The What Podcast
Our Demands for Bonnaroo 2023
Season 5, Episode 22
Published August 24, 2022
https://beta.thewhatpodcast.com/episode/our-demands-for-bonnaroo-2023

After a few weeks off, The What Podcast is back.

A grab bag of topics today.

We say goodbye to some of our festival favorites.

We dive into Lord Taco's Twitch account.

And I make demands for Bonnarooo 2022.

Did we miss anything?

Follow along anytime to What Underscore Podcasts

on your socials.

It's Brad, Barry, Lord Taco.

The What Podcast returns right now.

And we're back.

Like we never left.

So What Podcast?

Welcome back.

And it's Barry, Lord Taco.

I'm Brad.

Hi guys.

I did not get the memo to wear a Bonnarooo t-shirt.

I'm very sorry about that.

I know, right?

I've been missing you guys.

I noticed tacos.

I like them.

Do you have a Bonnarooo t-shirt?

I do not.

Oh wait, that's not true.

I've got two that Barry gave me as a gift by the way.

They're two that Barry gave me as a gift volunteer shirts.

Oh, volunteer shirts.

Yeah, they're wonderful, but I'll just never wear them.

They're too heavy.

They're that heavy, itchy Gildan shirt.

And I just can't get to it, man.

Well, the real reason you don't is because

there's a really good chance Brian's not gonna be wearing his.

He wears it every day.

He does.

Look, we have so much to talk about.

We're probably gonna miss a lot.

So if we miss a topic that we should be talking about,

please drop us a comment to whatpodcast.com

or the what underscore podcasts on the socials.

There is so much that has happened in the last two months.

I have no idea how we're gonna get to all of it,

but the top story, the lead is that

I spent a weekend with Bryan Stone.

And he thrived.

Like I've never seen him thrive in the world before.

Like outside of Bonnarooo, I've never seen him this happy.

Guys, he was on cloud nine.

I've never in the 15 years of knowing this kid

have ever seen him this happy.

I've in the 15 years I've known him,

never heard the word happy.

Even at Bonnarooo, he's miserable, but he's...

So not only...

He catches himself.

If he's happy, he's like...

I've got to sabotage my life somehow.

How can I make this?

Now, I will say the first day,

I mean the first second that he walked in the door,

he goes, where's the closest liquor store?

And so he walks directly to the corner liquor store,

buys cheap gin and some tanga,

what is it called? Tonic water.

Yeah. All right.

So he buys that and he wakes up the next morning.

And the second that we get on the train,

he looks around, he's like,

I gotta buy more gin before we get home.

You just bought a bottle.

Have you already gone through a bottle?

And he said, well, I will buy tonight.

I gotta be prepared for the morning.

And so literally we took another bottle home.

Within the next morning, he's like,

I gotta buy more tonic water.

It was like this endless parade

of needing to buy more gin and tonic water.

Like after three days, the wife looked at me

and she goes, I'm worried.

Well, as long as you knew there was no need to worry.

Yeah. I know it.

So he has a wonderful weekend.

He walks and I swear to God, the man walked,

cause I tracked it 70,000 steps in four days.

We walked 45 miles.

He practically did everything

that the city could have thrown at him.

He loved every second of it.

Even the things that I thought that he was gonna hate,

like, you know, weirdos on the train, you know,

or this place is a dump.

Why does it smell like pee?

I didn't get anything.

I swear to God, I didn't get one complaint.

I was stunned.

Wow. I know.

Bad, bad wrong.

Compare it with, I mean, compare it to what a year ago.

Everything was a complaint.

Literally everything that happened.

I mean, you had, yeah.

You had neighbors that were ready to believe, right?

I don't ever want to see that guy again.

So, okay.

So then the best part is we go to the Mets game.

I'm a huge Mets fan.

He's a big Braves fan.

So I took him to, to the city field.

And it was the fifth of a five game series.

The Mets have just dominated them for three games.

They lose one game because a pitcher kind of, you know,

takes a dump in the first inning.

But other than that,

the Braves really get swamped in this series.

So we get there on Sunday.

We get there early.

We traverse the ballpark.

Oh my God.

His eyes are like kid on Christmas.

They're wide and big.

And he's got this creeping smile on his face.

It's getting a little bit wider every minute.

And we get into the ballpark.

