The Odds and Ends of 2021 Music Festivals

We are entering the home stretch of this extended waiting period.

We're the most condensed festival calendar of all time.

Things of the What Podcast stopped by today, including a special chat from MiniRoo.

And our winner for Bonnarooo Tickets.

Wrapping up some odds and ends this week, before we enter the home stretch, Barry Courter, Brad

Steiner, the What Podcast begins right now.

Welcome to the What Podcast.

Which bands this year?

That matter.

That's Barry Courter, Brad Steiner, Lord Taco.

You know, taking an undisclosed vacation today in his Volkswagen bus, we will keep him in

our thoughts and prayers.

So today, quick show today, Barry Courter, because we really hit the home stretch starting

next week with a ton of artists lined up as we get into what feels like a festival season

that is literally steps away, steps away and going to come fast and furious.

You'll probably be hitting more of them than I will.

But it's gonna be a busy, busy late summer and fall.

Well, you make the call for me.

So I obviously I've got to do Lollapalooza for for the job.

And I've got to do Bonnarooo because it's my favorite week of the year.

But you make the call for me.

The Jazz Fest lineup came out this week.

You you're going to go Jazz Fest or ACL Fest?

Well, you're going to go Jazz Fest.

But there are two weekends.

Remember, there's two weekends of both.

So if I if I do one weekend at ACL and then the next weekend at Jazz Fest, do you think

I can make that work?

Yeah, you can.

Since Jazz Fest, you're just going to walk out the door.

Yeah, it's two blocks from my house.

It's not hard, but it does make you like so.

The thing that people always tell me about Jazz Fest, there's a couple of things.

One, everybody's got their own way of doing Jazz Fest here.

Everything about this city's traditions, everything, the things that succeed are the things that

have been here forever.

The things that people love are the things that they've done forever.

So people have their specific Jazz Fest.

They have their specific Jazz Fest Saturday ritual.

They have their Thursday ritual.

They have the certain entrance they like to walk in at a certain time of the day.

Everybody tells me, even though that it is a non-capped event and they just don't stop

selling tickets.

So you could have one hundred and fifty thousand people.

You could have ten thousand people.

They all say during the day is when to go, you know, seeing local legends like Nicholas

Payton and, you know, the the Hot 8 Brass Band or the Treme Brass Band.

They're all during the day and at night is when it gets really, really crazy.

You saw the lineup come out, Foo Fighters, our friend, Brittany Howard is closing out

the festival on a second Sunday.

Lizzo is on there.

Stevie Nicks, who just never seems to play the South.

And now she is Barry Courter.

She's in Atlanta, too, right?

Yeah, she's at the music midtown.

No, shaking you.

I'm sorry.

Shaking you.

So yeah, it is it is going to be an interesting needle to thread because there's so much going

on.

If you go hard, just like a boner, if you go hard at Jazz Fest, you're going to wear

yourself out.

It's a 14 day festival and it's in it every single day.

Exactly.

You'll figure it out.

And if I know you, you'll probably be at a restaurant around the corner from where

Brittany Howard's playing.

So happened to run into her every time I turned around.

Didn't go to the show, but you were at a restaurant nearby.

Well, here's here's the OK.

You know how I am.

The problem that I have with Jazz Fest is that they just don't seem to have a backstage

area.

There's no V.I. for there is no VIP for the for bad guys.

So it's it's going to be a weird one.

I'm going to have to go like a regular person.

Ick.

Back to your question.

You'll probably be at ACL.

Yeah, if I could.

If I could, it really only matters, the backstage accommodations.

No, I seriously it doesn't bother me that in a city festival, that kind of stuff matters

so less than it usually does it at Bonnarooo.

Bonnarooo really matters.

It really, really matters to me because I'm asked.

You're asking me to do so much.

I just can't do it.

You know, it's interesting.

The abilities are our Moon River Festival, which I love, is the week after Bonnarooo.

I've done the VIP thing and it's really not like you just said, it's not that different.

There's a few perks, you know, but the experience is the same for everybody.

It's you know, you can get a great seat no matter where you are.

Yeah.

The backstage basically means just a different bathroom, maybe.

Yeah.

Or a free bottle of water instead of a paid bottle of water.

No, I mean, I do.

I've said this to people here in town.

I actually appreciate the fact that Jazz Fest doesn't do any of that.

They just don't have any interest in creating a different world for different people.

That's sort of the beauty of New Orleans is that everybody is, we're all the same.

We're all on the same level here.

Nobody's more important than anybody else.

I love that about Jazz Fest.

Normally in a festival like Lollapalooza, Lollapalooza though, you know, the only benefit

to the world in which we travel in is that, and for those who their eyes are stuck in

the back of their head, they're rolling them so hard.

The only benefit this thing has is that Lollapalooza is just so massive and it's impossible to

get around.

And if we're doing actual work, which happens on occasion, we got to get somewhere pretty

quickly and there's this amazing golf cart system through the backstage of Lollapalooza

that gets you from point A to point B really, really quickly.

Other than that, I'm just hanging out with friends too.

You know, I'm just, they just happen to be work people, you know, and they just happen

to be, you know, carving out some free cocktails.

Other than that, there's real, there's real no difference in all that, especially in these

boutique festivals, which is where I want to start today, Barry, with the endless amount

of festivals that are announcing that I've never heard of.

I mean, aside from voodoo canceling and then Jazz Fest going, there is, there are festivals

called the Made in America Festival, Day in Vegas, Rock La Homa.

I've never heard of any of these festivals and they are popping up, it feels like every

day.

Maybe it's me, even though we've heard time and time again that the festival world feels

like it's on shaky ground and who knows if it can continue in a post COVID world.

It feels like there's another one every week announcing, dude.

Oh, you're exactly right.

And some are much, much smaller.

We had two just this last weekend here in Chattanooga.

One was put on by a local brewery, but it was a three day festival featuring all local

bands.

It was called a festival.

There was another one up 45 minutes from here at an old, where they used to have, and when

you were saying that, it made me think maybe they're just renaming them.

I mean, we've always had things like the Strawberry Festival and we've always, the Cornbread Festival,

you know, and I'm wondering if some of the ones you're talking about.

I know, but Slayer never played the Cornbread Festival, you know?

We never got Metallica there.

But, you know, these things tend to go in cycles.

For a while it was barbecue cookoffs, right?

I mean, everybody was eat up with barbecue cookoffs and you'd have a band and then it

became here, the Beer Festival.

So I just think it's people trying to figure out a way to make money for their charities

or whatever.

Well, but you're not wrong.

And I remember Rolling Stone or I think it was Rolling Stone did a story probably five

years ago, the explosion of festivals.

I think most of us, when we think of it, think there's, I don't know, what number would you

put?

A dozen, two dozen?

It was actually like 600.

Oh no, I was about to say, I mean, there's a, I feel like I've heard of a dozen just

in the last week.

Yeah.

Announced their line.

Hundreds.

So I want to start the show today with something we haven't done in a long time.

Today is game show day.

It is time to play a brand new game.

The game is called Fake or Festival.

Hit it guys.

It's a tour through fact and fiction.

Welcome to Fake or Festival.

Welcome back to another edition of Fake or Festival.

The game today is, is it a fake or is it a festival?

Playing today, our contestant, Barry Courter from Chattanooga, Tennessee, introduce us to

you, Barry Courter.

Hi everybody.

I'm excited to play.

What am I playing for?

Oh, it's very, very exciting.

It's tickets to Bonnarooo 2020.

You can win a pair of tickets to Bonnarooo 2020.

All for winning Fake or Festival.

I'm going to give you a name of festival.

You tell me if it is a fake or a festival.

Are you ready to play Barry from Chattanooga?

Let me stretch.

I'm ready.

I'm ready.

Let's go.

First time caller, long time listener, first time long time.

Here we go.

Barry Courter plays Fake or Festival.

Head in the clouds.

Head in the clouds.

Is it a fake festival or a real festival?

Real.

Head in the clouds is a fake festival.

Sorry.

Sorry.

You're 0 for 1.

Number 2.

Number 2.

Rolling loud.

Rolling loud.

Fake festival or real festival?

Fake.

Fake festival.

The actual answer is real festival.

Rolling loud.

Let me introduce you to a loud festival.

It's in Miami.

The lineup this year, ASAP Rocky, Post Malone, Travis Scott, and of course the little oozy

little babies, baby oozes and oozy babies.

Big big party down in Miami.

You ready for number 3, Barry Courter?

I'm going to have to say no.

First right answer you've given so far.

I know.

Somebody missed two great opportunities.

First one I thought was a great idea and the second one was a horrible name.

That's right.

Forbidden Kingdom.

Forbidden Kingdom.

Oh my gosh.

The Forbidden Kingdom Festival.

Real.

Forbidden Kingdom Festival is a real festival.

It is all base and dubstep.

It is June 11th and 12th and again Central Florida and Orlando.

The bands that you can see there are Dreamtakers, Hero Bust, Hi I'm Ghost, and Dr. P. Funtcase.

All right.

All right.

You got, you're on the board, Barry.

You're on the board.

Number 4.

Are you used to that festival?

We could probably afford that.

Number 4.

Skitty Diddy.

Skitty Diddy.

The Skitty Diddy Music Festival.

Music and Arts Festival.

Skitty Diddy.

Fake.

That is a fake festival.

You are tied up 2 and 2.

I'm back in the game.

Back in the game.

We go to number 5.

Tree Fort.

The Tree Fort Music Festival.

Real.

Now, are you Google searching now?

No.

Are you Google searching because that is a real festival.

You're exactly right.

In the name of the Lord.

In downtown Boise, Idaho, comes Tree Fort Music Festival.

The Tree Fort Music lineup.

Japanese Breakfast, Lake Street Dive, Built to Spill, Lark and Poe, our buddies from Mdumaktar.

It's a pretty good lineup.

Tennis is going to be there.

It's a pretty good tennis from Nashville, Tennessee.

So pretty good lineup there for the Tree Fort Music Festival.

And finally, finally Barry's on the board to seal the deal and win these Bonnarooo 2020

tickets.

The final fake festival, a real festival is Destination Dubstep.

Destination Dubstep.

I'm going to say fake.

It is a fake festival.

Barry Courter, big finish.

4 and 2.

Congratulations.

You're the big winner today on Fake or Festival.

Starting out horribly with Finish Strong.

Some of these are just so strange.

There's a Merle Fest.

There's a Tree Fort.

There's the Backwoods.

Merle Fest has been around forever.

Has it?

Yeah, it's not Merle.

Of course it's not.

No, it's like a Bluebird, like a dog.

No, no, no.

It's Merle Travis, I think.

Of course, Merle Travis.

Who doesn't know Merle Travis?

You wouldn't.

Backyards Bash, Base Canyon.

We talked about Day in Vegas, just like heaven.

I've never heard of any of these festivals yet.

They are everywhere.

I've heard of the Boston Collings.

We know the Fireflies, but these boutique festivals are popping up literally everywhere

and they're coming with some strong lineups.

It makes me really question why I'm not doing this.

Why are we not throwing our own festival, Barry?

It's Merle Watson, by the way, not Merle Travis.

I don't know, but Head in the Cloud, how is that not a title?

You like that?

I do.

The other one I had was Electric Fur.

I thought that was a pretty good name for a festival.

Electric anything.

Yeah, this one didn't make the cut Backyard Biddy Bop and the Don't Tell Mom Fest.

Those are the ones that didn't make the cut.

So no, no, poo poo, kaka fest.

You know, the pee pee poo poo fest had to be canceled.

Just couldn't get those health code violations off our record.

So there is something to be said about the by the way, later on in the show, we've got

our winner for Bonnarooo tickets that we'll talk to from Florida from sunny Florida.

She will join us on the show.

And then Barry, you want to explain what's going to close out the show later on this

afternoon?

The mini room, mini room, taco and I am festival.

Is that a festival?

Well, we can call it a festival.

Okay.

Is there a limit?

What's the what's the number?

How many people have to be there for it to be a festival?

Five, I guess.

Five, five.

As long as there's five people, we've got a fast on our hands.

There was music, there was DJing, there was fun had by all.

Taco and I ended up in an undisclosed place over near Manchester.

