Despite Bonnaroo's cancellation this year, fans persevere and call in to share what makes the festival so special: freedom, life-changing connections, and more. But first, The What Podcast crew celebrates a big milestone. Thank you for 2,000 YouTube subscribers! Fresh off last week's in-depth interview with Brad Parker and Cory Smith about Bonnaroo 2026 plans, we dive into the heartfelt listener voicemails, reflect on the 2025 shutdown aftermath, talk transparency, programming changes, and more. Want to share your own thoughts with us? Call our voicemail line at (423) 667-7877.
We also head into the off-season by spotlighting a few recent trips to The Caverns for a last-minute Drive-By Truckers show, and a visit to Dave's Little Magic Bar in Johnson City. Stay subscribed to The What Podcast for an upcoming interview with Kyle Hollingsworth from String Cheese Incident and some upcoming fall festivals we're covering, too!
Listen to this episode here or watch it on YouTube. As always, subscribe to The What Podcast wherever you get podcasts for weekly updates on Bonnaroo and festival news!
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Why Bonnaroo Feels Like Home: Fans Share Their Stories & Memories
You know, everybody online knows I hate the we're so back thing.
You know, through Bonnarooo, I know all these people pretty much all over the country.
And I can be like, hey, I'm coming through town and they're like, sure, love to have you.
So it's neat having a driveway to park because sometimes that's all I need.
Outside of Bonnarooo itself, it's just it's just a great place to be.
If we have Edm Kyle and we have Evan Bonnarooo, how come we don't have Sean Bonnaroo?
Welcome back to the What Podcast.
Hello, everybody.
I look like I just got off a tractor.
It's not the look I was going for.
I kind of do, too.
We all do. We all got the trucker hats on.
Well, welcome to the club.
Yeah, I got on earlier and Russ said, do you not have a mirror?
And apparently not.
Our old buddy Brad Steiner asked me that all the time.
Did you look in the mirror today? Yeah, I did.
Actually, Barry, I think you did that to me.
A Bonnarooo. Oh, I did, actually.
We did. When we were standing around underneath the canopy, getting rained on all day.
You're like, do you ever look in the mirror?
I forgot about that.
I don't remember what you were wearing, but it was hideous.
Just popped in my head.
Forgot about that.
It's like, dude, do you not have a mirror?
Well, that's me this morning.
Tractor Bill.
I'm figuring it out. Middle age is changing.
I'm a man. Oh, my God.
Anyway, how are you guys doing?
Great. Glad to be back.
Yeah, yeah. I was back last week, but, you know, yeah.
We're going to talk about that.
We have a busy show.
We're going to recap a little bit.
Last week, Corey and Brad talking about Bonnarooo.
We're going to get into that in a second.
Russ, you went you went on another
bus about walkabout, whatever we want to call it.
Yeah, and it's Bonnarooo related.
So, you know, it's I was on assignment.
We'll put it that way. There you go.
There you go. And
and then we're going to listen to some voicemails.
We asked people a long time ago.
Gosh, what's it? A month ago?
Month and a half ago. Yeah.
We asked people to call into our special hotline
and leave us a voicemail about why you like Bonnarooo.
This was right after, right?
Wasn't it? It wasn't.
It was right after.
I think it was after the cancellation.
So we were we were still in the fields, I guess.
Yeah. So we were.
And it seems appropriate.
So we're going to listen to some of those.
But also, we've got a big milestone.
Oh, go ahead. Yes, this is huge.
We just hit 2000 subscribers on YouTube.
Wow.
Now, that's great.
And we're approaching the same on Spotify.
So, right. Yeah, we just hit.
We yeah, we just hit 1500 on Spotify.
I went back and dug back into our YouTube channel.
You know, we started audio only,
which was fine.
The first video that we put out was October 2019.
We had a crossover episode with Daniel and Sharla from the Rubas.
They brought a bunch of people up.
Remember, we did it at the Moxie.
Brian, you were there.
Did kind of a kind of a crossover episode.
That was huge.
Well, I put that on YouTube.
It sure was. Man, it was fun. Yeah.
Yeah, just put that on YouTube.
It did pretty well.
We did a couple more with the lineup reveal.
We did that at the Moxie, too, for 2020.
And then, of course, Brad moved to New Orleans and the world shut down.
So we had to figure out how to do all this remotely.
And we kind of just started putting since we were doing it video anyways,
might as well just put it on YouTube.
So and then just so you know, it took us three years and eight months
to hit 1000 subscribers.
And then it just took us another two years to hit 2000 subscribers.
So maybe maybe in a year we'll hit 3000 and beyond.
So tell your friends and your cousins and everybody else, let's go.
Let's get this thing to three K. Come on.
Yes, please. Yeah.
I mean, especially if you got friends or people that you know that are
going to Bonnarooo, maybe thinking about going to Bonnarooo, you know, share it.
It really helps a lot getting the word out because, you know,
we still run into people all the time that either haven't heard of the show
or they don't they miss some information and you've got to subscribe.
So we appreciate it.
Yeah. And if you are new, we started in, as said,
2018 as a Bonnarooo specific podcast.
We now talk about a lot of festivals.
And I was just thinking as you were describing that, Russ,
that the whole reason you're actually
reluctantly on camera, so to speak, is because we went on camera.
Right. Right.
You know, your whole idea was to never be
caught in the.
Now, when we recorded just audio and it was in person, you guys would be,
you know, have the mics.
And I was kind of in the background making sure, you know,
the levels were good and all that.
But once we started doing video, then it's like I'm on screen.
Might as well be part of it. So here I am, y'all. Yep.
Huge. Love it.
And then here's a here's a trivia question for you.
So I looked at the stats for people who watch on YouTube.
About 50 percent watch on their phones,
which is about expected.
Can you guess how many people watch on TV?
Oh, wow.
Uh, what the 50 percent that's left over.
Yeah, you already know 50 percent watches on their phones.
So the rest is going to be computer TV tablet.
How much do you think people watch on TV?
My next step would just be the other 50 percent.
Yeah, another. Yeah.
Pretty close. It's 32 percent watch on TV. Wow.
That's huge. I mean, so what are everybody else doing?
They're watching on their.
I hope they're not driving.
Yeah, they're driving. Yeah.
No, the rest is just split up between, you know, computer and tablet.
Sure. So they're at work or they're on their treadmill or whatever.
So cool. Well, hey.
Yeah. Hey, I mean, count me in on the TV guy.
I'm sorry. I didn't dress better.
Or on the monitor guy.
Yeah, I'm not big on my phone on those things.
But however you find the show, we appreciate it either way.
So we should know about that.
Yeah, that's awesome. Cool.
Well, that's interesting. Yeah.
All right. Tell me about last week.
That was an epic, epic show.
We've gotten so much so many comments.
A lot of views.
We had obviously Brad Parker,
head of Bonnarooo and Corey Smith,
marketing director for Bonnarooo with C3 Presents.
I thought it was great.
I thought it was very forthcoming.
It was exactly what I wanted
personally, which was to get a lot of questions answered,
to put a face again with it.
I'm glad we didn't.
Pick pick what's the word pile on.
I didn't want to recap the pain.
Reliving. Right.
We put a lot of effort into it.
Right. We focused on the future.
I think that was important.
There was still a lot to still there are still a lot of questions.
There's no question about that.
But what do you guys think?
What's what?
You know, it's one thing to do it live.
And then now we've had a week to digest.
What do you guys what thoughts?
I think they were very transparent and open about their thought process
behind some of these decisions.
And they were open to admit that they don't have everything figured out.
Yeah, they don't know exactly what everything is going to look like.
But they want to involve us, the public,
as they make those decisions.
And like you said, they don't want to make it seem like they're just
taking stuff away. They would rather it be up front.
And then later on, they can add stuff in.
