close and he actually his wife
and I went to high school together, of all things.
Oh my goodness.
Totally unrelated.
You guys dated?
No, no, she's a little older.
Well, that's your type.
But it's really cool.
And he gives us a brief little, you know, description of what it is they do.
But it's really, really cool that this food, instead of being thrown away, which it would
goes to feed needy people.
I never knew that.
For a long time.
I never knew that.
Let's listen to that.
So my name is David Conover.
I live in Chattanooga, but about six or seven years ago, 2011, 2012, my parents, my mom
and my stepdad live in Montego, Tennessee, and they were directors of the Grundy County
Food Bank.
And they started a program, a lady from that was in touch with Bonnarooo, reached out to
them to start a program where they took all the unused food, donated food, drinks, vegetables,
meat, products, anything that could be not perishable, they could use to donate to the
food bank.
So in 2011, they started out working directly with the caterer, Wildhair Catering.
Jim Woods is the director of that.
And he donated approximately 6,000 pounds of food to the program.
And since that time, we've kind of reached out to vendors, caterers, the food services.
And each year we've grown from 6,000 to this year, almost 50,000 pounds.
All the food goes to programs for the, Grundy County is one of the poorest counties in the
nation.
I mean, yeah, in the nation, in Tennessee, especially.
The food goes to the programs in Grundy County for the jail, the senior homes, the mental
institute there.
And so anyway, and then they have families that come and get packs of food, I guess maybe
on a weekly or monthly basis.
They make little care packages for just tons of families that in need and they'll come
and pick them up.
So we drive, we promote it on Monday to all the vendors with a big meeting.
We promote it during the week, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, pass out brochures and get
the word out.
They have all our contact information.
And on Monday, when they're closing down, we make our round trips and we have phone
ready and email and everything and text and just spend all day picking up food and take
it to the food bank.
And this was food that would otherwise just be thrown away, right?
Right, exactly.
So yes, you know, a lot of stuff they maybe could take to another show, but a lot of it,
they just have to dunk.
We will see you next week on the what podcast with my picks.
Also on The What Podcast
Previous episode
Bonnaroo Vets
Next episode
Brad's Picks