Beautiful place.

Unbelievably beautiful place with a whole bunch of people you might know from Reddit or wherever,

you know, with Bonnarooo names, robust guys were there.

Daniel and and Charlotte were there.

It was amazing.

We had a great time.

And so explain to me what this is.

You guys just hung out in the woods.

It's about a 12 and a half acre piece of properties between a stream and a mountain.

And it's a bunch of Bonnarooo people.

Chloe came from Iowa and Liesl came from Washington.

Oh, wow.

So this attracted people from around the globe.

Well, this is the one remember if you remembered, I am Bonnarooo.

David Bruce went to the first one drove 16 hours from New Jersey to attend.

Right.

It's it's small, but they boy they do it right.

They put up a stage and it is it by invite only.

Yes.

Oh, very exclusive.

It's very, my guess my invite was this long.

You're invited.

But but we all agreed you would not enjoy it.

You would not have enjoyed it at all.

I mean, I would have enjoyed it.

You would have.

I would have been there for an hour.

I would have been there for an hour.

Yeah.

It's amazing.

It's it's camping, but it's such a beautiful place.

Put it this way.

I looked at my watch and it was eleven thirty at night and I looked again and it was five

in the morning.

So I don't remember how I got from eleven thirty till five in the morning.

OK.

All right.

And how long did you stay?

I slept for a couple of hours and then I drove home.

Now it was a two night, two night thing and they had bands, local bands.

And Daniel and hooked up a couple of folks from Huntsville area, which is nearby.

They came up and played.

There's a lot of fun.

And then we several of us gathered in the robust, which was cool to see and did a little

podcast.

So.

Oh, yeah.

OK.

All right.

So so Mitchell and in Kevin, Kevin, right.

From those guys change.

Yeah.

We had a good time.

We had a lot of fun.

It was funny.

And we'll play some of that to the end of the show.

But before we get into.

To circle back on what we were talking about a second ago about boutique festivals, there's

something that we haven't ever talked about on this show in the four years that we've

been doing three, four years that we've been doing it.

Have you ever noticed the difference between international festival lineups and American

festival lineups?

And no, not really.

What do you mean?

They're incredible.

They're exceptional ones.

Oh, my God.

There was one and it hit me earlier this week when the Mad Cool Fest announced their lineup.

Now, this is in Madrid.

Just look up Mad Cool Fest 2021, the Mad Cool Festival.

They're headliners, Metallica, Twenty One Pilots, Imagine Dragons, The Killers, Muse,

Faith No More, Alt J, Deftone, Saint Vincent, Carly Rae Jepsen.

Now, again, you can you can complain and bitch and say that, you know, not my kind of festival.

But to me, that just screams diversity.

Right.

And as long as you keep going through the lineup, there's just it gets thicker and thicker.

All right.

Go to Hellfest in France, the Hellfest Festival in France.

Hellfest Open Air 2022 will feature.

This lineup is insane.

We have Nine Inch Nails, Guns N' Roses, Metallica, Scorpions, Faith No More, Deftones, Avenged,

Sevenfold, Alice Cooper, On and On and On, Deep Purple.

All right.

And then the final one that I want to share with you is the crown jewel.

I think of every festival I've known people that go and they say it is unworldly beautiful.

Primavera Sound.

It is the white whale of my festival life.

It is the one that I want to be a part of more than any other festival.

It's in Barcelona, Spain.

Imagine the amount of money that it's going to take to make this thing work.

Let's just read the lineup this year, just this year, because I'm not going to bore you

with the lineups from last year and the year before and the year before and the year before.

But they're always the best lineup you'll find all year.

It's over two weekends in Barcelona.

Pavement, Beck, Tame Impala, Gorillaz.

That's just the first weekend.

Massive Attack, The National, The Strokes, Nick Cave, Tyler, The Creator.

Second weekend, Beck, Disclosure, Interpol, Jamie XX, Dua Lipa, Gorillaz, Interpol, Tyler,

The Creator, Lord, The Strokes, Megan Thee Stallion, Tame Impala, Yeah, Yeah, Yes.

If you can find the Primavera Sound 2019 lineup, it's even better than that.

What is the difference between international festivals and American festivals?

Whereas American festivals seem to be rehashing the same lineups over and over and over, yet

international lineup seems so much bigger, so much more vast.

I couldn't tell you 100%.

I'm going to say I think it's two things.

They've done it for a while, so it's very much established.

I remember Ashley Capps telling me that he had hoped Bonnarooo would be modeled after

Glastonbury, which at the time was already 20 years old or so.

And this is a small version, but there's a band out of Chattanooga here called Glasshammer.

Very well known.

Been around for 30 years.

They're one of the great prog rock bands in the world.

They live here.

Very few people here know about them, but the prog rock people know them.

They were invited to a festival, and I don't remember where in Europe two years ago.

Basically a free festival, I think the entire city gates itself off and the entire city

becomes the festival for those three days.

You know what I mean?

They're entirely committed to it.

The bands are treated, all of them treated well.

They're put up in great lodgings and treated very well.

So I just think it's that commitment to it.

And it's probably back to your point of it's probably the only one.

You know what I mean?

There's probably not six the weekend before and six more the weekend after.

Maybe I don't know the inner dynamics of each individual international city and how they

set up their music calendar.

My guess is that's it.

They commit to it.

And also, if you're right, I mean, Jazz Fest typically has a pretty great lineup every

year.

If you don't know this yet, then then then let me walk you through.

And if you already know this, I apologize in advance.

Golden Voice is the equivalent to AC Entertainment.

Golden Voice started Coachella.

Golden Voice also helped work with Hangout Festival.

Golden Voice got bought by AEG.

AC Entertainment and C3, C3 ran Lollapalooza and ACL Fest.

C3 got bought by Live Nation.

AC Entertainment, Bonnarooo, what's that thing they do in Asheville?

They got bought by Live Nation.

There are two companies, two main live music companies in America.

It's AEG or Live Nation.

If you go to 90% of the shows that are booked in this country in big rooms are done by either

Live Nation or AEG.

Now locally, they might have a different name here.

It's Winter Circle.

But Live Nation or AEG are pretty much running the live music space in this country.

I don't think AEG and Live Nation run these festivals in that country, in any other country.

Right?

Primavera Sound is their own business.

The reason why Jazz Fest is so interesting and so like an international festival is because

it's booked locally.

It's booked locally.

They do it with private dollars and donation dollars, by the way, because it's all part

of the Jazz and Heritage Foundation.

But there's something to be said that the monopoly on all of this, it has watered down

the entire product for everybody.

Now the benefits of it is that it has expanded everything and it has brought it to so many

other communities that didn't normally have it before.

But it does make you sort of like turn around and wonder if this is all for the good.

These large, large booking companies, you know, you talk to local people that have tiny

little rooms or, you know, an 800 cap room or a 1200 cap room and they think that they're

being priced out of the market.

That they'll put a band on and then have that band snatched by a Live Nation or an AEG because

they're willing to spend a thousand more dollars and you just can't compete in this marketplace.

It's got ripples effects that go through the entire live music space.

I agree.

I agree.

But I also think in some ways it's cyclical.

It tends to work itself out, maybe not quickly and maybe not to a place.

I mean, a place like Chattanooga is never going to get the acts that a New Orleans gets

or an Atlanta gets.

We don't even get what Knoxville and Nashville get, but Knoxville doesn't get what New Orleans

gets a lot of times either.

So in that sense, it's bad for a fan, but 20 years ago I didn't have an opportunity

of a Bonnarooo.

Sure.

I understand.

I mean, somehow it tends to find its own level, I guess.

I don't know how much it is talked about that if you are going to a show, unless it is a

locally owned and operated venue, you're mostly giving money to Live Nation or AEG.

Yeah, that's right.

You're going to a show that they had something to do with.

And I don't know if I'm in a position whether or not to say if it's a good or bad thing

yet.

I just don't know.

I can say from our point of view, because this is something I've studied and written

about many, many times.

For years, it hurt a city like us because of relationships with AC Entertainment, which

about 10 years ago, or not quite that long, six, seven years ago, started booking.

I mean, it was always doing it.

I actually always book shows in Chattanooga, but they contracted with Tivoli Foundation

here now.

Our two venues suddenly had a direct connection with AC Entertainment, then C3, then Live

Nation.

Our pool of artists that they could get grew, got a lot bigger.

And as we sold out a C-level or a B-level show, suddenly the A-levels, Brian Wilson,

Graham Nash, would have not played here eight years ago.

Got to see them both.

There's massive amounts of benefits to it.

But it also just sticks out like a sore thumb to me sometimes when I see festival lineups

from around the world, and then I place them next to Forbidden Kingdom, just like Heaven,

Oklahoma, Made in America, Backwoods Bash.

You know?

And when they all start to look the same, it becomes a little confusing.

It becomes a little confusing.

I agree.

And that's one of those, and I think we touched on it several episodes ago, that's one of

those that I really think will work itself out.

Because at some point, the fan is going to say, you know, it becomes about the experience,

the travel, this lineup versus that lineup, you know, and the money.

This is kind of a weird year to compare because we've been locked down for so long.

It just seems like, you know, everybody's ready to go out.

But at some point, we're going to sit back and say, you know, I can only do two, or I

can only do three, or I can only do one.

Does it become about travel?

Does it become about the total experience?

Does it become about the lineup?

The Foo Fighters seem to be out everywhere.

Do you want to see them close to you, or do you want to travel to see them, for example?

You know, and to that point, and this is what we always come back to, and I know this sounds

so self-serving.

This is why I think that Bonnaroo matters.

And I know it sounds foreign to people who, you know, may not be into Bonnaroo or not necessarily

have ever been.

But that show is different at Bonnaroo.

And I know the Foo Fighters are going to be there.

I know they're going to be a Lollapalooza.

I know they're going to be at Jazz Fest.

I get it.

That Bonnaroo show is going to hit different because, you know, Jazz Fest has got a time

limit.

You got to go.

There is a curfew, even in New Orleans.

There's a curfew in Chicago that if every minute that they go over, insert time, I think

it's 11 o'clock or so, they have to pay like $10,000.

That's right.

That's right.

That's right.

And that's what I mean.

Then it becomes, for the fan, it becomes the extra experience.

Not only are you going to see a great Foo Fighters show, you're going to have that experience

and you're going to meet cool people.

And it's just the total thing.

And that's what I mean.

I will say this one story back, and if you don't know this, but yeah, if you go, if you

every minute that you go over at Lollapalooza, they charge you like, it might even be 50

grand.

I don't know.

But one year Eddie Vedder got on stage and they said, they are going to charge us blank

the amount of money for every minute that we're going to play.

So we're playing for another half an hour or something like that.

Well, hate to pull the curtain back.

The city of Chicago never charged them for the extra time.

You know, it's not like an enforceable rule that they can, you know, all of a sudden start

asking for a hundred thousand dollar check.

So but you know, it's still there and it's still something they have to.

Well, I mean, there's a reason that most shows are 90 minutes to and they end before 11 o'clock

because after that union fees kick in in a lot of places.

So that's a good point, especially in bigger cities.

All right.

So here we go.

That's we played our game.

We've gone through international festivals.

Let's talk to our winner for Bonnarooo tickets.

Then we'll get into Mini Roo.

It's the what podcast Barry Courter Brad Steiner.

Thanks for joining us.

Brad, your hair looks great.

Say hi to Jacqueline.

Great that I'm glad we started there.

Jacqueline.

Hello.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you guys doing?

Super duper.

Where are you?

Where are you right now?

I'm at my house here in Florida.

I live in the panhandle.

So, yeah.

I was hoping it wasn't your I was hoping it was your house and not some sort of like locked

in a basement sort of thing because you look like you might be in some sort of trouble.

Well, I don't really have a lot of setup areas for this.

So I was like, I'll just sit at my dining room table.

I swear I have more things in my house.

Okay.

Yeah.

Show us around.

Give us a tour of the place.

Sure.

Yeah.

My dog.

He makes a lot of noise as he's going to play on the boy right now.

So yeah, that's okay.

What's his name?

Nuke.

Nuke.

Like a nuclear bomb.

Because that's what he's like.

His parts are pretty bad.

But there you go.