So, you know, I think that's a big, big positive step.
Yeah, I actually thought Brad Parker was as kind of reserved as as he has been
in the then we've had him on before.
I mean, not meaning he wasn't answering questions, but he was he was careful
and he needs to be.
That's why I like Brad.
We joked on the stage that we're kind of frenemies.
That's not really true.
We're you know, we get along well, like his style.
But he was he was careful.
And and and but they got they got what they needed out there.
And we couldn't have gotten to everything.
We will continue to talk about this in the offseason.
I got a couple of things that I wanted to reference that here that I'll get to shortly.
And Corey brought it to.
I mean, he had he had plenty to say.
And I I was I spoke like for three minutes of the whole show,
which is good. I don't need to be dominating conversations.
So I enjoyed it very much.
I the surprise moment for me was Brad saying
that immediately following one of their questions was, can we do this again?
I I knew that we knew that we expressed that
everyone was asking that question, but to hear that from him.
Yeah. Can we actually do this again?
I thought was a was a big moment.
And it was for all the reasons that we talked about insurance, money,
you know, all of that stuff.
But that was a that was a who or what kind of moment for me.
You asked in a show a few weeks ago,
you know, I'm paraphrasing and trying to remember on the fly, but about
kind of why did it feel like to seemingly all of us or many of us that
the festival might be in trouble because that Friday,
none of us felt that way.
And that was a fair that was a fair question.
And I didn't really answer it that well, because I don't I guess I just didn't know.
But it sounds like that was the same way that even they were thinking. Right.
Exactly. I bet on Friday morning, Brad Parker thought, you know, everybody online
knows I hate the we're so back thing that I bet he was like, we're so back like normal.
Like and then 24 hours later,
he and all his team and all of many of us together were like, oh, oh, yeah, done.
And maybe that was irrational. Right.
Maybe we all jumped too far to a conclusion or to a figure.
And but it's it's also kind of nice to know that even if we are being irrational
and wrong and ridiculous, so are they. So are they. Yeah.
Oh, percent. I don't I mean, he probably wasn't thinking it Friday or Saturday
or even that Monday. But the next Monday, I bet they were.
Well, the way he taught worded it, I guarantee you they were.
Sure. I mean, because even I mean, then you just got to bring in that you've got
to humanize it right from their standpoint.
You got to bring in you're at work. You're at your job.
We're all doing our work and something, you know, a tip in the flipping
the boat over situation happens and then everybody's worried about their job.
Sure. Everybody's worried about what their future looks like.
Forget the festival, their future.
So that's going to be part of it, too.
Yeah. So it just it brought a human element to it all the way around.
And a lot of the response to of I think a lot of people realize and what Barry,
I'll give you the credit. You said this most.
And I've agreed with it ever since you said it was your your thought that this.
These are the people that do this. They're actually people.
They're not AI bots.
You know, they're not just some faceless, you know, Wizard of Oz
with the hidden in the corner.
And I thought that that came across well, and the reaction was, oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, you're right.
I think some of that came in.
In fact, I'd like to play this video from Caleb that he put out.
He saw the episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Caleb from the yearbook, who you might hear from later.
Caleb's taken over the show pretty much. Yeah.
He got it. Come on.
If you happen to go to Bonnarooo this year, I am so sorry.
And I hope you are recovering OK.
I just watched a podcast with Brad and Corey,
who are like two of the main dudes making these decision to cancel
Rue this year, essentially.
And I just wanted to take a second to apologize to the both of you guys
slash the live nation team slash C3 team directly responsible
for having to make that judgment call.
I'm sure that was not easy.
I'm sure that sucked.
And I know all of you guys probably had the worst days ever
post making that decision also.
And I know the community has been very vocal,
including myself and my page, about kind of how we feel.
And I'm sorry if that felt at all directed towards you personally as individuals.
We meant no harm or, you know, ill will towards you guys as people at all.
I think we just say, you know, fuck live nation as a collective
whole of our sadness and grief towards what happened with Bonnarooo this year.
So, you know, to all the people who are actually working really hard
to make Bonnarooo happen and to like give us this experience as a music festival.
I think the community can all collectively agree that we still love Bonnarooo.
We love the community around Bonnarooo.
We were pretty upset with some of the things that maybe happened this year,
but we don't need to dwell on the past.
Oh, my God.
We we don't need to dwell on the past.
Let's focus on the future.
We're really looking forward to being there for 2026.
And we hope you guys put together something really special
to make up for our feelings for last year.
Thank you, Brad and Corey and everyone else at Live Nation and C3,
who put this whole thing together despite all the logistical challenges and everything.
Yeah. Fuck Live Nation as a company.
But big love to you guys for making it happen.
I like how you doubled down on that.
That's good.
I like that.
Yeah, it's funny.
That's funny.
Well, I mean, there you go.
That's that's a perfect example of what I was just talking about.
Good timing, good trigger figure finger there.
Taco. So, yeah, I like that.
That feels good because I'm I'm conditioned to hate corporate America, too.
Right. That's just where I default.
Right. And it's not always fair.
It's it's often not fair.
Oftentimes it's very, very, very fair and can go ahead and do it.
But yeah, I thought that that was good to come out of that.
So we got that we got Brad saying that.
And then later in the interview, Corey said that he had a great week.
That's the other thing that kind of jumped out at me was
when he realized it was coming back.
What a great moment and that was.
And I think that's I mean, I think Caleb,
Caleb speaks for a lot of people in that video.
Yeah, I think he really summed up what a lot of people were thinking.
Yeah, that's sure he put together a purchase.
That's pretty cool, too.
Going forward, there is still a lot of questions.
What is Wednesday going to look like?
What is Thursday going to look like?
I think we heard from them and I have no reason to doubt that
they're still developing that.
Right. I mean, the Olympic sort of opening ceremony is interesting.
We can see interesting.
I know, right.
I'm not I'm not fired up about being jam packed in that field
personally, but we'll see.
You know, I'm not overly worried about what they do.
It's it's still going to be a great weekend.
And I'm looking forward to 26.
But this is just coming from a guy who's but hurt about losing the way
Thursday has come together, especially the last couple of years.
It seems like they've really put a lot of energy and money.
And that's the reason that's what we're talking about here is money.
They put a lot of money into Thursday and it just began to get to where I really
enjoyed it. But I'm way open minded on that.
And I understand what's going on. I'm not mad.
Me too. And I'm I'm kind of I've I've made peace with losing Tuesday.
I'm OK with it now. I was upset about it first because, you know,
I love to be there Tuesday. But, you know, well, and I'll tell you the reason why.
I like to get there early, get camp set up, get everything settled in
and then just sit down and do nothing.
Yeah, can't argue with any of that logic.
Can I? I like to to rest up until, you know, Thursday rolls around and then,
OK, it's time to go.
So that's what that's my Tuesday.
Not everyone likes to do that.
Obviously, you know, I had oh, who was it?
Daniel was like, oh, hey, come play T-ball or whatever with this Tuesday.
No, no, that's not what football.
Yeah, I love to play football.
I would love that.
I'm only interested in going Tuesday, setting up and then just sitting down
and having a beer, relaxing.
I'm not going to do any vacation for crying out loud vacation.
Yeah. But you know what?
I can do that Wednesday just fine.
And I can go Tuesday to common John and do that at common John Tuesday night.
Spend the night in their parking lot, wake up and go in Wednesday morning
and I'll be fine.
I think that's a great that's a great point.
And it's a great.
We all develop.
I mean, we do what we do.
Yeah, right. Yeah, whatever.
We used to go in.
You the three of us with Brad Steiner would go Wednesday morning
because they used to have a media thing at noon.
And walk through a walk through, which was awesome.
It was so much fun.
It was great. Quit doing that.