The game starts and he is just in awe.

And by the end of the game, after watching three,

no, four straight games with him,

after taking him to a Mets bar

and watching one game of the double header,

I looked at him and I said,

you love this team, don't you?

And he goes,

no.

Oh my God.

Guys, he loves the Mets.

He loves the Mets.

He loves City Field.

He loves the players.

He loves Buck Showalter.

I mean, at the end of it, he's like, you know what?

I think I could root for the Mets

if they made it to the World Series.

How did this happen?

They're very, very good.

Who showed up at my house?

Wow.

Okay.

Okay.

So for people who don't know and Brad, you're gonna laugh,

but Brian has his own podcast called Stone On Air.

People might wanna check that out this week

because I'm gonna guess his story is gonna be 180

per what you're telling. That's because he won't tell the truth.

He won't, he will not.

Because he can't do it.

He will not be able to tell you exactly what happened.

You know, I'll tell ya.

Yeah.

I tell you, he's so bad about this

because I was on his podcast one time

and I told him the truth about a story

that he had constantly gotten wrong.

And what happened casually to that story?

It got deleted from the podcast.

Yeah.

Well, it's good to be the king.

It's so funny because he's, he has, it's funny.

I was talking to somebody about him just yesterday.

Brian has that classic 90s era kid growing up where-

That's right.

If it didn't happen-

It didn't happen.

Didn't exist, yeah.

When he was a kid, it didn't happen.

And Barry, after you said this to me,

I've never been able to look at him the same.

We watched that 99 Woodstock documentary, right?

The first one, not this latest one.

And Barry came on this podcast,

I don't know if Taco remembers,

but he said, Bryan Stone is every kid

that went to Woodstock 99

because he went to Woodstock 99.

Angry, but they don't know what they're angry about.

And that-

They don't know why.

That is quintessential Bryan Stone.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yep, that's exactly right.

They don't know why they're mad.

They just know that they're mad about something.

They just wanna be mad.

That's right.

Because that, and I've said to you too,

he is so mad that he's not 14 years old perpetually

and discovering Pearl Jam for the first time every day.

That's all he wants in life.

He wants to be 14 and discovering Pearl Jam.

He's gonna be blown away when he finds out

that I might be going to see them at the Apollo Theater.

Oh, I know.

Oh, don't tell him that.

I know.

But guys, it was-

Oh, don't tell him that.

Well, you've already stunned me by-

He cracked smiles.

Smiled.

He was very happy.

You used the word happy.

I mean, it might've been the greatest trip of his life.

Wow.

I cannot wait then to hear this podcast

because it's not good.

I mean, I think that he's going to acknowledge

how much he liked it,

but I think that he's gonna have trouble

not wedging in the things that he hates.

He's gonna have to invent some things that he hated

so that he can wedge them in

just to balance out his inability to be happy.

Okay.

Yeah, that's right.

Man, it was a good trip.

So I can't believe that's where we're starting

because the place I,

I'm sorry, Barry.

I feel like I have more questions.

Well, I was gonna say,

I don't know if, well, I do

because only because,

and I don't know if you were gonna bring it up,

but not only did you guys go to the Braves,

you went to the Braves. Oh, God, yeah.

Oh my God, guys.

So I'm gonna bring this up later

when I start making some Bonnaroo Demands,

but this was one of the great shows.

And you know, I don't,

I'm with Brian on this one.

I don't like the hyperbolic greatest show ever guy,

but this was one of the great shows

I've ever seen in my life.

And partly it's because I've never seen Rage before,

partly because, a lot of things.

I'll get into it later,

but this thing was a master class,

an absolute banger.

I mean, I forgot how many hits they had.

Just one of the great shows I've ever seen.

I'll talk about that here in a second.

But yeah, I mean, we did that.

We saw a whole bunch of Seinfeld things

to come up to Tom's Diner,

which was Monks and Seinfeld.

Watched baseball like crazy.

There's a Mets bar in the Lower East Side

called Standings that may be,

guys, you know how much I love dive bars,

and you know how much I love pals in New Orleans.

Oh guys, it is way up there.

It might be one of the great dive bars in the world.

Wow.

Even for a non-sports guy like Taco,

you could walk in there and be like, this is badass.

I mean, they've got banners from the 70s

still hanging in the rafters.