That's what we say about Barry.

I guess we got a nickname for Barry.

Bad to relative, Brad.

Bad to relative.

Yeah.

This is exciting because you, the reason why you're on the show today is because you won

our Bonnarooo ticket.

So congratulations first and foremost.

And it seems to me like you already have a history with Bonnarooo based on your t-shirt

selection.

Oh, oh yeah.

I had to wear a shirt today to celebrate that I won.

So thank you guys.

We're glad you wore a shirt first and foremost.

Secondly, we're glad it's a Bonnarooo shirt.

Of course.

Yeah.

I've been going every year since 2016, obviously.

Not last year.

Nobody went.

So I, yeah, love it.

I love Bonnarooo.

I could talk everybody's year off about it.

So Barry, 2016, she showed up the year that was supposed to be the worst year ever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you, did you buy your ticket based on that lineup or did you buy it?

And then the lineup came out.

I bought it based on the lineup.

So who was the, who was the, the draw for you?

Surprisingly, it was J Cole.

I really wanted to see him live.

Interesting.

Really random.

My friend was like, Hey, a bunch of us, cause she lives, she was going to college at the

time and she's like, Hey, a group of us are going to go to Bonnarooo and they're down in

Cincinnati, Ohio.

So they're like, Oh, it's not that far of a drive.

We'll just go.

J Cole's playing like if you just want to go.

And I was like, all right, cool.

And ever since then I got, we, we pitted for J Cole and was on the rail for him.

And everybody that whole year was talking about how this was the worst year.

Like there was hardly anybody there.

It wasn't a good lineup.

Everybody was crapping on it.

And I had the best time.

I was like, this is amazing.

I have never experienced anything like this in my life.

And I was, it was awesome.

So real quick about that 2016 decision that you made for J Cole.

I remember first and foremost, what'd you think of the show?

I thought it was great.

Okay.

So here's fantastic.

Are you, I'm guessing you're a J Cole fan.

A big one.

Yeah.

So I guess I don't think it'll disappoint me.

So I remember Barry years and years and years before 2016, where he was finally booked,

like he was that for some reason that white whale for rap fans, right?

That was the Bonnarooo.

Why have they not booked J Cole yet?

What about J Cole?

What about J Cole?

And now that they've booked him, I forgot they booked him.

I'm betting we could do an entire episode on things like that.

You know?

Yeah.

Like it was such a, everybody was clamoring for J Cole because you know, they had had

Lamar Kendrick Lamar, they had had Jay Z.

And at this point they're like, well, who's left with J Cole is a big name.

I totally forgot that he was even on that lineup.

I totally forgot that was the thing.

Who else did you see that you loved in 2016 that sort of put you over the edge?

I'm trying to think.

I had seen two door cinema club, which was like a midday set.

That was really interesting for me.

Unpopular opinion at the time, the chain smokers were really cool.

So I mean, I like to think they are maybe in 2016, right?

Um, saw them, I think Halsey third eye blind was another one.

I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

I'm really sad though.

I think payment Paula was on the lineup in 2016 and so was M83 LCD sound system.

And I'm, I didn't even know who came and Paula was at the time.

And I missed out so big and I was like, oh my gosh, but another episode, another episode

topic.

Yeah.

I mean, you didn't know better.

I know this is talking about unpopular opinions.

I know this is going to sound crazy because I love that new team and Paula album so much,

but I liked the last one so much better, which is why I'm so glad I saw them on that tour

and not this one.

I mean, I'm going to see them on this tour, but that at last album was so great for me.

And you know how they, they put sets together now they do it based on album cycles.

So you're going to have a team and Paula set.

I'm betting that is going to be very heavy on this new album, which is great.

It's fine.

But I really, really, really loved everything around the less I know the better.

So if you, if you miss Tame and Paula 2016, it brought you back in 2017.

When you I'm guessing that you didn't care about the lineup in 2017 you were going anyway.

Yes.

I was a hundred percent.

I was like, I'll find someone to see.

I don't care.

I'm going, I have to so much so that literally I didn't have a group to camp with until like

a couple of days before.

So I, we've said it before in the 2016 and what you just said is such a great sort of

lead into it.

Cause it was your first one.

You had nothing to compare it to.

Right.

I mean, people like us are talking about, Oh, the crowds are down and all that.

How would you have even known?

Right.

For you, it was just a great festival with 45,000 or 48,000 people.

And that's the point of that, that our friend Ken Weinstein made with the never not great,

you know, for what did he say?

35% of people, Brad, or is it the other way?

You know, you know what 2016 is going to turn into being, it's going to be like space balls

where like everybody critically panned it at first.

But now everybody loves it.

2016 is the year that I work.

I talk about more than any other year.

You're right.

And it must be because it's been shit on so long, but it's going to be one of those moments

are like, I saw a kid rock when there was 15 people.

I like your space balls analogy better.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

What a stupid movie, but man, it's funny.

Yeah.

I get it every time it's on TBS though.

I, yeah, but 2016 just like keeps living in lore because, uh, look, I love it.

And, and you're so right, Barry, because nobody, somebody like her, Jacqueline doesn't know

what 2015 was.

No clue.

You don't know they moved this around and that around and you know, silent moved and

better question.

Did you notice, did you notice a difference in 2017?

Oh, a hundred percent.

I was like, great question.

I was like, why are there, there's so many people here.

This is insane.

I remember, I think it might've been one of the years it would have, might've rained or

something.

And I remember everybody just funneling into one area and it just became like a pit of

mud and everything like that.

And I was like, it wasn't like this last year.

There couldn't have been this many people last year.

There's no way twice.

Yeah.

Right.

It was look how much we love 2016.

All of a sudden, look how much we wish it was 2016 again.

Can these lineups get shittier, please?

Yeah.

It was like, what happened?

Yeah.

That's a great point.

That's funny.

So who are you excited about this year?

If you, by the way, were you gonna, were you gonna, you hadn't bought a ticket obviously.

So were you just going to sit it out?

Were you just stuck?

I was, I was either going to wait or my friend was trying to convince me.

She was like, Hey, I'm getting a pack.

Like this is going to be our last festival for the year.

If you want to go like, let's do it, just like send it as they say.

So I was like, well, I'll see if I win a ticket and if not, then I'm going to buy one.

I'll pull the trigger and buy one because they're pretty expensive right now.

But like on a third party site or something.

Yeah.

If you're like the Bonnarooo resell, like all the websites with fees and everything.

Cause I'm one of the people that like, I will be, I think it's what Black Friday they sell,

they start Bonnarooo tickets every year.

I'm like always tier one because I'm just like refreshing the page.

So along the way, have you found, you said you didn't have a group when you went on 2017,

but along the way, have you compiled a good enough group where you feel comfortable just

dropping in anywhere in a campground?

Yeah.

So my first year I drove down with the group.

The second year I flew in and camped with them.

The third year I did it.

I camped alone in tent only.

And then I met people the year that I was alone that I ended up doing group camping

with Wieneroo.

And now we're all like lifelong friends.

So I know if I were in a bind.

Barry, do we know anybody at Wieneroo?

Not yet.

Not yet.

It's on the list.

Now it's on the list.

Jacqueline, I meant to ask you when we started, cause I'm fascinated by what, what is your

career?

So I am in the air force now.

I work on servers basically.

So air force.

I do.

Yes.

I am enlisted in the United States air force.

Good for you.

Thank you.

My old job.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Wow.

Congratulations.

That's awesome.

Sorry, but how old are you?

You look like you might be 14.

Oh, I guess that's a compliment.

I'll take it.

I'm actually 25.

Wow.

And what do you do in the air force again?

I work on servers, so fiber, like computer stuff.

I got you.

So Barry, I, Barry feels the same way.

I'll be honest with you.

I promise you, Barry feels the same way for guys like us.

A guy like me who literally just tells fart jokes on the radio, meeting anyone that has

a, what seems to be a substantial job is mind blowing to me.

Yeah.

A real job that they're committed to.

You mean you have to get up in the morning at a specific time and do what?

Oh yeah.

Five in the morning, head to PT workout, then go into work all day.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

So literally told my uncle yesterday, we were talking about the military and I said, nah,

that wouldn't work for me because I would be the first day or the second day at boot

camp.

I'd be like this, this whole hike thing, I got a little chafing going on.

I can make it today.

Hey, those, um, that, uh, that's probably gonna go well.

That direction that you gave me earlier, that totally necessary.

Can we?

I thought about it, I thought about it.

I thought, nah, it's not gonna work for me today.

I need about 45 more minutes before I'm ready to go.

I like how you specify that it's a military problem.

Uh, well, that's correct.

That is correct.

That's why we are doing what we are doing, Brett.

Yeah.

We're good for you.

You're an expert in some field, right?

How long you've been doing that?

Um, I joined last August, so I haven't even hit a year yet.

You joined the air force last August?

I did.

Yes.

Why?

So I was, um, working, um, at Starbucks on a base and I was getting less hours, wasn't

getting a steady paycheck.

Um, COVID had hit really hard.

Um, and I was just like, no, I want to go to school.

Honestly, it was like a steady paycheck and they'll pay for college.

So if I really wanted to do it, not trying to recruit anybody here, but, um, it just

seemed like a golden opportunity because COVID was such an uncertain time that, um,

you just took advantage of it.

No, I don't, I don't feel like you're recruiting me, but I do want to talk to you about the

Mormon church.

Um, I've got some information I'd like to share with you, some panelists.

So you're in IT.

You're in IT.

You've had IT and interest before?

To be honest, no, it wasn't on the top of my list.

I really wanted Intel, but it was on my, my sheet of jobs that I could pick.

So yeah, my friend got, uh, he, he signed up for the, um, air force back years and years

ago and they told him he'd have choices and his choice ended up being MP or MP.

Yeah.

What does that mean?

He's a cop.

He could become a cop.

Yeah.

They said you'll have all kinds of choices as long as it's this.

Like here, we'll give you 10 options, but one is only the, all 10 are the same.

They worked out great for him.

So, okay.

So you, you signed up last August and it was primarily for, you know, school and, and,

you know, to, to find a field in which is a steady, steady paycheck.

That decision not regretting one bit in the last year.

It's hard to give up your freedom.

I will say, um, cause you are kind of at the hands of the military now.

Um, I don't regret it because I've met so many cool people.

Um, one of my, um, I was fortunate to meet someone who I had gone to Okeechobee last

year and she had gone and we met in the same basic flight.

Like we were together room together.

So it was, it's been interesting to get to meet people and the job that I have now, um,

whenever I get out, I'll be able to make quite a good living off of it.

So

what you said, you said it's hard to give up that freedom.

How do you break away?

Have you figured out a way to break away for a week to go to Tennessee?

Oh yeah.

I haven't even put in my time.

I came in yesterday and I was like, sorry guys, I'm going to be out for a labor day

weekend.

You know, you're not going to see me.

So yeah.

Well, are you planning on doing a Thursday, Friday, or are you trying to get up on Tuesday?

Because the way that we have figured this out over the last 15 years is our day, our

week just gets longer and longer and longer at every year that passes.

Now all of a sudden we're showing up on Tuesday morning.

What?

Yeah.

So initially I was like, oh, we'll drive up Thursday morning and try to just, you know,

set up everything Thursday and then get crazy on Thursday night.

Although it is a marathon, not a sprint, but I think we're going to try it.

We did Wednesday in 2019.

We got up on Wednesday morning and drove in and then sat in traffic for four hours.

I think we were one of the fortunate ones that got in pretty soon.

But I think this year we're going to do the same.

Maybe I'm not sure.

We have to get the troops together and figure out like planning.

We haven't done logistics yet.

Good for you.

I want to go back to the 16 versus 17 thing a little bit.

Cause that's fascinating.

That's a great question, Brad.

How was it different?

You know, you said it was bigger, but how else was it?

What else was different about those two experiences?

For first timers, this is going to be sold out.

So it's going to be packed.

It's going to be huge.

It's going to be insane.

Right.

So 2016, it was really cool because the people that were there, it felt like they were there

for Bonnarooo.

Like it was definitely just like, I'm here because I love Bonnarooo and that you could

feel that energy.

And not to say 2017 wasn't like that, but you definitely had more people there for like

specific people or reasons.