So point being, we have done this since the beginning.
Brian and I, it's changed.
It developed.
Didn't you know Tuesday was not a thing until a few years ago.
Wednesday was not really a thing.
It was early at midnight.
Yeah. For many, many years.
So and I keep trying to remind myself that 50 percent of the people who go
are first timers.
So half the people have no idea what we're even talking about.
It's going to be a new experience for them.
And that's what they're going to build off of.
And that's often when changes come to big organizations.
That's that's what they're they're banking on.
That's right. And if you're not getting new,
you need returning or you want returning customers.
But if you're not getting new ones and you're you're you're destined to fail.
And Brian, was it 16 with the first time with the media thing when we went
and we looked and we noticed and they moved the they moved the fences.
We were like, holy cow, it's shrunk.
Right. Was it that the year it was so small for a thousand people?
I don't remember if that was the first year they've done something like that.
But that was the first year was that noticeable. Absolutely.
And we noticed Pearl Jam, Dead in Company year.
I remember it well, because it was one of my favorite years.
But yeah, yeah, we all you, me and and Brad Steiner were like,
they move the fences in.
And but once it once Thursday came around and the people showed up,
it felt like Bonnarooo.
It's like nothing was changed.
Absolutely. And that's what I'm saying.
So and you asked Brad Parker the question about, you know, reduced numbers.
He said 15 to 20 percent.
If we're going off of 80, that means we're looking at 60, 65000.
Maybe next year we will never notice.
Is is where I'm going with this.
We being fans will never notice, right, that it's bigger, smaller, whatever.
No, and they and they could
increase attendance and capacity right back, you know, the next year.
If they felt like they needed to.
I don't think they need to reduce capacity at all.
Somebody just asked me, Brian, what do you think?
I don't think they need to do that.
I understand that feels like an optical.
Kind of decision, just like, well, here's something we're doing
that's going to help, even though I'm not sure that it is.
Again, we're talking about things that just don't happen around here
as far as the weather is concerned.
But I understand why they're doing it.
And hey, what if they can make the numbers work?
Then good for them.
One more thing that jumped out at me during the conversation,
and I think you guys noted it, too.
You ask about ticket price and he said,
and we didn't we didn't talk about it then.
But he said the basically and I'm paraphrasing,
the only thing would be if we go down in price
because we don't have the lineup that we think it should be.
Did you guys remember that?
Yeah, now that you say it, I guess I do.
I'm paraphrasing, but it was like a reduction kind of thing.
And then he said, we're not going up.
I know he said that he did point out they're not planning to go up,
but he did say something to the effect of they always try to match
the price to the product.
Yeah, if they think they've got an excellent lineup
that's worth paying a little more for, that's when they'll increase the price.
Maybe. But that was interesting.
It is. I'm not going to get that.
That's when big corporate America starts to take over.
And Brad Parker doesn't have anything to say about it.
Like if they if there's going to be higher ticket prices,
Brad Parker saying, I don't think there should be, is not going to be enough.
Yeah, that's a big, wider scope of of of an idea and an issue
within all pricing of all events.
And so we'll let that one play out.
But yeah, I mean, we're not getting McCartney.
We're not getting the stones.
We're not getting whatever.
The prices aren't going down either, guys and gals out there.
It ain't going to be cheaper.
I promise you. I bet you a dollar right now.
Save your pennies. You'll owe me a dollar.
Dude, I'm not going to be surprised.
You want to spend any time trying to predict what Thursday night's going to look like?
Or you want to do that later?
Yeah, maybe later, just because I just don't.
We didn't. They don't. They don't know, right?
There's not enough information. They don't even know. Yeah.
I I I don't anticipate it to be anything that's going to blow your your mind.
But good for them for doing something.
And it'll be on the what stage as we've talked about on here.
And most people agree.
And it's my favorite.
It's my favorite viewing experience of of of the of the world.
And so if you're going to put something on the what stage, I'll be bring Lionel Richie back.
And we'll sing Dancing on the Ceiling all night long.
I'm fine with that, too.
Two things I wanted to get to quickly that I made a couple of notes on that are
that are things that have been chatter a lot online that we didn't get to.
And one, I'll start one's radio, Bonnaroo, and the other is infrastructure
improvements that people have had a lot of questions on.
And I'll start with the infrastructure improvements
that we didn't talk about.
And I did what went on purpose.
You know, sometimes you just can't get to everything.
I'll have limited amount of time just shy of tearing the entire farm
put it in its own sewer system and connecting it to either the local sewer system
or creating their own septic, you know, standalone infrastructure,
which isn't going to happen.
There's nothing they really can do
that that amount of rain is going to destroy a farm for for that many people on it.
You can put in drainage, French drains, whatever other drains.
I don't know anything about.
I'm not an irrigation specialist or any kind of landscape architect or artist.
But there's just not a whole lot they can do.
If you get that kind of rain with that amount of people, it's
it's it's going to be a pretty big problem.
You all thoughts on that?
I mean, is it as simple as yeah, I agree.
I think everybody kind of turns into a civil engineer when they hear,
oh, we'll just put in drains.
That's all you got to do.
And it's not that easy.
Like you said, that water has to go somewhere.
And if it ends up flooding, you know, someone's yard nearby
based on the drainage, that's not going to work out.
So yeah, the water's got to go somewhere.
The water's got to go somewhere.
And they also have been doing improvements since twenty twenty one.
Oh, my God. They've been doing improvements.
That's what I've written about for twenty.
Yeah, they've been making improvements.
And they've been constantly members trying to get trees, planting grass.
Everybody remembers trying to get from the witch to the what
before they built that little bridge thing there.
She's just for years.
We were almost it was like it was treacherous, you know, and they've
and now you can walk there easily as but nobody knows that.
Most people there don't know that's already an infrastructure improvement.
Brian, you remember those those early sevens, eights, five, four year fours.
People literally would sit and just find shade.
Remember the one pole or the tree or whatever?
That would put a shadow and people would sit and it was like clock.
They had the witch at the witch stage, especially like we're in front of the
the comedy tent. Yeah, that's the one I'm thinking.
You start moving around like a sundial.
It was that was that's how valuable shade was.
And now they have that and and grass.
The eight oh eight when the the dust was so bad was eight or nine.
The dust was so bad.
It looked like somebody put a set off a bomb.
So, yeah, they've been making improvements.
Flashable toilets. Unbelievable.
So let's look at look at what you know, we had an unprecedented amount of rain
for like a month previous to this and the ground soaked it up just fine.
It didn't turn it into a mud pit.
So, you know, it it held up and we would have had Bonnarooo
despite the month's worth of rain had it not rained Friday all day.
Yeah, when there's not 80,000 people stomping all over it,
it drains off just fine.
Well, yeah, that's the other thing.
You can't you can't do anything about everybody walking on it. Right.
Correct me, too.
Didn't we have thunder and lightning?
I mean, that's the game changer when it lightning.
If there's lightning, it's over.
They are absolutely shutting it down.
If it's just wet, you know, it sucks.
It's but when it starts lightning, that's when they panic.
It was it was just a perfect. Yeah.
Sorry for the pun storm.
I mean, like it was just it was it was it.
It all came together in the absolute worst way possible.
And how to get information out to people when this happens
leads me into the other discussion on forums here and there.
Reddits and other places about radio Bonnarooo.
Speaking of things that we used to have that we don't have that many of us loved
is one of my favorite things of the of the event in from an industry side
and just a geek outside of the industry I've been in or was in for two decades.
And the argument is absolutely valid.
As far as having the Bonnarooo radio station,
that was just an extension of Lightning 100, an independent rock station,
independent rock station out of Nashville.
And it would take over one of one of one five fantasy radio.
It might be called Rooster Radio now in Manchester.
And I think outside, though, of I mean, that was a covid cut.