They've got all the sports weird memorabilia everywhere.

You know, light beer on tap.

I mean, it is tailor-made.

Tailor-made for us.

I was gonna say.

Yeah, I wanna be there.

They make a good G&T.

They make, yeah, they make a good G&T.

Brian was all in on light draft beer that day.

All in, I'm telling you, he didn't have a complaint.

He didn't have a single complaint the entire weekend.

That's gonna be the podcast.

That's what's gonna be wrong.

Because I didn't have anything to bitch about.

I didn't have anything to complain about.

It was two nights.

Yeah.

I love things too much.

I hate it. Yeah, it's very annoying.

Yeah, when I needed a drink,

somebody was right there to bring it to me.

I hate that. I mean, there's just no complaints.

I mean, the man slept in every day.

He got everything he ever wanted.

You know, I still am sitting on some major Bryan Stone news

that I've never shared with anyone.

And I'm waiting for the-

He's pregnant.

I am waiting for the day to bring this up

because I just don't feel comfortable bringing it up

without him right there so you could see the look

on his face that somebody's figured out his secret.

I have discovered something about Bryan Stone

that I don't think he's ever told anybody.

And it's like I've cracked the code

and he's gonna be very, I don't know.

You're gonna see it all over his face.

You'll see it all over his face in that,

no, no bro, no bro.

And then it's gonna be like, oh no, oh no bro.

Well, there you go.

That's what you get after spending 15 years with somebody.

So what else was I gonna tell you?

Oh, I wanted to start the show off on something

that I have been obsessed with for the last now two months

since we last were together.

And that's this new show called Lord Taco's Twitch.

Now I have no idea what I'm watching,

but I love every second of it.

Please explain to me what this is,

because I'm so confused.

It's just me playing video games and drinking PBR on stream.

And yeah, ever since we've kind of taken a break

from the podcast, I jump back into it.

Is there more time now?

So I'm doing it three nights a week, just about.

I understand the top line, right?

I understand that you playing video games

and people just watching it.

But I'm, okay, I'll start with a very easy question.

What video games are these?

I've never heard of any of these games that you play.

They're Super Nintendo games and Nintendo games.

Earthbound, Final Fantasy.

Oh, Final Fantasy, sure, yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, old school RPG games.

That's mostly what I play.

But it's just a bunch of little people walking around

a field.

That sounds like baseball.

Yeah, okay, from Lord Taco, baseball expert.

So what are you doing?

People walking around on the field.

What are you doing at this game?

What is the purpose of this game that you play?

Well, sometimes you do speed runs,

which you try to beat it as fast as possible.

And then, you know.

Well, what does beating it mean?

There's a leaderboard.

Beating the game.

Yeah, what does that mean?

It means you beat the game.

Well, I know, but how do you beat the game?

You're collecting coins, points.

Oh, I mean, it's a long game.

Yeah, what are you killing?

Yeah, there's like a story

and you progress through the story.

I mean, do you want me to?

Are you saving a princess?

What are you doing?

Does she have blue hair?

Is there a blue haired princess at the end of this field?

We'll find out.

I'm looking for the motivation here, Taco.

This is just so Taco.

So how do you beat the game?

And Taco's answer is, you beat it.

It just so perfectly runs.

I mean, are you wanting specific win conditions of the game?

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I have to go through the whole story.

Okay, so it's a story, but what is the story?

I don't know if I have,

you want me to go get the book and read it to you?

What are you?

What's the setting?

Is it future?

Is it medieval?

If somebody's watching the Twitch show for the first time,

I have no context of what this game is

and what the purpose is,

other than I'm just trying to beat it.

You see what I'm saying?

I mean, I don't know what to tell you.

Just watch it and find out.

Okay, well.

Again, are you trying to save a princess?

That's Mario.

Are you trying to build a moat?

I know.

Okay, I mean.

That's my pointer reference.

I have nothing.

You're either killing people or saving a princess

or trying to launch a rocket or something.

I don't know.

I can tell you,

neither of you have ever played a video game ever.

Not this one, which I've never heard of.

Mario.

This is just why I'm coming to you

and the guy who plays it every day.

What is the purpose of this game?

To have fun.

To beat it, yeah, I know.

All right.

Yeah.

Okay, all right, let's go to the next topic here

that's very confusing to me.

Yeah.