But the vibe was still great.

Loved it.

Yeah.

Tons of people still there.

I felt like the experiences that they had around the farm were more exciting too, because

there was a lot more people involved in all of it.

I definitely did more exploring in 2017 of like the barns and going out in the campgrounds,

like everything like that.

Barry, remind me, did 2017 sell out?

Because I look at that 2017 lineup and you can keep it.

You can keep it.

I'll take 2016 any day over.

You two, Chili Peppers, Weekend, Chance the Rapper, that is looking back on it.

That was just one long yawn.

I loved you too.

And I'll never see him again.

I'll never have the opportunity to literally look up at Bono's crotch.

But it was for the rest of it, like I keep going through this major laser, Flume, Travis

Scott, Martin Garrix, Cage Elephant's third line on that.

Was that Macklemore?

Was that the Macklemore Sunday afternoon?

No, I can't remember them all.

No, but I look back on this and I have no memories of 2017.

But I think I think Jeff had hit on it.

I think because the numbers were down and I think that was the was that the first year

they really sort of shifted towards putting energies into these experiences.

Right.

And I think I think she nailed it.

So that was the big shift there.

Yeah, I'm looking.

I'm trying to find if there's any show on this poster that that rings a bell to me other

than you two.

Not really.

I don't really feature islands.

I remember seeing that.

That was so that that show might have been 200 degrees.

That poor man was sweating into the crowd.

It was like a flood, like a river of water running, sweat running into the crowd.

And then so you go back in 2018.

At that point, you were a vet.

Like you know where you're going, you know how you're doing, but you're doing it alone.

Yes.

So I did 2018 alone.

My friends weren't going.

The whole group that I had normally camped with had they all moved out to the West Coast.

That wasn't feasible for them at the time.

So I was like, well, I already bought my ticket.

I'm committed.

I'll go by myself.

It sounds kind of scary when you tell people like, Hey, yeah, I'm going to go camp in a

field in Tennessee by myself with a bunch of strangers.

But that's how most horror movies start.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, not a lot of people are really open to that idea, but the people I camped around

and only were super cool.

And then I pitted for, I think, I'm trying to think Paramore was when I met the people

that enough camping with the next year, we just had a good time just chilling in the

line, all sweating, waiting for the next artist to come on and everything, just like making

friends.

So I kind of love about Baderou's like you're all there for a reason, kind of like you're

all there to enjoy the music and have a good time.

So you can't really go wrong.

Yeah.

2018.

If I'm not mistaken, Barry, it was 2018, our first year of doing this show was 2017, our

first year of doing it because it was 2017.

I thought we started in 16 to talk about that lineup and it must've been 17.

Another one.

And this exercise of going back and looking at lineups always provides new things for

me to think about.

Man, I look back at it, 2018.

I remember like loving when it first came out, all I cared about was Boney Ver.

That was our first year.

That was our first year, Barry.

2018 is our first year doing the show because I remember our second episode, all I wanted

to do is talk about Boney Ver.

Yeah.

And you and Ashley talked about it for quite a, Ashley Caps, you and Ashley talked about

what he was going to do.

Yeah.

What would Boney Ver do?

I don't know if I've ever told you the story, but still to this day, one of my favorite

Bonnarooo moments is that second Boney Ver show.

I love that show so much.

The first set was great because they did album from top to bottom.

That in and of itself is worth the price of admission, but the second set was such a incredibly

beautiful soundscape that he was creating with the super jam.

One problem though, I think that I might have fallen asleep standing up because there are

parts of the show that I don't remember and walking out of the show, the wife would be

like, wow, did you see Moses?

Somebody walk up and do that.

That was my favorite part of it.

I was like, when did Moses?

I do remember you telling me.

I think I might've taken a nap while I was standing up.

Anderson packed that year.

He hits the main stage.

I thought that he was going to do 2017 in a smaller stage, but now we wait until 2018

on our off cycle for the what stage show.

That was tremendous.

That was your Nile Rogers year, Barry, 2018 that you were so in love with.

That was the year I cried.

Yeah, you cried.

I cried from lunch to midnight.

That's right.

Yep.

Was that a...

I can't find her.

I can't find her, but wasn't that Sunday?

Was that not Brandi Carlile on Sunday or was that 2019?

That was this last one.

That was 2019.

Because that was a lot of tears too.

By the way, in that 2018 lineup, way, way, way, way down is a little new girl, brand

new, Billie Eilish.

Oh, I saw her.

I saw her in the pit.

You did?

I did.

I knew about her.

I'm one of those cool people.

I knew about her at the time.

Wow.

I like your coffee mug there too, by the way.

Oh, thank you.

Is it a Brad Stinks coffee mug?

Is it a Brad Stink mug?

Bob Ross, right?

It's Bob Ross.

Yeah.

Hair idol.

Make a rock.

That's right.

Now you moved to this year.

You have somebody to go with.

You have a group.

Who are you excited to see?

You got anybody on your list yet?

Oh, this year.

I'm really looking forward to the Foo Fighters and Kame, of course.

Kind of on the undercard part is Tate McCray.

McCray, I think it's like.

I really like her music right now.

I'm trying to think.

I'm going to see Glass Animals, I think, for my third time.

What city do you live in, by the way?

I live in a, it's called Crestfield.

But what's your major town near you?

I would say Fort Walton or Pensacola.

Pensacola.

The Air Force Base, right?

So I was there two weekends ago.

I was at Pensacola.

I did a weekend in Pensacola, or actually just a day trip to Pensacola.

The reason I ask is because I'm trying to figure out which Top 40 station you listen

to.

Because somebody likes Top 40 music.

I knew about Glass.

I saw Glass Animals.

I'm trying to think when they, they were at Bonnarooo one of the previous years.

I saw them then and they've kind of blown up over the last year in quarantine.

And then I randomly found, I love TikTok.

I'm all about it.

But I saw Tate McCray on there and I got hooked right away.

And then Foo Fighters are just, I feel like that's the kind of legacy act this year.

I don't want to call them a legacy.

I feel like they're not that old.

But no, it's true.

I'm glad that you know how to talk the language, that's for sure.

Because the legacy act, we always anticipate being on Sunday.

And again, Barry, we can talk about this till we're blue in the face.

Barry from Bonnarooo will explain maybe it's a Steve or a Brian who books this thing, but

why a legacy act not on a Sunday night is completely new for them.

Putting Tyler the creator as the closer of the entire festival feels so completely foreign

to me because that's not what they've ever done.

One of the things that I want to talk to you about at some point and Jacqueline, I'll ask

you too.

The more I think about this year, the more I think it feels like it's almost a restart.

You know, as long as we've been going, Brad, I don't know what to expect because they've

had so long to think about this.

I know, but wouldn't just basically Bonnarooo and basic Bonnarooo would be just fine for

you.

I'm going way off the rails here.

Because we do this every year, we always worry they screwed it up.

You know what I mean?

We hate it.

We're not going to go.

They messed it up and we get there and it's great.

So I'm trying not to have that moment.

But I just wonder about they've had so much time to think.

And I don't think they're going to screw it up.

I'm wondering if because of COVID, because it's been so long, how it's going to be different.

And again, I know I just threw a grenade into the discussion, but you know what I mean?

Feels to me like there's an opportunity for it to be really different.

Well, I mean, there is something to be said of when they were planning the live stream

show and some of these other festivals are trying to figure out a way to make it through

COVID.

They were putting these live stream shows, these Lollapools, the weekends together, etc.

I remember somebody telling us that this is an opportunity for us to rethink a lot of

stuff.

I don't think that you're going to see that because when you do something different, that

usually costs money.

And trying to whip up something completely unique is a lot harder than, well, let's use

what we have for right now.

That's why this this squarch conversation is actually kind of interesting to me because

they have an opportunity to bring back something that they've had before, but they just spent

a lot of money renting that big, giant square thing.

That's a good example.

That's what I mean.

Yeah.

Why not bring the arch back?

Because it's not going to cost you any money.

You can overthink things, I guess, is what I'm worried about thinking about.

I hope they don't.

But again, look, it's already different in that we've got the closer for an entire festival

is Tyler, the creator.

Now, again, the way that I've always thought about this is like they put the the Legacy

Act on Sunday because the camping guys will stick around through all days, all the days

of the festival, keep spending money every day and not leave early and they'll stick

around till Sunday night.

Those guys are not going to be sticking around through Sunday night because, you know, first

of all, do those guys even exist anymore?

Do the people who are so hardcore camping, they're going to be there anyway?

Probably.

I'm trying to figure out the calculation of putting their weakest headliner on Sunday

and not on where we normally see the weakest headliners on Saturday.

Yeah, I don't know.

I haven't given it that much thought yet, but it shows for Barry.

Call me back later.

We'll talk about it.

But the other thing that I wanted to say, and as soon as Jacqueline got on, I mean,

Brad, you and I focus on Camp Nut Butter.

We have a large group, as many sometimes 20, 25 people.

Jacqueline is how many people have we talked to who go by themselves, you know, whether

our Patreons or whatever.

It's amazing to me that people come to a festival like this and it's not like they're driving

an hour.

You're coming away.

It's great.

It's baffling for me because I count on all of you guys to bring my stuff.

Well that's what I mean.

We all do.

It's a group thing.

So for somebody to make that commitment and say, I'm going.

Jacqueline, the year that you flew in, what did you bring with you?

So the year that I flew in, I brought a tent with me.

I brought some snacks that I could fit in my big duffel bag.

I brought my like basically necessities and everybody else was like, Hey, we'll pick up

water for you.

We'll pick up stuff if you need us to.

Like that's not a big deal.

And then I just showed up and they already had canopies and everything set up.

So I was really thankful.

And then I don't know if I could do that.

Just fly in and trust everybody.

Yeah.

I don't know if I could do it, Barry.

That's why I brought it up.

I mean, and she's not alone.

I mean, how many people have we talked to that do this?

If not every year, at least one year, you know, they go with a group and they fall in

love with it and they say, I'm going back.

I think that's incredible.

It's also really fun too, because even if you're missing something, you could literally

just like run down wherever your parts are, like scream out, like, does anybody have a

spatula?

And like, someone will be like, I do.

And they'll just like run over and like, Hey, thanks.

And you guys just start up a conversation like, Oh, who are you looking to see today?

Where are you from?

Then you just start meeting people.

So it's like a little community over the weekend.

So you know, it's like your Monterey family's got you.

You're missing something.

And I can promise you, I can't, I can promise you our camp.

Nut butter people are not screaming for a spatula because there's four of them already

there.

But the other thing you said, the other thing you said was the, you make friends, you get

there and you make friends and, and that's why you keep doing it.

Yeah.

It's great.

Yeah.

Super exciting.

It's also cool to me.

However, like how far people, some people travel to go to Bonnarooo is insane to me.

They'll be like, yeah, I started a 14 hour drive two days ago.

Like we're so excited.

And the other thing is, uh, you, you said it, um, you talk about it year round, which

is why we're having this podcast, but that, I mean, we hear that all the time.

It's so funny.

That's the first thing you said was I wear my friends out because it's what I talk about

all year round.

And that's, that's why we started doing this.

You know what we we've never found?

We haven't found a, um, an international traveler.

Oh, huh.

I've met Canadian.

I want somebody though.

It's coming from Germany.

I wonder if we have a Norway contingent contingent listening to this, uh, to this podcast, we

need an ambassador to a foreign nation to call us and let us know if you fly from an

international country, from a country outside of America.

I'd love to, I'd love to talk to somebody who has planned an entire international trip

and will mainly because of the conversation that we had earlier, Barry, about, you know,

how international festivals are so much more interesting than American festivals.

But I want to talk to that guy.

Look, 14 hours is a major commitment, but dry and flying across the world for a festival.

You know, I want to do that for primavera sound one day.

Well, like Jacqueline said, to go camp in the middle of a field in middle Tennessee,

that's got to, when you announce that to your family, you got to wonder how that goes over.

Right?

And I'm so, I'm so happy that you're a part of the what podcast family.

I'm so glad that you're a fellow Bonnaroovian and I'm glad that you're going to be with

us.

We'll see you very shortly.

It feels like it's just around the corner.

We're like days away.