It went away after covid.
And it was I was upset for like that long.
And then you got over it moved along.
In a situ we found the situation when radio Bonnarooo was at its utmost importance.
Most any other time of the day, with the way technology is taken over young
people's lives and all of us not to young people's lives,
radio Bonnarooo didn't really serve that much of a purpose.
There wasn't a ton of people sitting around in their cars listening to me
play an hour of Pearl Jam in 2016.
I'd like to think the whole farm was listening to me, but they probably were.
They were. I was there. I took pictures.
Yeah, I know it was fabulous, but I don't think that many people on the farm
cared at all. And so losing that is is not is it.
It sucks for me and many people who like to do it.
And a handful of people in the crowd enjoyed listening to it.
But but I started going back through Bonnarooo's Twitter last night
and I was just looking for just, I don't know, thought starters
and got down to the time when they were putting out the cancellation
and all those things. And I'm sitting there and I kind of had a reliving moment
as I was thinking about things to talk about today.
I was like, there's a good chance nobody saw any of this stuff
because everybody's at their cars.
Everybody's using their phones at the exact same time.
Your phone's not going to work.
And there's some nightmare stories out there, some nightmare stories
that I've actually been.
I didn't I don't even want to stomach some of these stories.
They can get so bad.
And if you had radio Bonnarooo, that could have been a 24 hour
update central. And that is a that
that would have been a really, really, really valuable thing to have.
But I'm telling you guys, it's not coming back.
Well, let me ask why.
And I'm asking out of ignorance, you're a radio guy.
I mean, I know radio people, they're built for remotes.
Is it expensive?
Was it? I mean, I know they put they did the whole Hey Bells
and it was a whole studio.
And but I mean, is it who's paying for that?
It was a Bonnarooo paying for that.
Was it the radio station paying for that?
Is it both? Is it just inconvenient?
I mean, why can't we?
I mean, I get there with the the.
The newspaper, I mean, that's an expense, but
how expensive is putting a radio in there?
I mean, that's a that's a great question that I even though being in the industry,
I'm not qualified to answer.
I don't know who and how and those organs that that that synergy comes together.
But you're also talking about throwing a bunch of yahoos on an FCC license.
You know, like they staff that thing 24 hours a day.
Yeah. And once you give them what it takes a minute to work.
I did this for years trying to work my way in.
It took me a half a decade.
And when I finally did, then it was like, you know, hey, yeah, cool.
Come. Can you come more?
Because they have to fill 24 hours.
So once you get that work for free, you're in.
Come on in. But if it's a little reserved for all the reasons,
I want to want to let just anybody.
Yeah, we're not going to give you a microphone.
But as soon as they know a little bit, then they're encouraging
because they have to fill 24 hours a day for five, really six days.
It went into Monday.
And so you're bringing in a bunch of people who you don't really know.
You think you do.
You hope you have faith in some of them.
And FCC licenses are very, very fickle.
I mean, you can't you can't just say anything.
You can't just do anything. They got away with a lot.
Now, I know the FCC, we don't have time to explain what it is, if you don't know.
But it's a pretty antiquated, ridiculous.
That's a good point. No, I get what you're saying.
But so I have a I mean, if there's something that goes down,
somebody loses it, starts blabbing out explicit language
and saying all kinds of wacky stuff that that could come back and be major fines.
It could come back on the radio stations, boner themselves.
It could be sued. There's a lot of legalities.
That's the only thing I know much about at all.
But as far as what things cost, I don't know what.
But real quick, to wrap that this thought up is that the one thing I thought
that they could do easily, and this is me just making stuff up here,
is they still do have a very close connection with Lightning 100.
And if they had if they could bring Lightning 100 on
in a remote style setting, like, you know, we're going to the Arby.
Come see us for a couple hours, but do that for the whole weekend.
And if something like this happens in emergency situations,
they flip off their station, they flip on the live.
Yeah, that they have set up at at Bonnaroo and now Lightning 100, 100 point,
even though it's not a very strong signal, it might not make it to Manchester.
But here's here's your signal.
Here's your information source that I could see as being a very, very
an easier thing to hope to happen.
But the chances of us needing emergency information is not very
it's not very likely, but it is very possible.
So these are things that I wish we I don't know that Brad Parker has a thing to do
with any of that. Right.
Like, so that's probably our guy, Ken Weinstein, or some of these other people
we know that that operate under the media umbrella.
That's probably questions for them.
And we'll see what happens from there.
But I miss it dearly, guys. I agree with you.
But I just it's just an expense.
I don't see him bringing back. Yeah, all of it.
Again, it's, you know, people don't riot.
I'm not going to even say it.
Oh, we didn't ask him if they're going to have bandanas back next year.
No, I didn't have to go.
Well, they've already said it's they're coming back.
I know. But that was before that was before everything went to hell on that weekend.
So I'm mostly playing around there.
All right. Anything else from that recap?
And again, to your point, and I'm glad you brought it up.
Couple of things that we didn't get to.
We will. They will be back on.
They'll be back. They love coming on.
They reached out to us for this episode.
So and there's others we can talk to there.
I mean, because now also this is we started branching out
and asking people left and right who have things to do with the festival.
And now they've they've they've kind of umbrella it in to say, well,
you got to go through us before they can go to you.
We know I haven't met him face to face with the guy
who is in charge of all the grounds.
His name is Justin. Thank you for listening and being here.
Just guys awesome.
And he's in charge of everything year round on that ground.
That's the guy to talk to.
Wow. As far as what can and can't be done.
Oh, yeah. Infrastructure.
Yeah. Infrastructure on the on the farm itself.
I mean, they might be there right now, that kind of thing.
So there are other people to talk to that that'll understand these.
Yeah. But I doubt Brad Parker, you know,
has any kind of inside knowledge into irrigation systems.
He's probably not a I bet he knows more than he did five years ago.
Yeah. Well, I bet he knows more than five years ago.
And I bet he'll act like he knows every bit of it.
But I promise you.
Love it. Well, they were so great to come on.
And that was a lot of fun. So it was it was.
All right. Let's take a break and we'll come back.
And we're going to hear about Russ on the move.
And we're back, Russ, you
as you do seems like every weekend.
Maybe it's not every weekend.
It just seems like it.
But you took a trip and it has some Bonnarooo related
ties, pretty cool adventure with pictures and everything.
So where did you go? Who did you see? What did you do?
Yeah, it's so funny.
I always tell you guys exactly where I'm going and what I'm doing.
And then when I'm not here, you get on the show.
Oh, we don't know where he is.
He could be anywhere. We just don't know.
We don't get shit, Russ. We don't care.
Spreadsheet. Yeah, I looked at it.
What was it again?
So I was my my trip was headed to close to Boone,
North Carolina for the High Country Bus Festival.
It's an entire week.
I just went for, you know, a few days, but it's all buses.
It's all camping along the river.
Big, big event.
That was my goal.
But if you remember when we were camping at Bonnarooo with David Bruce,
I am I am Bonnarooo, the I am Bonnarooo film project.
He does all that. He had
at some point taken a trip through Johnson City to Dave's bar.
Dave with the Monkey Bar, if you've ever been there, you know,
he sets up basically a full service cocktail bar right there in the group.
Yeah. Yeah.
Let's let's don't undersell that.
He sets up a full service killer bar.
It's really, really impressive.
He didn't bring in a couple of bottles with a cooler full of ice.
I mean, this is unbelievable.
The bar that he sets up, he can make pretty much any drink.
And it's a lot of crowdsourced ingredients.
You know, people are like, here's a bottle of vodka.
Here's some limes.
You know, people bring whatever.
And then he is so good at mixing drinks, he can just be like, OK,
well, I can make this drink and that drink and whatever you want.
So it is really cool.