Good talk, good talk, Russ.

A lot of details.

You're really grilling me hard on this.

Okay, all right, next thing

that I don't understand about this game.

Where are these random sound effects coming from?

Every now and then just.

You're playing the effects?

Well, people in chat can play them, yeah.

Okay, now I'm starting to really get confused.

So there are people watching in the chat room.

Okay, that screen that I'm watching,

did you put all that together or is that a Twitch thing?

I put it all together.

So normally somebody who plays video games on Twitch

doesn't have the three screen thing like you do?

Well, I mean, it's however you wanna lay it out.

If you wanna put your camera up here

and move the game over here,

I mean, it's however you wanna set it up.

But Twitch allows you to do that, right?

Yeah, you can put whatever, you design it however you want.

Okay, all right, so you didn't have to come up

with the whole mainframe and create a code

to make this thing work.

Mainframe and code, I don't even know what you're.

Well, when you sign into Twitch,

you get options of a layout.

Is that what I'm guessing here?

No, I do all that.

All Twitch does is just receive the video stream

that I send.

Okay, so you did have to create the layout of the screen.

Okay, so how did you do that?

Yeah, I've done.

How did you do that?

I use OBS and create the scene

and then put all of my elements in there

with the overlays and stuff like that.

Now see, there you go.

That's what I'm asking when I'm asking

what is the purpose of the game, that kind of detail.

All right, so now after I figure that part out,

you now have three cameras, okay?

So you have a feed going into your TV

that's coming through your OBS.

Then you have a camera just on PBR.

And then you have a camera on you.

So you have a three camera setup

that you all put together that then is now

going out live while you're playing.

Okay, so now I've got this figured out.

So then there's a chat room.

Now is that a Twitch thing or did you create that too?

That's, no, that's a Twitch thing.

When people watch it on Twitch, they can chat.

Okay, and so.

And they can execute commands to make sound effects play,

to do different video effects.

There you go.

It's a lot, it's very interactive.

Okay, so am I right to assume there was one game

that you've played in the past

where they can take over the game or interject themselves?

Yes.

How does that happen?

That's through a system called crowd control

where the game that I'm playing,

you can create effects in the game.

Like you could make an enemy spawn and attack instantly.

Okay, but not in Earthbound.

No.

Okay.

So yeah, you can do.

And based on this, I was gonna say based on this

conversation, I'm hoping you're also commenting

that you're doing a lot of talking while this is going on.

I mean, a lot of talking in like, you know, rust context.

I mean, he's not chatty Cathy with this, but you know,

for him, it's a lot of words.

Yes, it is a lot of words for us.

Okay, all right.

So the people that are throwing things at you,

you know, like the sound effects and stuff,

you don't know what's coming.

So somebody can just hit a sound effect of a fart noise

and it'll show up.

Yeah.

Okay, all right.

Now, how distracting does that become?

It's not that distracting.

Okay.

You kind of used to it by now.

Is it, do they do it to disturb you?

Do they do it to get on your nerves?

All of the above.

Okay, but do they do it because you like it?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

And how many people are usually watching at one time?

10 to 15.

Wow.

Okay.

See Barry, like this is what's so interesting about this.

And what I think Taku doesn't understand is like somebody

like me who sees, oh, Lord Taku is now live.

I just hit play and watch it.

And I have no context whatsoever as what's going on, right?

So it is the most bat shit crazy thing that I'm watching.

Like there's people screaming,

there's an emoji that pops up, you know,

there's a dancing baby all of a sudden.

And then, you know, Russ opens a PBR.

Like it's the strangest, like old.

You got it.

Yeah.

I mean, it feels like every great cable access show

from our childhood that plays like midnight.

That you ask, you say, why is this on television?

All right.

Yeah.

Yeah, people making good money.

Now has PBR reached out to you at all about this?

No, no, not once.

I've reached out to them.

Okay.

And they never said anything?

No.

Hmm.

All right.

Well, that was topic two on the list of topics

that I wanted to get to this week.

Barry, have you not watched the Twitch show?

Wow.

Okay.

No.

Okay.

I'm gonna have to now.

You'll be thrilled.

Now that you know exactly what we're playing.

Now what's on deck for this week?

I can't wait.

Yeah.

Now that I know what the goal is.

What are we playing this week, Taco?