Oh yeah.

I'm super excited and I'm super thankful.

I'm glad you guys have me on.

Yeah.

I'm extremely excited to get back to the farm this year.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Our Bonaru winner Jacqueline from Florida, from Pensacola.

I mentioned it earlier, Barry, but I did a day trip to Pensacola.

And so I got there and we sat on the beach.

You know how much I love the beach.

So he sat there for like nine hours and of course I just got blistered, right?

I got totally sunburnt.

Do you see any of that tan on me now?

No.

I'm like, I am a freshly peeled apple in that if second, the atmosphere gets to it turns

completely rotted and then just goes away.

Like the sun that absorbs onto my skin turns into nothing.

How do you get so tan?

How does my wife get so tan?

I'm sitting here like I'm an aquarium.

It's just jeans.

I would never wear jeans.

I'm not picturing you on the beach.

What a, what did you, did you wine for nine hours?

I mean, that's actually, you know, no, because I knew it had a time limit.

I actually enjoyed it a lot, you know, until like the wind picked up and destroyed our

tent and we had to basically, you know, Oh, looky there.

Guess we're going to have to back it in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was fun talking to Jacqueline though and good for her.

Um, it in the air force.

That's uh, that's cool.

That was a random pick, but it's a, it's a big leap to make from Starbucks.

That's for sure.

That's a big leap sitting there serving.

What am I want to do?

I love to do fighter jets.

I think I'll enlist good for her though.

That was cool.

I, this is no, this is no, not cats expressions onto Starbucks, but boy, that boss really

must've sucked boss.

The worst thing you would think anything is better than this Starbucks, including the

military.

I could be yelled at by customers or drill sergeant.

She was cool though.

And I'm glad she won.

She's excited about going.

And so this is, I'm very happy whenever we get to actually talk to, uh, not just listeners,

but fellow, uh, festival goers and festival Bonnaroovians like you did two weeks ago, three

weeks ago at mini roux, the special little secret show that, that the brew bus people

put on, right?

Yeah.

It was a lot of fun.

It's the third one that they've done and, uh, they did it because of, you know, uh,

quarantine and, uh, they plan to continue to do it.

Nice.

All right.

Let's, let's close out the show with some of your chat from the mini roux.

Who else, who are you talking to?

Who's around the horn here?

Uh, we've got guys from the beer exchange.

We've got Chloe.

We've got Liesl.

They were Patreons of ours, friends of ours.

They've been on the show.

Taco was there.

Daniel and, uh, Charlotte from the rubas.

Okay.

Here we go.

Finalize, uh, finish up the show today.

Mini rule on the what podcast.

I don't know if you guys understand how cool I think you do or you wouldn't be here, but

it's amazing to me.

Let's put it that way.

I drink the champagne.

This, this event has caught, brought us all together from literally all over the country,

right?

Yeah.

Literally all over the country.

Yeah.

All the way from Pacific Northwest or Iowa.

Yeah.

Atlanta, three hour drive plus two hours of traffic.

Yeah.

I had a little bit of that myself.

So, but we're on one of the most iconic, um, things related to Bonnarooo, the rubas.

I am glad to finally have you aboard, Barry.

Uh, I don't know if you knew this, but all this was specifically designed to entertain

you.

Am I that sad?

No, no.

You're not.

You're not.

You're not.

You melt as a snowflake purposely.

We want to encapsulate it.

It took us three tries to find what happened.

This is the third.

You gotta, you gotta show up.

You gotta blame taco.

He got sick last time.

So Barry finally rolls in today.

Uh, it was about, it was about two hours.

I was like, I'm not gonna do this.

I'm not gonna do this.

I'm not gonna do this.

I'm not gonna do this.

I'm not gonna do this.

I'm not gonna do this.

So Barry, today, uh, it was about, I don't know, three o'clock when you finally got here

and we were doing a very Red Roo style bear exchange.

Every Friday brings in some brews from their local hometown, and we'd swap around and try

things that you don't normally get to try.

And I see Barry pull up.

He parks behind Lord tacos, VW bus.

I was like, let's mess with him.

I've been waiting for like a year and a half for you to finally show up at one of these

and here you come rolling in.

We all like get real quiet.

And he comes in and we're like, Oh Barry!

Barry!

I knew something was up,

because you're singing happy birthday,

and then it's like, here he comes.

The birthday was beguiling.

Yeah.

It's very cool.

So who all is here?

You guys have been here since last night.

Yours.

Hello, I'm unimportant.

That is a lie.

That's my favorite trick name to give out.

I'm Mitchell.

Pleased to meet you.

I'm just me.

I exist.

No, he is underselling himself.

He has the life of any party.

You're on the lineup.

You're not unimportant.

You made the whole point of being

a lineup is to undersell yourself.

So they're overwhelmed.

So that's very smart.

Yes.

You're like, hello, I'm delivering.

I made a fake lineup poster

that I kind of just made it as a joke to send to friends.

And I needed some extra space.

And I was like, you know what?

Mitchell's going to be there.

Mitchell is a headliner.

Any party he's at.

So I put him on there and you have been fantastic.

I would go to the show again.

If you need a rock, tell me your party.

I'll give it a rock.

Yeah, introduce yourself.

I'm Lindsay.

I'm the weirdo who kind of owns this place.

And this whole thing started with a crazy hair

prime hair brained idea between Daniel and I,

cause we were tired of being cooped up

in our houses a year ago.

So I'm just an eight time Bonnarooo regular old Bonnaroovian.

Nice.

Who lives conveniently fairly close.

Yeah.

I live about 20 minutes from here.

So yeah.

To bud in, I believe we are existing on his third child

from my understanding.

From a contextual standpoint where it was like,

try for another boy.

No, we want a girl.

Fuck it.

Let's bet on this.

And this is a sure thing.

And it's beautiful out here.

Absolutely.

It's gorgeous.

It's a beautiful place.

Beautiful drive.

Lindsay, thank you.

Sure. Sure.

Glad to have all my Bonnaroo friends here.

Daniel we heard from, Laura Taco is with me.

I'm here.

The What Podcast.

Yes.

How many PBRs have you had?

Yes.

Well, I started with mimosas.

Ooh.

Then moved into the PBRs.

Yeah.

The real champagne.

The real champagne.

How would a PBR mimosa or a PBR champagne taste like?

It'd be pronounced champagne.

Champagne.

Thank you, sir.

It might be the only mimosa that won a blue ribbon.

Oh.

Might have to try one.

They're real proud of that one 1894 thing.

Not letting that go.

No, they're not letting it go.

I say I started with mimosas.

Technically I started yesterday with PBR

and then what do we have?

Moonshine.

Yeah.

That was very good.

It was very good, yeah.

Yeah, thanks for that, by the way.

We got more tonight.

We had the beer exchange and it's making me

purposely truncate my drunk experience.

So I've got Hefeweizen and then Hefeweizen lined up.

Currently.

But you know, when you're out here

and these things that everybody's sharing alcohol,

you have to pace yourself.

Everybody needs to be careful about these things.

It's a marathon, it's not a sprint.

Correct.

By the way.

Well, Lord Taco did participate in the beer exchange.

We exchanged a PBR for a PBR.

I did, I had a West Coast PBR.

How many ratings are you up to on?

Oh.

What is it?

What's the name?

No, I'm on, yeah, I'm on untapped.

Untapped.

I'm over 300, I'm sure.

All PBRs.

All PBRs.

All PBRs.

All four stars, you know.

I'm impressed and horrified.

I think it's one of the funniest things.

It's so great.

He never tells anybody.

It's Brad that brought it up.

His crocs have PBR.

Yeah, I got PBR crocs.

His crocs have PBR and they're glorious.

I mean, it'd be one thing if he was like

out telling everybody this all the time,

but he never talks about it.

No, I do not.

He's just been doing it.

I'll just go out and have a PBR.

Okay, I'll check this.

I introduced him to this.

I remember this, this was like 2018.

So Walmart every year before Bonnarooo,

they pull out all the stops at the corporate hoes.

And I say hoes as a non-discriminate,

non-genitorial thing because I'm telling you,

corporate is out there, whoring out product.

If you buy a 12 pack, they will give you swag.

Yes.

And I remember in 2018,

PabstoodLibran was at the Walmart doing tie-dye tops

and things like that.

And I was like, fuck, I want one of those.

So I went inside and I was like,

all right, I'm a high alcohol guy.

And I realized that the Walmart had PBR

at like twice the alcohol percentage.

And I was like, 12 pack for a tie-dye top.

Yeah, they give out the headbands and wristbands.

Yes, I got all that.

And coosies.

It was great.

Bon and Veev, we still use their cooler.

I think they gave us in 2016.

Murphy's Pearl.

Yeah.

We're all vulnerable till swag gets involved.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll do a swig.

I will limbo, I will shimmy and limbo

under any pole for your free squeezy.

Yeah.

It's amazing what people will do.

No cap.

No, no, like I have shamans later.

Yeah, so Kevin from Camp Ritteroo,

also unimportant from Camp Ritteroo's better,

I always say better house.

The two most unimportant.

Kevin's the better house.

The better house.

The better house.

Kevin does the good legwork.

No, man, I have to play your hype man a little bit.

There's like a fair group of people

that come to Bonnarooo every year

who don't get paid by Live Nation or AC Entertainment

who work their tail off to make things happen.

And Kevin is definitely one of those people.

Well, I appreciate the sentiments.

Same to you.

Yeah.

It's really good.

Well, we were until.

You know what's funny?

We got paid, so we're still.

I don't care about that.

I can handle it.

We were talking about this last night

or this morning or whatever.

Like, you know, when you go to Bonnarooo

or a big camping festival,

you inevitably come across one of those like

kitty size pools and it has a sign that says,

give one, take one.

Like that concept reaches out to so much more

than just random junk that you find in that kitty pool.

Like everybody contributes something to the festival,

whether it be, you know,

Kevin making Red Roo happen or Mitchell just being Mitchell.

You know, we had a similar sign on our mailbox

this past few years ago.

We got lollipops and necklaces.

Yeah, we got stickers and we got,

well, like a couple of cigarettes maybe.

We didn't get beer.

Some roofing nails.

Yeah, we didn't get no beer.

We got no beer.

We got no beer.

Now you guys have a different experience back there

like Valhalla.

Like we see a little bit different.

Like, okay, let me put it this way.

The general admission RV section is probably

the most demographically diverse area

that you will see in all of Bonnarooo.

You've got, I was talking about this on Reddit last week.

You've got us weirdos in the Roos.

You've got like the couples that are like in their thirties

or whatever that have like a classy RV.

They're kind of bougie it up a little bit.

You've got these wizard wooks in like schoolies

way older than ours that just sit there

and drink beer all day and never even go to live shows.

They have ninth level drugs.

Yes.

And you got like, you got like people like Lindsey's dad

with an RV the size of a house

that are just kind to everyone.

And it's just a little bit,

and you've got college kids that all pull in

to rent an RV or borrow one from somebody that's got one.

It's a little bit of everything.

So last year when we found one of those pools

out in front of the rebus, which we didn't even put it there.

Somebody put that there and thought

that would be a good spot.

And I'm like, you know what?

I agree. That is a great thing.

I got like a military MRE to eat, some glow sticks.

Those things will stop you up.

Are you thankful for the MRE?

I'm just wondering, everybody out there,

do not go into MREs with a positive attitude.

I thought it was cool.

I've never had one.

It was cool to try.

I tell you, I lived off those things in the desert.

And these things will-

They'll sustain you.

And that's the best compliment I can give.

It's funny, I gotta do a rewind real quick

because the What Podcast, when they came to Camp Rutteroo

in 19 and did the live podcast

during our craft beer exchange,

one of the funniest comments that Brad made

was talking to Barry about the morning routines.

He was talking about the Don't Eat Brand.

If I remember going back to the rewind.

If you're eating MREs, you don't have to worry about that

because nothing's gonna come out.

Fiber's built into the equation.

So I might be adding MRE to my list.

I'm telling you, I lived off those things

and they mess up your digestive tract.

If you're barely tuning in, Pedialyte and MREs.

Anything to keep you out of the Florida body.

That's a top tip right there.

That's a top honor.