He also owns a bar, co-owns a bar in Johnson City called the Little Magic Bar.
And it's a kind of a fancy cocktail bar, very disco retro themed.
David Bruce, at some point, had traveled through and stopped in and said,
man, this place is cool.
I would like to, you know, I've got a couple of poster sized
prints of two of my pictures that I've made.
They're framed. They're just sitting in my office.
I would love to bring them to you so that you can hang them here in the bar.
And Dave was like, yeah, that'd be cool.
We bring them and he's like, OK, I'll bring them to Bonnarooo.
So this year at Bonnarooo, we're at camp.
David Bruce and I are sitting there and David's like, I've got these two prints,
these two poster sized framed prints.
David Bruce is in upstate New York.
Johnson City is in the Tri-Cities, the upper triangle, Tennessee,
Kentucky.
Was that Virginia? Virginia.
Yeah. Yeah.
There's no good reason to go there other than this bar.
Yeah. So. Dollywood. Right.
So I don't know.
You know, David Bruce had these two prints.
He's like, I got to get them to Dave.
It just so happened.
I want to say
I'm blanking on the names.
They're a couple. They work for Bonnarooo.
They're fans of the show. They're fans of David.
They came back.
Oh, Mike and Adriana, I think is their names.
They came back on their golf cart to our camp and just said,
hey, you guys need anything? Just check in on you.
Welcome in.
And David's like, actually, could we get a ride?
Because I've got these two big things I got to take out to group.
They're like, sure, come on.
So we got to ride out to group, got to hang out at the monkey bar.
Dave made us some drinks,
kind of a signature cocktail for David, who likes his thing.
You know, he likes whiskey.
Dave made him kind of an old fashioned type drink called the I am Bonnarooo drink.
We drank those, delivered the posters.
So it was all good.
So back to a couple of weeks ago on my way to North Carolina,
I was like, I'm going to be driving right through Johnson City.
I want to stop at this bar.
I got to see the bar and I got to see the prints up here.
So I got in touch with Dave.
He was like, yeah, I love to see you. Come on by.
You know, we'll we'll we'll chat.
So came through Johnson City, came to the bar.
Honestly, it's a great bar.
It was karaoke night that night. So lots going on.
It was packed.
I think this is like the biggest bar in Johnson City, I swear.
It probably is. Yeah.
Anyways, Dave's like, well, you know, I just live a mile away from this place.
So if you want to come park overnight, you know, I'm cool with that
because I needed the place to park overnight.
So I followed him to his house, got to see his house.
He made some drinks, got to sit in the backyard and drink some beers
and just talk, Bonnaroo and, you know, have a good time.
So the next morning, got up, finished the trip to North Carolina
for the High Country Bus Festival.
So that was the Bonnaroo part, which I just think is so cool.
You know, through Bonnaroo, I know all these people pretty much all over the country.
And I can be like, hey, I'm coming through town.
And they're like, sure, love to have you.
So it's neat having a driveway to park, because sometimes that's all I need.
Well, with that bus, that's absolutely true.
Yeah, that's definitely cool. That's cool.
But those pictures, I know we're going to post them.
They're beautiful. They look great in that space.
So, yeah, he's got the perfect spot for those pictures.
It looks great in the bar.
And so, yeah, I mean, made it to North Carolina.
It's up in the mountains up there, easily 10 degrees cooler.
And that is I love going up there,
especially when it's this hot during the summer,
just to be able to go up in the mountains and just kind of relax and cool off.
Park right along the river, camp there.
We did like a two hour float down the river.
It's a couple of miles
and just hang out and drink beer and camp.
And oh, there was a band Saturday night.
They had some originals, but they also played a lot of Grateful Dead cover band,
cover songs.
It was really cool.
These guys were good.
And there was like a glow parade.
Everyone had glow sticks and glow light up stuff.
So it's quite a trip.
Sounds like a bunch of Bonnarooians to me.
That sounds good.
Yeah, it was pretty much in the spirit of Bonnaroo.
It was very fun.
Awesome. Kind of made up for the what was cut short from me in June.
So, yeah, I've been able to do a bunch of these little trips.
Hopefully get to do some more.
I think that's cool.
And you make a great point.
All the connections in the community and everything.
It's amazing.
Well, to that point, real quickly, I'll recap my Friday night.
Yeah, just just just super briefly.
I bought tickets to go see the drive by truckers who this is actually
a drive by truckers hat and I know a little political, sorry.
But I bought them so long ago and forgot all about it up at the caverns,
which is quickly become, you know, Pelham on the Montaigle Cave venue.
We've talked about it a lot on this show, and you're probably familiar with it.
It's quickly becoming my favorite place.
I mean, it's just outside of Bonnaroo itself.
It's just it's just a great place to be, like no matter what's going on.
So I bought these tickets and then it got here close and I was like, oh, God.
All right. I get truckers again.
OK. And so I just ran up there by myself after work and just beautiful.
So much fun. Talk to I didn't talk to Todd Mayo, who runs a joint, who owns a joint.
But I talked to I'm so sorry.
I can't remember names, but Jeff.
Yes, it was Jeff. Jeff. Yes, it was.
Yeah, we talked for quite some time down in the pit waiting on the show to start.
That was nice. And then I ran to our buddy Sean from Kauffman, I believe, is his name from
Sean Kauffman, church owners.
And he's a he's a big Alabama mid-North Alabama music head.
Like he there's an umbrella of of the truckers that has a lot of bands
that most people not heard of. And he knew all of them.
And so that was fun to talk about that for a few minutes.
Deer take open the show. Never seen Deer take before.
People like they're good. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That was that was a lot of fun.
So that was definitely cool to mark that off the list.
And then the truckers was they were great, but just another jam show.
So if we have Edm Kyle and we have Evan Bonnarooo, how come we don't have Sean Bonar?
Or Sean Evangelical?
Yeah.
Some good.
Church Sean, Sean Bonar, Bonar Sean.
Sean, he texted me.
What's it going to be in my phone?
Right. He texted me.
I got to change him in my phone now.
Church Sean texted me.
Church Sean. There it is.
I'm headed up to this drive by trucker show on at the Caverns.
And I thought, oh, that's cool.
And I thought, I wonder if Brian knows.
And I was like, Brian absolutely knows if drive by truckers are playing.
He knows he at least knows about it.
But I hadn't told anybody else going because I forgot.
No. Yeah. And I thought about telling you.
But I was like, yeah, there's no point.
He already knows. And I forgot I was going.
But Sean also told me he's going to be there for Cave Fest in a couple of months
in October, which our plan is to be there. Right.
OK. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Awesome.
But the place looked beautiful.
And it was the actual I was talking to Jeff.
He's like, I was trying to remember.
It's like, I've been here like five times.
And I don't think I've actually seen a rock show down here in this cave.
And I was like, I feel so stupid because I can't I can't remember.
I was like, sorry, man, I'm a little stoned.
I can't remember anything.
Don't worry about it, man. We all are.
It's like, yeah, good answer.
Sorry if we need to cut that part out.
That's on you. But it was a it was a it was a it was a fun time.
Fun time. So good to see Sean and Jeff and everybody else.
All right, we're back.
So are we going to do voicemails?
We ready for those?
I think I'm ready. Yeah, I'm ready.
So one one thing before we do that.
Sorry, Barry, just popping my head meant to mention this.
Maybe I don't know whenever I could.
So we had Hinterland.
I love my blanket on a dude who runs Hinterland.
We had him on not long ago.
Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam.
And with the 90 degree guarantee thing, right?
Mm hmm. Well, they got
seasonably mild temperatures for their festival.
It was the same weekend as Lollapalooza.
Eighty ish under eighty five degrees for the weekend.
And the Reddit pages and places were so thrilled
with how that weekend went. The water stations.
It feels like they fixed their problem.
And I was happy to see that.
So I'm glad that we did a show that helped fix that.
Helped fix their festival.
Nice. That's that's that's us.
We'll take credit. Making the world better.
Making it a better place.
It looks fun. It looks fun.
And so, yeah, I mean, it was after a year of being
trashed by everybody out there, they got a lot of good press.
And and so they did not have to give their anybody's money back
for it being over 90 degrees, which is still a really preposterous idea.
I'm glad you I'm really, really glad you brought that up,
because he was he was a good guy.
That was a good guest.
And they're doing their best to make that right.
So, yeah, cool. Glad it worked out.
Looked like it did anyway.
Of course, it's just using the Internet as a barometer.
And you never know for sure.
But overall, I feel pretty good.
I feel good for them about how that went.
All right. So back shortly after probably week two
after the Bonnarooo cancellation,
we ask people to send us some call into our phone.
I hate to put you on the spot, Russ.
You remember the phone number right off four to three?
Yeah, it's my phone number.
Four to three, six, six, seven, seven, eight, seven, seven.
Give us a call any time you want. Yeah.
That's easy to remember. Yeah.
All right. Give it again.
Four to three, six, six, seven, seven, eight, seven, seven.
So we ask we ask people to call and tell us why you care about Bonnarooo.
Right. That was that that wasn't that the question.
Basically, it was pretty open ended.
Yeah. And use that number for anything you want.
You know, any time if you're bored, go ahead.
I'm not my stupid hat, my whatever.
But anyway, we've been threatening to play some of those for weeks and weeks
and weeks and but obviously we've had news.
But today we're going to play some of them and Brian, you've got them queued up.
So let's play the first one.
Yeah, we'll jump right in with Drew.
Hey, guys, Drew from Birmingham, Alabama.
I was calling to tell you I love the I love the podcast.
What I love about Bonnarooo is the fact that it's just that time of year where you can just let go.
Forget about work, get things going so that you can just listen to music, have a good time with friends, meet new friends, make lifelong friends.
Love you guys. So have a good one.
Yeah. And that's what that's what we were asking for.
Sorry, I put these together a few weeks ago, so I can't remember.
But yeah, what does Bonnarooo mean to you?
I think that's the thing most of these.
So thanks for calling, Drew.
I think we hear that a lot.
You can be yourself.
I mean, that's basically it.
Right.
Yeah. And that's one of the things that's one of the things that made it so difficult about the early cancellation was I got to go back to the real world.
I wasn't planning on this. Yeah.
And everybody had just settled into their to their magical escape from the somewhat hellscape of our lives.
And then we had to leave in the worst conditions.
We'll jump to Kenny here real quick.
Hey, guys, my name is Kenny.
I'm from Arizona.
I discovered Bonnarooo in 2016 and went 17 upgraded that year to RV.
That's experience ever.
The first year I could stop talking about it.
I got that bug and I just went to that second year and it's just become such a part of my daily lifestyle.
The way I look at things, I compare things and there's so much magic to it.
I hope that Bonnarooo spirit stays alive.
I think it will because we're all soulful.
I mean, we're we're there.
But anyways, thanks, guys, for I've been listening to you guys since day one.
And it helps kind of cure that bug that I have here in the hot sun of Arizona.
But thank you guys for doing what you do.
And Lord Taco rocks.
Look at that.
One of your many, many fans all over the country.
I like that Arizona.
Yeah, Arizona.
He's first year was 16.
Buried what we were just talking about.
The the the attendance way down could be out and scorching hot scorcher.
Ninety five plus every day.
Like not nine.
I mean, ninety and ninety six or it might as well be a hundred more degrees.
And and he went to that and and loved it and then with the next year,
which was eighty six degrees for a high and all pop music.
Like he got two different years and was in love with both of them.
Right. Like that's that shows you how much this thing can change and still keep that that magic.
Arizona can't be any more further from Middle Tennessee.
That's for sure. That's a good point.
But he also brought up what we all we talk about all the time is here.
We talk about it all the time.
You know, it's like how many your coworkers are like, please, God, stop.
Enough. Enough of this.
Yeah. And so, I mean, he went on, quote unquote, one of the worst years.
Yeah. Right. Had, you know, never not great.
That was where it came from.
Never not great. 2016.
All right. Yeah, you're right.
That was the year. Yeah, we sat out in the camp with Ken.
That's right. We'll jump to let's go with Jonas.
My name is Jonas Powers.
Been going for six years since 2017.
For me, Rue is just the place where I can I can do something really crazy, funny and weird.
And I can I can be like, make a scene and make a memory in people's lives and make a spectacle.
I can walk five feet and no one has ever seen my face.
You know, I can be a total enigma and make an impression and then start over, over and over and over and over again.
I can tell the same joke, you know, 500 times that weekend.
Guess what? Chicken butt.
I don't know. I feel I just feel the freedom of the freedom to recreate myself over and over again, which I just love so much.
Happy Rue.
I like I like where you're coming from, Jonas, except that would add in there.
I can be an enigma or you can be an ass clown.
It's the same joke. I know that guy.
I know you, Jonas. I've never met you. I know that guy.
I probably been that guy. Yeah, that's funny.
That's a good one. All right. What else we got?
Let's see. We'll go with Ryan called the phone line.
Hey, y'all. My name is Ryan.
I'm from Murfreesboro, actually.
And just what what Bonnaroo means to me is a place of ultimate freedom.
It's truly special. The space that is created by all of the attendees out on the farm and just the energy that's there.
It's one of the most accepting places I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
And also the other stage that EDM culture means so much to me.
And I think Bonnaroo plays a really, really big part in the development of the greater Nashville EDM culture as well through having some of these really,
really big artists make their way out to Tennessee and kind of get our name out there.
But thank you all. Love the podcast. Thanks, Ryan.
I've heard a little bit of that that Nashville's EDM culture has has built to a level that I might not exactly understand.
And that's that's interesting that he credits that that to Bonnaroo.
I had no idea that Bonnaroo I mean that Nashville has an EDM culture.
I mean, you think of country music so much associated with Nashville, it's hard to associate any other music genre, especially EDM.
That's amazing. I mean, it's it's it's exploded there.
I mean, they call it the Los Angeles at the East for a reason.
You know, it's like there's so much going on in Nashville and rock and roll culture is is still there.
And we need to explore that further.
We talk about taking Bonnaroo radiate positivity away from the farm to where you live.
But I haven't really considered taking maybe music that you've discovered to where you live or how it impacts.
That's an interesting. It is an interesting.
Our mutual friend, Mike Dewar, books a club, a couple of clubs here in Chattanooga.
He might be somebody we talk about because I know that's that's not his thing.
EDM is with us. It's not his thing.
It's not his thing. No booking it because that's what people want.
So but understanding what the book is, we should drag him on the show.
Probably surprised we haven't had him on the show before.
I mean, what? No, no, we will.
That's an interesting topic of like, you know, taking that away from the farm to where you live.
So cool. Cool. Thank you for that call.
Yeah, we got a few more if you want to keep motoring on these are a lot of them are nameless.
So I don't know who you are. Thanks for calling.
And here we go. This is my 15th year.
And every year has been a little slice of paradise or heaven where you're away from your your job,
your responsibilities and you get to spend quality time with my four children ages 40, 37, 26 and 23.
And also it's like the summer camp you went to as a kid where you would go
and you would make all new friends every summer.
And some of those friends you would eventually go to college with, maybe even work with in a future career.
But you can look back and 60 years later, you're all still friends.
Thanks and have a great day. Happy route.
Thanks for the call. Maybe that's a maybe that's a problem in my life.
I didn't go to any camps when I was in youth and I didn't have anything to do with a fraternity when I was older.
So that's why I have no friends. Maybe you don't have kids.