If you're just tuning in, Pedialyte, MREs,

you're not gonna thank yourself, but you'll be thankful.

Hey, we still have not introduced probably the sweetest

out of our whole group over here.

I don't know about that.

Yes, yes, yes.

I'm Chloe.

I help out at the Bonnaroooster.

And then I do, can I swear on here?

Hell yeah.

Fuck you.

And I do Shadada festivals as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's me.

So the idea that everyone would gather is amazing to me.

Probably shouldn't be cause we've all talked year round,

which is the whole reason we both have podcasts

and you guys do what you do, right?

It's a year round thing.

Yeah.

What's really special about this group of individuals

or representatives from the Bonnaroooster

or the Watt podcast and, you know,

Lindsey hosting this get together and his property

is that the people that you meet here,

even though those that are here that are not associated

specifically with Camp Ritteroo

or any of our specific groups,

it's the concept of what Bonnarooo really encompasses, right?

It's the radiating positivity,

but also being able to see people outside of festival.

And we've been sitting around all morning

talking about our love for music, our love for vinyl.

And it's kind of common and dominant.

And then it's kind of funny that, you know,

I met some of the individuals I don't know personally

and they're like, oh, you know,

we heard you on the Watt podcast last year.

Why don't we came to the beer exchange?

It was kind of cool that you just meet these people

that you really have not officially met

and you get to know them.

And it's just, it's what embodies this group.

And I think that's something that I think we all try to do.

And that's kind of the point of these kind of get togethers.

I think it really, you know, you say that

it really shows that the true Bonnarooo, Bonnarooian code.

I mean, you know, the folks that we've had out here,

you know, we had a good time last night.

There's not-

I saw you did.

That was the last one to sleep.

I'm just gonna go ahead and throw that out there for everybody.

It was 4.32 AM.

Yeah, nobody was having a bad time.

And there's not a speck of trash out here.

No.

Respect the farm.

The outside screams of nature became my inner screams

and my way to sleep and it was beautiful.

It's the cleanest porta-potty I've ever seen.

A treat.

He came in after me.

I was gonna drop that.

It's like, you know, seriously, leave it for the next guy.

That's the whole thing.

Yeah, respect the farm.

And I mean, the thing that we have learned through our podcast

and your podcast and the RooHamm guys is,

doesn't matter where you live,

we all feel the same thing, right?

I mean, it really-

And I think being around other individuals,

it energizes you as well, right?

Like when you have these really deep conversations

about music and stuff like that,

it makes you love it more.

And being that you get to be around like-minded people,

because we all know when we're in our individual spaces,

there's not always the like-minded people around

and you have to navigate those waters.

So it's really nice to be in the common denominator

of really connecting.

In the past year, I think me personally,

that's what I've come to miss the most.

Like I do miss going to these epic live shows

that you see on the What Stage.

But what I have really missed is us just BSing

around campsites, just talking about just funny stuff

or deep stuff, whatever it may be, you know?

Good vibes are good vibes.

But also having that commonality, like you said, to share.

It's not just, you know, you might've liked

the Tame show last night, you maybe didn't,

but it didn't matter.

There's gonna be another one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My favorite one.

Or I get that you liked it, you know?

I'm not gonna try to harsh on you for liking something.

It's like, cool, good for you.

Can't wait for the next one.

Well, you know, example of it,

we were sitting here right before you showed up,

going through the lineup day by day from the bottom line

and ignoring the top two lines.

Just in that discovery with a group

of like eight people in there, ooh, this is good.

Okay, yeah, this is gonna be a drive-by,

but yes, I absolutely want to see this van.

There's like six of us with completely different tastes.

And then all of a sudden we're like, ooh, what is that?

That's yummy.

I don't know what everyone was,

and they're like, ooh.

We're going to that, yeah.

I'm not looking towards the triage that happens every year

when they tell me what actually is gonna happen.

And I have to decide between my A love and my B love.

This is gonna be a hard year.

I'm gonna catch half this set and half that set,

and they already knew my vibe and damn them for splitting it.

How do they know every year?

That's a great point.

It's, you all sit around with your list,

and we do it, I guess, because my co-host

likes picking on some people in our camp.

But for the most part, people are like, cool,

all right, I get your reasons for wanting to see this van

that I think is terrible.

So I'm gonna let, maybe I'll go check them out.

And that's a different, really is a different vibe

than what I grew up with, to be honest with you.

It was more, I'm cooler than you,

because I like these guys.

I don't think that's a thing anymore.

It's not a thing anymore.

That's my favorite part about Bonnarooo though,

is like, I meet somebody random,

and they tell me their passion.

I'm like, I've heard about these folks,

and I have a glance-ery understanding of them,

but holy shit, how many funnel cakes have you eaten?

The answer is never enough.

Yeah, she knows what I mean.

And I feel like I need to come ride a sugar high

over here with you at this band.

And I do that often.

And honestly, that's like my favorite parts of experiencing.

It's always music Christmas.

I've had so many people,

since I have not been ashamed of my obsession,

I've had so many people come to me and it's like,

hey man, I kinda wanna come to the pit

for Tame Apollo with you.

Just come out and have a lunch.

It's funny, I can see that,

and everybody's going to end you.

Oh yeah.

Oh, we have to listen to each other.

I have no shame in that either,

being like their biggest hype man.

Because like, they kind of started as a joke,

because like for people that haven't followed it,

they accidentally, or I don't know,

they leaked the lineup for Bonnarooo at Daven,

officially came out.

And my wife, Sharla, my lovely co-host of our podcast,

she went and listened to a few songs and she was like,

you know, I really think you wanna listen to this.

This is kind of up and down.

I got like just two songs in and I'm like, oh my God.

I'm so into this.

Why didn't I know these people before?

Yeah, and I'm putting the plug out now.

I sent them an email, I would love to interview them.

Yeah.

So, kikugaku moyo flavor of like that just jazz riff rock,

good shit.

Yeah, you came to me a couple of years ago

and there was a band out of Japan that you were just,

you were advocating hard for them.

Kikugaku moyo, they are Japanese psych folk funk.

And if you heard words that you liked in there,

just fucking tune in.

I purposely dragged like 20 people out of bed

on Sunday morning at 10 a.m. at Bonnarooo in 2019,

because their show was at 11 a.m.

and it was like, you're gonna wanna be in the pit.

You wake up.

Good for you.

I'm telling you right now,

I wake up at 7 a.m. that day.

My asshole lover and neighbor convinced,

tried to convince me to like sleep at the stage

with a blanket, so I'd be there first.

And my gullible ass for a second was like,

I wouldn't be ahead of the game.

Yeah.

I can see that.

But I immediately knew that like, no, I'm frangible.

I need to sleep and come back.

I love that energy though, like when you're like,

this band is someone you have to see

and I'm dragging you with me whether you want it or not.

That's how I ended up at John Prine.

I was like,

oh, yeah.

I'm so joyful that I went, you know what I mean?

But it's like, you just have to trust your people.

Cause it's like, we have different tastes,

but I know I like you.

So like, I'm probably gonna like the music you like.

And aren't you glad that we made it to that show?

Thrilled.

It's one of my favorites.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's another thing I really like

as we were talking about.

As we were talking about the kind of connection here is like,

that's the other thing I've really enjoyed talking about

the Bonnarooian code and the tying in with the music is

you get to hear people with different musical selections,

but you also get to hear kind of the deeper part of it

of why that music means to them.

Honestly, all the things that we've done,

myself and Mitchell joined you guys in Chattanooga.

You guys came to our beer exchange, myself and Daniel.

I mean, we've done different things

and just things like this.

You get to really connect with people on a deeper level,

which is really enjoyable.

That's kind of the difference between like a city fest,

like Lollapalooza or Voodoo and a camping festival,

like ours or Firefly or something like that.

Because those connections that you are able to make

become your tastemakers.

Like if we're all like just joking around at Camp Red Roo

and he tells me I gotta go see this Japanese funk jazz,

whatever, and I'm like, I hear how enthusiastic he is about it.

I'm like, yeah, you know what?

I'm going with it.

Somebody's passionate about it,

so I need to figure out what the passion is.

Do you like Column B?

They'll blow it out with Column B.

I'm like.

We went to Voodoo down in New Orleans

and you just don't have that experience.

It was a hassle to get from the hotel out to the park

where they held that.

And aside from waiting in line,

you don't get the chance to talk to that many other people.

You kind of just stay with your crew

and those kind of new discoveries don't happen.

Well, we know Barry doesn't like traffic.

Oh, well, yeah.

You would not like Voodoo.

He doesn't like the Voodoo.

There's other people in there.

Makes me sweat.

Yeah, city, yeah, there's definitely,

I mean, we've had the conversation

with different people along the way.

It's like City Fest and Camping Fest

are a totally different beast in their own.

City Fest can be fun because, you know,

you deal with the ordinances from the cities

and stuff like that.

There's some great music there,

but I've always really enjoyed camping festivals.

You know, not only the stumble back to camp is easier,

but you don't have to dodge forever.

But I enjoy it.

Sometimes it's the pinballs.

Yeah, me turning in neighbors.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's the immersion.

Yeah, it's the immersion into it.

It's like they always say you're there.

What else are you gonna do?

What else are you gonna do?

I'm forced to live this other person's life

and I'm happy to be there.

I'm really interested to go try some of these other

epic experiences that are like that,

where it's like camping.

Like I've never been to Electric Forest.

I would love to do that.

The problem has always been that it's the weekend

after Bonnar and I'm trashed.

And one of these days, I would really love to go experience

the anarchy that is Burning Man.

I'm honestly a little intimidated by it.

I want to see it, but that's like a bucket list thing.

I'm curious of how you and Lindsay came up with this idea

or Lindsay, I don't know whose brain child it was.

I'm back in Portland.

This is what, the third one we got is the sequel three?

We had the Speakeasy Roo,

which was the first one that was on the original

June Bonnarooo 2020 weekend.

And then it became Mini Roo last September

on the second Bonnarooo weekend.

And then, so this is Speakeasy three,

or Mini Roo the sequel.

We can't even decide what we want to call it.

We'll figure it out down the road.

Well, the first time, the second, third.

So we camped next to Daniel.

We were like three spots down and just kind of met each other

and had known each other kind of through social media

a little bit.

I was a peon compared to him.

And when we found out that Bonnarooo wasn't going to happen.

First we cried.

Yeah.

Yes.

Crocodile tears.

First step of is the remorse stage.

And then I think we talked about it a lot.

Yeah, there was no stages.

Yeah.

And I think we talked about it on an earlier podcast,

but it was just like, dude, we've got to do something.

We've got to see if we can get together,

if we can find a way to do it in a socially distanced.

Yeah, because we're still in the midst of a,

responsible way.

Right in the middle of the pandemic.

Yeah, we didn't, in June,

we didn't know what was going on still.

And so I was like, we talked about it.

Well, I think we could make it happen.

Let's invite some of our friends,

the close ones that we've met at Bonnarooo

and maybe some of their close friends

and just see what happens.

And sure enough, it happened.

And then it was like, okay, we've got to do it in September

and okay, we've got to do it again in June.

And it just kind of evolved into a nice close group

of friends.

Even folks I don't know, never met before,

that have come out and that have absolutely shown me

great color, just great people.

So.

I'm happy to be new to that.

And I just want to say, fully inoculated,

ready for open mouth kiss and string.

Yes, sir.

Me too.

Vaccinated, ready to party.

Yeah.

That's right.

I mean, I'm vaccinated, I kind of wax the bus.

So, we didn't show up for the first two,

but now that we're fully vaccinated,

we're happy to be back in the part of things.

And I just want to throw that addendum on there

because I've been afraid of the air for the past year.

Yeah.

And shout out to anybody else that has built agoraphobia

in the short term.

Oh gosh.

I love you, it's going to be okay.

Tear down the wall.

Yeah, the music is great too,

because you guys have some local artists that have played

and some local DJs.

So, I've been privileged to bring down a Huntsville band

the three times that we've done this.

And Huntsville isn't like the best place for music.

Like we aren't really known for that well.

We're known more for like, you know,

as being the rocket city where NASA

and Redstone Arsenal is.

But we do have a great up and coming scene.