And I don't have any like career. What do you do?
What value do you I can talk into a microphone whenever you want.
You got us. You got us. We're here for you.
We're your family. The only thing I can do.
How sweet was that, though, man, to be able to go with your grown ass kids.
Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah.
Age 40 down to 26. I think he's the cool.
Do you think that guy was always the cool dad?
Or do you think Bonnarooo makes him the cool dad?
I bet Bonnarooo had to help me to make him the cool dad.
That's my guess, too. I bet.
I bet in the 90s he was a hard ass.
That's just a guess.
So if we interviewed the four kids, it'd be like, when did dad become cool?
I don't know. What year do we go to Bonnarooo?
I love it.
Yeah, you guys, one of you kids call, call that number and let us know that when did dad become the cool guy?
Exactly. I want to hear it. I want to hear it.
I love it.
All right. Also don't have a name on this one, but thank you for the call.
Hey, guys, this was my fourth group.
And what keeps me going is the community and the love that everyone has on the farm.
I've never experienced that much community and love anywhere in the world, anywhere I've been.
And there's nothing like it. My first year I went, I knew that I would be going back.
And there's been some crazy that's happened since my first Bonnarooo in 2019.
We had COVID and the hurricane year.
And this year, I know I think it hurt a lot more because the majority of people were already on the farm.
We could taste Friday, Saturday and Sundays, not only music, but more of what I was talking about with that community and the love.
And I think that's why people are this year specifically.
I mean, it's also still very fresh, of course.
Hurt, I think more than the hurricane year.
But yeah, it's just the love on the farm that keeps me going every year.
And seeing you guys this year was definitely the highlight of my Bonnarooo this year.
I watch you guys all the time and you guys are the embodiment, I believe, of that community.
And you show all the positive aspects of what it means to be a Bonnarooian.
And I'm just very thankful to be able to watch you guys.
Well, thank you so much. What a nice call.
Thank you. Wow. Sweet.
I do want to apologize that the weekend got so bad that we were the highlight of it.
Yeah, I don't think that's a good thing.
No, it's not. Good point. It's not.
That's a great point.
Hopefully next year will be better for you.
And hopefully we'll see you again next year and it won't be your highlight.
Yeah. Yeah.
But thank you very much for the call.
We got two more, I believe, here.
Let's see. Also got, sorry, I got to go through this list.
Yeah, we'll go with this one.
I don't know the name either.
I apologize, but thank you for the call.
Where do I begin?
It's really more of the people, the vibe.
We love the farm.
It's safe for females.
It is the only location that I have found as a female in her 30s where I can walk around without having to feel like I need protection.
My husband feels safe enough to allow me to wander around at 2 o'clock in the morning on the farm
and not have to be worried that I'm going to get injured or hurt or anything like that.
It's a safe haven for females, for people, for anybody.
It gives us an opportunity to be our authentically true selves.
It is more than the music. It is the people.
And y'all keep it up. We love y'all. We watch you every week. Thank you from the Birdsongs.
Yeah, that's I mean, I've been telling that to people.
We talked about this at the panel for two decades.
It's not a dangerous place.
You know, it's just not. It's easy to think that it's easy to wonder that it's easy to let your mind get there if you don't know.
But it's not. It's not a dangerous place.
You know, and her point about female and I'm obviously not a female, I'm not even going to pretend to speak as if I know.
But I have noted that since the beginning, since the first year, that it would it seemed like a safe place for everybody, especially women.
You just you didn't have that sense, you know, like it's two or three a.m.
Why are you by yourself type of thing or, you know, you need to be worried or or whatever.
So I'm glad she brought that up.
Well, and I think that came from the the jam band community roots like that's how all those events are, all the big fish shows in the late 90s and that this was modeled after.
And then it just created something that everybody who goes, most everybody, a huge majority buy into the minute they get there.
Yeah. You know, there's some assholes everywhere.
Just they don't go anywhere.
There's assholes everywhere.
But I mean, generally, it doesn't feel like the place someone's going to see something bad happening and just be like, OK, we got to get out of here like in New York City or something like, oh, God, what's going on?
Let's go away.
People are going to help.
People are going to be are going to be their best versions of themselves.
Yeah, that's cool.
I'm glad.
Thank you for the call.
Thank you for those comments.
Yeah.
And one last one.
We'll let Caleb, the yearbook guy.
Bring us home.
The show takeover of Caleb will wrap up our voicemail segment for this week.
This is Caleb with the Bonnarooo yearbook.
And I just want to just say Bonnarooo has a community element like no other festival that I've personally been to.
I've been to big music festivals like Coachella and Lava Palooza multiple times.
I've been to smaller music festivals around Atlanta.
And the community aspect of Bonnarooo is just so special.
I mean, anyone you go up and talk to, you're going to have an incredible conversation and meet some of the coolest people you've ever met in your whole life.
And that's what Bonnarooo really is to me.
The music is great.
The art is great.
But the people are what make it at the end of the day.
And I think you talk to anyone who's been to Bonnarooo multiple times and they'll tell you the same thing.
It's that community element that really makes it special.
Thank you, Caleb.
Let's wrap on the voicemail segment.
So I ask everybody to raise their hand at the panel discussion that we did at Bonnarooo changed your life and every hand went up.
And I can't I mean, all three of us fit into that category.
But Caleb is right there.
I mean, if you guys want to go back and listen to his interview with us a couple of months ago, this was a very, you know, I'm not speaking out of turn, a very introverted person.
And Bonnarooo and his yearbook, Bonnarooo yearbook, he's a different person.
He is. I mean, based on what he told us, we can start there because he told us.
But even if he didn't, you can just look at his at his Instagram of the year, his yearbook page.
It's it's I mean, that ain't an introverted guy.
No, I mean, he is all over the place and he's got pretty good numbers and he gets good engagement.
And and I have a feeling five years ago, he probably wouldn't have been as daring to do something like that.
He admitted it himself. He didn't like talking.
He was scared to talk to anybody and just said, man, I'm going to do it.
I'm just going to walk up and say, hi, sign my book.
And I love it. It's a great story.
Anytime you listen, read or any kind of self-help or any kind of psychology, psychiatry kind of thing, it's how do I do something, whatever it is, whatever X, Y, Z is, how do I do it?
Well, the answer generally is you just get started.
Yeah, you just do it and you do it poorly and you do it till it's not poor.
And that's hard for people to do like, OK, OK, that's it.
All I got to do is just do it.
Well, this was the the door opened for him and so many others to do things that they wouldn't have had the bravery.
Is that the way to the courage?
The the yeah, the confidence.
There you go. Yes, that's it.
You hear it all the time. People are always like, well, I could never do that.
Oh, I wish I could go up and talk to somebody like that.
I can't do that. Well, the answer is you can.
You just got to try it.
And just like the other voicemail said, you know, five minutes, you walk five minutes away.
It's a totally new group of people.
So there's no better place to practice this because you know that if you screw up or say something weird, you just walk off.
And then it's like it never happens. You just start over with a new group of people.
You can tell that same stupid chicken butt joke over and over and over again.
The same joke again until somebody laughs. Yeah.
Yeah, that's pretty funny.
Unfortunately, if you record it and it becomes a podcast, it lives forever.
But that's a whole mother like this.
And then somebody mentioned in there, I forgot to mention that their first year was 2019.
And that just brought me memories of 2019 was the last year of of what we really got accustomed to as to what Bonnaroo was and the way everything had built and built itself to.
And then after Covid, there was a lot of changes.
The magic is there.
It's still the thing we love.
But that boy, that 2019 at the time, I didn't think it was that good.
Now I think back. That was a hell of a year.
Good point.
That may be another show.
Write this down.
We need to do a show about the changes because you and I, Brian, can do it.
Russ, 2018, you can certainly speak from that.
But I mean, we've been through every iteration.
Right. I mean, my first year was camping, you know, and there was no shade.
And then we got into the you know, what is now what?
Nine three, whatever the nine 31, nine 31.
The greatest. Those are the greatest years, obviously.
But we'll do that sometime.
I still plan on doing a look back at Thursday.
You know, we'll do that in the off season at some point, too.
So maybe we'll wrap it into that.
Fold all that in there. Absolutely.
All right. Coming up, Brian, you are going out of town for a couple of weeks.
But we have a special interview that we did several weeks ago with Kyle,
Kyle Hollingsworth from String Cheese Incident.
Yeah, the keyboard player will have that next week.
And I'm looking forward to that because I don't remember.
It'll be a new episode to me, too.
Yeah, we've been sitting on it for a while. It's a great interview.
He's a lot of fun. He's got a new album that came out last week.
Actually called All We Are.
He is an interesting dude.
He's obviously a very talented musician.
We talk about his solo career, his solo work.
He also brews his own beer.
Well, that's right. He's a beer guy. That's half the reason for doing it.
Yeah, he and Brian kind of geeked out there for a few minutes.
So lots to talk about. But he was a really cool interview.
And he had a lot of Bonnarooo stories to tell us, too.
He had a lot of Bonnarooo stories.
And we're going to do that next week. Is that right, Russ?
Yeah, I think we'll run that next week unless something else happens.
And we've got to majorly cover it or something. But that's the plan.
Yeah. So that'll be next week.
And then after that, I have no clue.
We'll figure it out as we go.
Absolutely no clue. But this was a good show. A lot of fun.
It was fun. Thanks for the calls, guys.
Appreciate it. And so, Brian, you mentioned Rock was dead.
That was kind of the theme, I guess, from the week that I wasn't here.
Oh, yeah, yeah. You had some thoughts on that.
I had some thoughts. We also had a lot of comments.
A lot of other people had thoughts on that, too.
A lot of people had thoughts.
And I think some people misunderstood what we were saying or what you were saying.
We're not saying Rock doesn't exist anymore.
He misunderstood it. Shocking.
Yeah. Just that it doesn't dominate the festival headline space
and, you know, in the mainstream, top billing acts in the country.
Mainstream, yeah. In the world, almost.
Outside of legacy acts, yes.
Correct. I found some stuff.
This was a study from bookingagentinfo.com.
They put this out. I don't know if you saw it. It's a little graph.
It kind of shows where Rock was higher than electronic music, you know, 10 years ago.
And then in the last 10 years, Rock has steadily gone down and EDM has taken over.
So they just analyzed a lot of festival lineups.
They counted how many EDM acts, how many rock acts.
And it's been a very measurable decline in Rock.
Yeah, I mean, it's easy to see just because the numbers, I mean, as you just saw
and as you can continue to look, the numbers don't lie.
I mean, yeah, it hurts, you know, hurts my heart.
But a lot of that's true. And then some of the responses were and I'm not getting on anybody respond to respond to you want.
I enjoyed all the engagement. Thank you for it.
But like, well, I mean, corn and Metallica and this.
I'm like, yeah, that's not what we're talking about.
Corn and Metallica. Yeah. I mean, nostalgia sells.
Nostalgia is a very, very profitable brand.
Sure. Show me the band.
It is bigger than Rock. I mean, nostalgia.
There's nostalgia for anything. Sure.
I mean, we're almost in Taylor Swift nostalgia era.
I mean, she's still putting out music.
So that's a bad example. But I mean, yeah, I mean, Oasis is the biggest thing on the planet.
It's not an example of rock and roll doing well. Right.
It's you know why rock and roll is not doing well.
They're not playing one song on that set list and Oasis Mania right now is from this century.
Every other song. I'm glad you mentioned that. That's interesting.
Twenty other songs are all from the 90s. They have four albums in the 2000s.
One song. One song. So that's a wonderful thing to see.
I'm a big fan and I look at it in awe every day.
Yeah. But that's the example of rock not doing well.
Not the example that rock is thriving. And so, yeah, that that was the point.
And did you see Live Nation put out a thing, too?
They said rock and heavy metal are kind of dominating the arena tour sphere right now.
It's up 14 percent. And you know, and it's because of acts like Metallica and Deftones.
And it's a lot of these like legacy.
Paul McCartney's hitting the road again.
Yeah. But specifically with rock and heavy metal is up 14 percent.
Yeah. But there's not a new heavy metal act out there.
No, it's all legacy. And they've all figured out they can make more money going on tour rather than hitting festival circuits.
Yeah. Exactly. That was another point we made over the year or over the time.
Is that how the festivals get booked? But Creed is a monster ticket right now.
Yeah. Even Nickelback's been a monster ticket. But these are 40 somethings who want to relive their youth.
Right. Correct. Yeah. I looked it up. So I'm going to ask you, what was the last rock song to hit number one on the Billboard 100 top 100 charts?
Oh, my God. This is a great trivia question. Yeah. I think I think the last song to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
I'm going to need a hint. Is it a chili pepper song? Nope. Is it this century? Barely. Barely.
OK. Boy, now we got it. We might start having to have a debate on what rock acts are at that time frame.
I would say Creed was probably barely not really doing number one hits at that time.
I'm going to say Nick. Was it Creed? Creed in 2001. They were the last number one rock act to hit number one.
Was it a song in particular, an album or just a track? How You Remind Me.
Oh, no, that's Nickelback. That's Nickelback. Oh, OK. I got it wrong then. Sorry.
OK, so my guess was right. But they're basically the same band.
How You Remind Me was a monster. And that was a one. Right. That was the last rock number one.
That's a great trivia. I make my case. Yeah, I think that says it all.
However, this Smashing Pumpkins album last year that came out 2024, Agorimori May, I think that's the best rock album I've heard in forever.
I've listened to it, too. It's good. The best rock, new rock show that I've seen was Jossie at Barrel House Ballroom.
Oh, good point. Yes. That was a great show. Yeah. Flamboyant dude from the UK, British guy.
No, no, hell no. He's from West Virginia. He got his ass whipped in West Virginia.
Yeah, we got to get him on the show. That's a great show, guys, if you can see it.
Anyways, speaking of the surveys. G-Y-A-S-S-I, right? Jossie. Yeah, it's a weird, weird spelling.
But back to the survey, that's who I wrote in. I put in Smashing Pumpkins. I think they would be a great rock outliner for Bonnarooo.
That'd be good. Probably won't happen, but you know. Probably not. But it would be great.
Yeah, I mean, it's just the way music's gone and I just see it continuing that way.
It's just like I started to think of when there was people talking about this and in the comments sections, who are the acts that we could even bring up?
Like to discuss and I could barely come up with any. Cage the Elephant is one, but they're not. I mean, they're close.
Black Keys would be another. They just canceled a whole freaking stadium tour because it couldn't sell any tickets.
Well, apparently Olivia Rodrigo is a rock act. Yeah, that surprised me.
I think me and Brad might have a different definition of what a rock act is.
I don't know. Did you play that song she did with Weezer? Did you look that up?
I did hear it. Well, say, but that's a that's a throwback. That's from 1994. It is.
So one of their best songs, too. So, you know, I when I'm intrigued by his commentary on Olivia Rodrigo, but he was pretty firm.
Just overall. But I don't think anybody's going to take her.
Well, I'd say put her CD in the CD rack under rock because no one's doing that period.
I don't think anywhere in an algorithm is going to say rock and roll Olivia Rodrigo.
I just don't think that's how it's going to be categorized. I love it. Good stuff. Great show.
This was a lot of fun. All right. Hope you guys enjoyed it.
And we will be back next week with Kyle Hollingsworth.
And after that, we'll make it up as we go.
Thank you.
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