The first time I brought one of my favorite bands, Seeds.

They're kind of like a EDM funk band,

kind of similar to like Cherub or Grizz

or something like that.

Second time.

Yeah.

Second time we brought in Dim Dam Dogs,

kind of like a surfer rock.

Those guys are great, yeah.

And this time I brought in a band

that I really think is about to hit it big.

Oh man, they were so good.

She was so good.

Wanda out of Huntsville.

She started doing her solo thing

and then now they're a three piece.

And maybe I'm not given the best description.

Maybe I'm not giving her enough credit,

but I kind of consider it to be the female Mac DeMarco,

kind of like low key stoner music

just to have on in the background.

But like, she also goes a good little bit more rocky

and punky sometimes.

But she feels like it's great.

But I expect some tortilla frisbees.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

I always expect tortilla frisbees.

And then to kind of balance that out.

It's already without tortilla.

Yeah, I mean, if I don't catch one, I'm out.

And so to kind of balance that out,

I had some musician friends here locally

in Southern middle Tennessee.

We had the difference with the T last time.

To give you guys an idea,

our stage is a 20 foot junked up work trailer

with some lights on it.

Very DIY.

And we had a five piece band on that trailer.

It was five, it was 10 pounds of shit in a five pound bag.

And then we've had a national recording artist,

Lee Gibson has come out and played for us twice now.

And then I think tonight we have a band called What?

Yes, and Barry, I'm so excited for you to hear them.

I told him earlier, if Greta Van Fleet is Led Zeppelin,

these kids, are they still in high school?

They had one who I think was a junior last year.

Yeah, so I think he's gonna be a senior this coming year.

If Greta is Zeppelin, then these kids are Pink Floyd.

I think if they keep developing

and if they can get in front of the right people,

they could potentially have the same trajectory.

Very, very cool sound.

And then we've had some very good DJs

and EDM artists from Nashville come down.

We had this kid, J. Hennedix last night.

He's fantastic.

Young guy, when he started off,

it was sort of a back to back with another DJ.

And now I think he's really finding

this really rich house sound.

And then even Sean's son, DJ Flock.

That was really good.

That was a great, great set.

His first touch of turntables was June last year.

You would not have thought it, like transition, great.

Like I love EDM and DJing is not easy to do.

It's not, I mean, I've dabbled in it

just as a kind of a hobby in production.

And it's not, it's not easy to do.

And you would have not thought that he sounded

like a grizzled veteran.

And oh man, I would love to see that.

Mixing is not so hard to do,

but coming up with original stuff in a software suite

like Ableton, that is tough.

And he picked that up fairly quickly.

He played his first original song last night, Omi,

which was just phenomenal.

It's, you know, for us, they go to shows.

I mean, what we enjoy about like a set, right?

You know, some of the biggest artists,

they take you to the Hills and Valleys, right?

Yeah.

That's how his kind of was.

He picked the right music for the right time,

played to the small crowd that was here.

And it just, it kept the energy.

And people were dancing and we were right in front of them

dancing and trying to hype them up.

It was great.

And I guess then tonight we're closing down with DJ Snow,

I think he's played Reteru.

He's played Reteru.

He's done a lot of BonzerCube shows.

I think he's even played-

He played the RooBus party.

He opened for Repeat Repeat that year.

Yes, yeah.

That was fun.

I think he even played the Calliope or Caliope

or at one point-

Calliope.

Calliope.

Calliope.

Nickelodeon.

Nickelodeon, a pulling cart with the piano.

I have a question and I hope I ask it right.

And it just occurred to me.

We all are so excited about Bonnaroo

and we get excited every year.

And I know we'd look at the list and we say that,

I can't wait to see that act.

But do you guys go with an actual expectation?

No.

You know what I mean?

It depends.

You're probably why I'm thinking of it.

You're so excited about Tame Impala.

Me, I could list a few people.

Do you, you know what I mean?

There's that, you can go with such an expectation

and then it not get there.

But what I want to, what seems to me about Bonnaroo is,

my only expectation is once I get there

and my tent is set up and I've opened that first beer,

I really don't care what happens.

But if you didn't do that in the right order,

you open the first beer and then you set the tent up.

Yeah, absolutely.

I hate somebody that tells me tent first.

I don't want to act until we're in camp

because I just, I'm nervous.

I'm afraid they're gonna, you know,

we don't have you on the list.

So I have an answer to this, but you go first, Mitchell.

My favorite part about Bonnaroo

in terms of the experience of it is,

I purposely write out what my schedule for the day

preference is, what I've done triage,

and I've listened to a bunch of YouTube videos

and I figured out where I want to

hopefully draw my attention to, but I'm a gadfly.

So I don't have control of where I'm gonna go.

And I bring this list of people and I'm like,

I'll be here at five.

I'm like, why wouldn't you be here?

Yeah.

And then I hear what they're here is and I'm like,

fuck.

Why would I be here?

And then it just, it-

You guys have heard, I've asked Ashley Capps

the same thing, the AC and AC Entertainment.

He's like, yeah, I got a list, but I never go.

I never make-

Music Christmas.

I make my list just like everybody else.

I play by the ear.

I never play by the ear.

My first-

I always play by the ear.

I have like three that I'm there for.

So going into what, year six, year seven now,

first couple of years, it was listing.

It was, I gotta go see-

Same, same.

Muffin and Sons.

I gotta go see this person.

And I typically do see that one, two,

and there's been a couple of years

where the lineup wasn't as ecstatic about

where I was like, well, I'll just go.

I think in the last at least three years,

I've got rid of that routine.

I have gone and just gone with the flow.

Now there are people that I want to see

and I'm excited to see, but I think

I stopped doing the routine.

I stopped doing the planning because I know,

like Mitchell said, once you do the planning,

like we were talking about previously,

you start to talk to people in camping like,

oh man, the Bible's like so good last night.

And then you go hang out with them

and go see what their show they're going to,

because you don't have a necessary schedule to go to.

Your 5pm firm becomes a 5pm store.

Yeah.

There's a film for that.

I guess partner one's saying,

there's a film for that.

There's the pregame where there is the expectation,

but that's almost the fun.

Going through the list.

And then when you get there,

Yeah, I don't, I think I throw the aspect.

I guess that's what I'm asking.

I'm a pretty list making guy.

And I know my top tier that are there must sees.

And then since I really dig into those bottom

two, three lines of the lineup,

and we'll take a band, Low Cut Connie

from a couple of years ago.

Yeah, they're great.

I listened to a couple of songs.

Yeah, they're great.

We'll make sure we go see them.

Absolutely exceeded my expectations

because of the show they put on that was just phenomenal.

Warren Treaty for me.

Yeah.

It was just a pathway between Davy and Mavis Staples.

Yeah.

And now, I mean,

Yeah, we were talking about that.

Friends.

Yeah, they're great friends.

We were talking about that metal band,

Killing the Faith, well, 15 or what it was.

The high school, was it Killing the Faith?

It was something like that.

Like metal kids from New York.

They were viral, they were on like Stephen Colbert shows.

Yeah, and then they went on a tour after that.

So, oh, I'm sorry.

I have to pee, I'm announcing it.

We can cut.

I'm leaving and I'm coming back.

Nope, we're not cutting.

I know.

And then,

People are doing it wrong.

People are doing it wrong.

This is how we have to come back.

Fashionable thing here.

The booze has caught up.

So, very happy you were talking about.

I feel like I've gone through different phases of this

in my boner career.

Like the first couple of years, I had a very set schedule.

I'm going to this and then this and then this.

But then the more that I went,

the more that I would see these impromptu things happen

that you just couldn't possibly have planned.

I've talked about this before,

but one of my favorites ever was,

I thought I was just gonna walk by Rufus Du Sol one year.

But then a giant inflatable unicorn,

the size of a house goes by and I'm like,

nope, this is where the party is tonight.

Yeah.

I'm that way with flaming lips.

I'd gone to bed.

Yeah.

And I looked out and there's a guy in a bun.

Yeah.

I didn't know him.

I was like,

I got out of bed.

You mentioned,

tame for me.

Like I said before,

like I'm just absolutely obsessed.

But that's a very personal thing.

Right.

Like I really latched on to currents

at a very good time in my life

when I needed something like that,

that where I listened to Kevin's lyrics.

And I was like, oh, this is somebody that at one point,

at least went through the same things

that I'm going through.

And combined with like the Trippie's Psych Rock sound,

it really became very personal to me.

So now that they're coming back around

and I've had almost over two years to look forward to this.

I mean, I know I'm putting a lot of expectations,

but I've seen his show twice before.

So I know I'm not putting too much expectations on this.

It means a lot to me personally to be in the pit,

to have that take up my whole field of vision

and listen to this new record

that I've not heard played live.

That's a whole other ball game.

Like I couldn't even, yeah.

I get it.

I mean, we've talked about, you know,

one of our nut butter campers, Bryan Stone,

Brad picks on him something horrible.

The one year he held it, Pearl Jam was there.

And he literally sat in his car all day long

listening to Pearl Jam takes.

Oh my goodness.

He wasn't there 10 minutes.

Came walking back, it sucks.

He missed everything else.

Oh my gosh.

Everything else just because of that.

Just because he was so focused in this expectation.

And I mentioned it to pick on him

because he's an easy, easy target.

And I would do it if he was here.

But I guess I've been here.

I invited him.

I'm guessing I'm thinking of, you know,

some of the first timers too.

You know, we're all experienced.

There is that make a list.

Yeah.

You gotta do that.

You know, it's not a bad idea to make the list.

I think you should.

It's part of the fun.

Yeah.

Try if it's, you know,

if it's somebody on your bucket list, but be open to that.

It's definitely fun.

I mean, I know on some of the years

that I wasn't ecstatic about the lineup.

18.

18.

18.

18.

But I've had some really good years

where I don't know if this sounds strange at all.

Cause we've talked about how music means to us personally

and kind of the high and lows

and kind of why we connect to certain music.

I've had a couple of years where

I didn't set those expectations

and my day or days was like a complete journey.

It was like one show got me in my feels,

which then to continue that euphoria,

I found our walk by this other one

that touched my soul in some way,

which then led into somebody I knew I was gonna go see,

which kept me on that same level.

So it really took me on a really weird journey.

So yeah, like you're saying for first timers,

that is the one thing I will always tell first timers is,

we're talking about expectations, like wonder.

Like I love that quote, like not all who wonder are lost.

Like that is the perfect thing at Bonnarooo sometimes is

you go see the people that you wanna go see,

but let your soul wander through those fields

because there's something magical about your day.

When you get to the end of the day

and you're at Kaliope at the end of the night,

I've had such the greatest day

and we have a friend of ours, James Gaberson, shout out.

He has some of those and he will on his Facebook,

he will list out who he went and saw.

And that is kind of one of those situations

where somebody like that always enjoys seeing what he saw

because we may be on a different path.

But we know that complete journey through the day

because it wasn't planned.

Some of it was not planned.

It's funny that we kind of joking around about 18,

not being that great to line up,

but we were talking about this earlier.

18 was one of the most fun years I can remember

because of the community things.

That was the year that we had repeat repeat play

the little makeshift stage

right outside the bus store right here.

And the year that a bunch of us did a joke pizza party

at Jungle.

Yeah.

Made a lot of great friends that year.

That was a lot of big connection.

Well, and 18, you say you weren't excited about the lineup.

I personally was not excited about the top parts

of the lineup.

And so I went digging.

We went mining, looked for some stuff,

found some cool stuff that we kind of liked the sound.

We had that journey where we went to those shows.

It was one of the best years for me.

Just new discovery of music.

Someone on Reddit almost every year does the Lord's work

and breaks down, breaks the lineup by genre.

And I just go explore genres I like in the music I like.

Pro-temptivity out there, pee before the podcast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Speaks from experience.

As a halfway through experiencer.

Hey, we're bringing in some audience here.

Yeah.

Welcome.

We're talking about expectations.

Oh, OK.

You meet Nixie.

I do.

Let's put her on the spot.

Charlotte, who do you think you might be expecting

to be a great show with this year?

Expecting to be a great show?

Yeah.

M.D. Moctar.

Oh, yeah.

Another shout out.

She got me in on that, yeah.

Yeah.

So good.

What grabbed you about it?

Because they put the lineup.

What?

Besides that.

That grabbed the attention.

Yeah, obviously.

But it's like a world music.

Yeah.

It's different.

Yeah, me and Charlotte love that kind of stuff.

We love, I mean, maybe this makes us seem silly,

but we love M.I.A. just because she has kind of what the music

is about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Bucky dong dong.

Never mind that.

Fuck that.

Barry, I'm curious to hear, so you're an industry guy.

So who are you excited?

Oh, yes.

You guys have talked about, so you guys

have broken down the lineup one of a couple

of your last episodes.

But I want to hear, is there anybody that you want to,

or you're really excited to see?

I want to see Food Fighters because I haven't.

I mean, Dave Grohl, you've got to see Dave.

And I've said, I think Grohl is the best representative

of rock and roll right now.

100%.

I think he's one of the last ones of kind of that 90s

era to the true kind of a.

He bridges it all.

The bridge is, yeah.

He's certainly the last one.

Carmen Cardney is his favorite.

But Grohl gets it.

Yeah.

And Taco and I have talked about it.

I want to see Turquoise.

Turquoise.

Turquoise.

Turquoise.

Andrew Bello with their own.

Adrian Ballou.

Jerry Harris.

Yeah, doing the whole talking heads up.

Adrian Ballou, that's going to be a touch.

What did you think when you saw them

rap before it hit the fan last year?

That Turquoise was.

Yeah.

Turquoise was.

I don't think.

Was he not there?

I didn't go with him.

Oh, you done messed up.

Turquoise was.

Yeah.

They were great.

They were great.

I knew who they were already.

But I mean, that was their own material.

We saw them just do a whole show of theirs.

Bonnarooo, they're not doing their show.

They're talking heads.

They're talking heads.

Yeah.

So it's going to be good.

Hold on.

What year was it that they played on Thursday at Bonnarooo?

Was that?

2019.

That was 19.

19 when they played on Thursday.

Yeah, they were there.

Yeah.

I'm trying to remember who else is.

Let me check.

Pull up the lineups.

It's a mini, mini.

Lizzo, to me, is a walk-by.

Uh-oh.

What?

You're going to pick a fight with the lady across from you.

Oh, my.

We fucked it up to the tempo.

She's somebody I'm going to go see.

I'm not sure I'll stay for the whole show.

Uh-oh.

Chloe, what are your thoughts?

I'll have rage for you.

I'll rage for you.

There you go.

Yeah.

I'll kill me, man.

I take your indifference.

I double it.

That's not inside of you.

No, just how you're doing.

Just talk to her or you or whoever.

I'm almost curious, too, if there's a, I think,

high energy is still going to be your show.

But 2020, such a momentum climb, right?

So now we're in 2021, and we have some other artists that

are, I won't say they're bigger than Lizzo,

because I don't want to make her seem lower.

But I wonder if the trajectory is different.

So I wonder if that affects the show at all.

It's just for me.

Yeah.

A year ago.

I think so.

A year ago, I knew her the whole time.

Yeah.

Now I'm just curious.

When we talked to AC, I mean, they

said that they really try to plan the lineup based

on how these artists are getting.

But it's not the very moment thing.

Yeah, she won a Grammy, right?

I mean, she had such a trajectory, right?

And now she hasn't put out a hit this year yet.

Well, not to say, I mean, there's sometimes

there's sides between, but you're right.

If you take her down a bump on the lineup,

as opposed to being top-billed last year,

what kind of conversation is that with her publicity team?

I want to say this as a throwback to the What Podcast.

Go back two years ago, and they purposely asked me,

who do you think is going to be at 2020 Bonnaroo?

And I said Lizzo and Orville Peck.

You did.

I remember that.

And legitimately, they were, and they still are for 2021,

because she's the first female.

Man, Orville Peck, nobody can put on a cowboy outfit.

Oh my god.

If you're not familiar with Orville Peck,

imagine Joy Division doing Goth Country.

Yes, that's a good description.

That's a good, that's a good, wow.

You must have missed the Midland show.

Those boys were nice in the country.

Yeah, Midland's good.

But I think some people only know

Midland for that one kind of big song that's recognizable.

So I got a question for everybody.

I was listening to you guys the other day,

and you were talking about how Clint Black is a great headliner

over at Austin.

And I'm thinking George Strayfield.

I'm Clint Black.

That shows my area of expertise with country music, I suppose.

I knew it was some older wife not singing country music.

Is this your second rodeo?

No, it's the first one.

OK, sorry, excuse me.

The one we like down was 60 number one.

Yes.

Yeah, you looked it up, but it was 60.

Now, the obvious answer is Dolly.

So let's just take that out of the equation.

Next question is, is Gareth with like 30?

Was Dolly ever on the table?

Can we have Dolly?

Dolly, pardon, please come to Bonnaroo.

We all clearly want that.

All I'm saying is if George Strayfield,

if he can be the one that could be the perfect headliner

over at Austin, if it's not Dolly, who is it at Bonnaroo

that could be the great headliner country artist?

Which they should have, I think, being that close to Nashville.

The Dixie Chicks.

You know, like legitimately, they're the right brain.

They're the chicks.

It's all of the crowd together in a good old country.

Woo!

I may get some flack for this, but I really

enjoyed the conversation that Bridenberry had about the breaking

the mold there or kind of breaking the cup there for the country artists.

And I do enjoy country.

And I was thinking about this of like, who would be,

so George Stray, undoubtedly the king of the king of culture, right?

You can't doubt that.

So my thought is a little different because I think if Bonnaroo goes country,

they don't do George Stray.

They unfortunately, I don't think they do Dolly, which I hope they were.

I think, I think that because of the demographic,

I think they go somebody not legacy.

They go someone like Luke Bryan.

Don't you wish that he would be Ricky Bobby?

No, no, no, no.

Stop it.

Hear me out.

Hear me out.

Hear me out because the reason why.

No, no, I'm not saying.

I don't want to see Luke Bryan.

I'm feeling it out there.

Yeah.

And I'm not saying specifically Luke Bryan.

I think they tap into that.

And I'm not going to call Luke Bryan poppy country.

He's like top 40 country.

But I'm going to say they're going to go top 40 country.

I think Garth would be a great plug.

I don't think Garth's show would work well at Bonnaroo

from someone who's seen that show.

He's super interactive.

Crowd.

But it's just his fan base though.

Yeah.

Chris Gaines.

I would go to a Chris Gaines concert.

I think.

No, Cap.

What 100%?

I want to hear this.

Why would he not work?

Because I would have disagreed with you.

I don't think he would work just because of his interaction and the,

from seeing the show with the pivoting stage

and the way he works that stage on all sides.

I don't think he necessarily works at Bonnaroo.

But I think someone like Eric Churchman.

Like Childish did?

I think he would.

If he got out in the crowd, he would be out in the crowd.

If he could fly from the stage back to the sound booth,

would be wonderful.

So my thing when I was talking about the top 40 guys,

does a Garth Brooks, does his fan base stay for the whole weekend?

No.

That's what I'm saying.

So you're bringing in somebody that doesn't bring in fans.

But what about an Eric Church?

I think an Eric Church would be almost perfect.

I got one and y'all are going to laugh and throw me out of the bus.

It's your bus.

Kenny Chesney.

Yes.

Oh!

But that's not a CM thing.

He's from East Tennessee.

Yeah, he's from Knoxville.

His songs are like Jimmy Buffett-ish.

Yeah.

They're like, it's true music.

And he literally has a song about Bonnaroo.

I can see it.

I can see it.

And he's one of those perfect artists

that bridges that older crowd and newer crowd.

100%.

That's what I'm saying.

Now we've got down.

I mean, that's the baseline of a lot of these interactions.

I can drink and sing along to that.

And that's the only reason I'm saying a top 40 person like a Luke

Bryan, because I think to sell tickets, which

if you put someone on the top line, you've got to use those tickets.

But they put John Pride on there and people didn't fucking

bite on that angle.

That's what blows me away.

All of us in this bus, I think, went to John Pride.

That's why I mentioned in the discussion, Brandy and Kelsey.

And they're sort of the crossover.

Yeah, they're the crossover for the demographic.

I like his idea of the Dixie Chicks,

because I think fans would say, oh, it's the chicks.

The Cheez-Me.

Sorry.

Freedom Fries.

This is like yesterday.

I think there's this new crop of more Americana-style country

artists that would.

The Lone Below.

Sturgill.

Yeah, like Sturgill or Luke Holmes, Jason Isbell.

Don't get me started.

Jason Isbell is going to be good.

Don't get me started.

Don't get me started.

Get started.

I will be there and just I will be at the back of the pit

on the rail with a beer in each hand, melting my face for that show.

Drink Jason Isbell?

Yes, ma'am.

Will you hold me like a baby?

But the only thing I'll have to do is drink one of those beers.

Yeah.

Give me a Silly Strong.

I'm a D.I.

Bring your own.

The only thing I don't like about the country artist aspect of it

is I don't know if it'll happen for Bonnarooo,

just because there are so many other country festivals like Pilgrimage.

That's true.

Well, actually, I think your question nailed it.

Do they stay?

Yeah.

We get too many TV and Gap floods.

Yeah, because there's nothing unless they go to the Opry on Thursday.

Oh, but I love the Opry.

I have more people.

But then there's everybody's scatter on Friday.

But see, Barry, they've made lanes for Country before as well.

But I mean, if you've watched the Opry, that's literally what it is.

I liked it, but I lost it.

They've made lanes.

I know.

I got it.

Exactly.

I mean, I grew up.

Midland, we had Sturgill.

We had several other country artists.

There is a lane in there.

But if you find it, you can spend all weekend in Country.

Yeah, I don't know if you'd have to.

I mean, does that specific headliner bring in that lane?

The self-tip.

How is it?

I want to repeat, if we couldn't hook them with John Prine,

I just feel like Country's under-delivered and under-sold at Bonnarooo.

That's why nobody below 30 showed up.

They missed a great show.

It was incredible.

That was amazing.

Yeah.

And he was so happy to be there.

Oh, yeah.

I see Brandy coming out.

That dance at the end when he danced off the stage.

Brandy came out for John and Odessa.

And Hoosier.

And Hoosier.

She was the fucking queen.

I think that they could.

I really think to talk to kind of, I want to say in the conversation of Country,

but the best way to bring it together, Super Jam.

Yes.

Do a Super Jam.

I think you can solve some of that.

A new Nashville alt-country Super Jam.

So all those kind of artists that we just mentioned.

You Sturgill, Jason, all those.

It's the same way with doing the Bluegrass, right?

The Bluegrass Super Jam, but doing a Country Super Jam,

because that way you're not putting a headliner up there

to try to draw money with, and you still get to fulfill the...

Yeah.

Can I put an ear bug out there?

Put Brittany Howard in front of a Bluegrass Jam.

Please.

Did Brad call you?

Yeah.

Brittany would do it so well.

You're right.

That would be amazing.

That would be so good at gathering.

That would be delish.

Well, because the Super Jam is like, in past, like they did an R&B one, right?

And then they did...

Grizz was my favorite.

Grizz was.

So was Jermone.

Brittany Howard was my favorite.

Sylvia Nessot, what do we think?

Yes.

That was 2014, that was my favorite.

That was so cool.

What do you guys feel about the Sylvia Nessot?

Wait, I don't even know what that's going to be.

Super Jam.

They haven't announced what it's going to be.

With.

What does that mean?

Yeah, with.

With.

Who's going to be with?

I think it's going to be really good.

With somebody.

All right, anything else?

We have talked about a lot.

I think they covered a lot.

They covered a lot.

And Mitchell still has a beer left, and I don't have any.

Oh, no, I've got to grab this.

He's working on it.

There's several beers after this recording.

Well, I want to thank y'all for coming out.

Like I said earlier, this whole thing was just a plot,

entertain, bury.

We finally got it out here.

So I feel like it's mission accomplished, guys.

I think it's now time for me to get embarrassing.

Yes.

Woo.

We'll get a whole beer of stuff for this.

I'm excited for you to see What and DJ Catlo and DJ Snow tonight.

We're going to get you with it.

Cheers, everybody.