I don't know yet.

Probably just more of the same.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

So do we want to get into some of this news?

Do you guys have anything you wanna get to

before we dive in here on some of the,

you know, the less important things?

Yeah, let's jump in.

So a few months ago, I was told by,

yeah, I was told by somebody that, you know, matters.

But anyway, it doesn't matter.

And he predicted that you will see

probably a dozen music festivals say goodbye this year.

And the death of the music festival industry is upon us.

And since then, how many have we seen do exactly that?

Not only Buku, but you see things like that.

But then you see the music midtowns completely pull out

because of the gun law in Georgia.

So I throw it to you.

It feels like there is a shifting tide.

The earth is shifting under our feet.

Is it death of or coaling of?

Because that's what we talked about that.

I know I mentioned it, that it felt like

we were gonna see a coaling,

that there were just too many of them.

And we were gonna see a thinning of the numbers.

I didn't predict the gun thing,

but it sure felt like there were just too many festivals

and not enough people and not enough money.

I mean, is that pretty much what you're gonna tell us?

The economic things just don't,

they're not sustainable.

Yeah, yeah, same thing.

Same thing.

Yeah, you could just feel it last year

with so many of them not selling out

and numbers being down.

There were just too many of them, too many choices.

All the reasons we talked about,

the economy, gas,

fact that we sort of lost the mojo,

two and a half years that people kind of lost,

didn't feel like the FOMO thing wasn't quite as strong

as it was before.

It's like, okay, I've missed them for two years,

I can maybe miss another whatever.

But I will say I reached out this morning

to a couple of people and Bonnarooo.

Well, I mean, they just put out that,

we'll be back in 2023.

I know, but if you remember, we talked about,

there was some internal or saber rattling that was going on

with the city and the county and some of the businesses.

I think they figured it out.

Did the city get what they wanted?

I thought they would.

I don't know the details.

I didn't get into that level.

I just asked.

Well, real quick, real quick, back up

because we actually never,

we wanted to talk about this in detail months ago,

but we never got to it.

So back up, the city was demanding more money from Bonnarooo

because they lost revenue in 2021.

Okay.

Well, that was the county actually.

The city annexed the farm,

which meant the county was losing that revenue.

And as part of the contract,

the county was supposed to get a percentage of sales

based on the two previous years, which was zero.

So they were obviously in a fix,

but then there were some local businesses

that were basically trying to make all their money at once

and raising rates and that sort of thing.

And it was gonna cost Bonnarooo a lot more money.

And so there was some going back and forth.

I think I said then I thought it would be resolved

because don't look that golden cow or golden goose.

Don't kill the golden goose.

Manchester doesn't have a lot of other options,

certainly nothing like that.

So you kind of figured they would work it out.

Like I said, I only got a short answer,

but it sounds like something was worked out.

So yeah.

You know, cause remind everybody,

I mean, what we decided, what 40,000 people was-

You know, I've been meaning to get the final count.

I haven't, I guess I could ask, huh?

I didn't know, never actually did that.

Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of people talking

after it was all over.

I mean, there were a lot of things,

but for us, you and I noticed, you know,

security was not nearly as vibrant, shall we say,

as it had been in the past and fewer people.

And I mean, one thing that I think,

you know, I didn't even think about,

but like they didn't even give,

you talking about those t-shirts, Brad,

they didn't even give those out to the staff this year.

I mean, that was another one.

What were the volunteers wearing?

T-shirts.

Stop it.

So how were they identified?

I never-

They had vests.

Wow.

I don't even remember, Russ.

So basically neon vests that, you know,

county inmates wear when they're cleaning up the yard.

Got it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

But you know, I mean, a little thing like that is a perk.

You know, you go home with a t-shirt.

Oh my God, I didn't know that.

I mean, I had a t-shirt, so.

I mean, that saved them a lot of money.

Yeah, right?

Little things like that.

T-shirts are expensive.

Yep.

Yeah.

They are expensive.

We know, we've got plenty.

Barry, you want to give some wages?

Go quick.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, just plug the whatpodcast.com.

T-shirts are available.

Yeah, go to, yeah, that's right.

You can get all kinds of merch.

Have some stickers left.

Maybe an orange vest.

Yeah, you're right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But anyway, they seem to have resolved it, so we'll see.

And I will be curious as part of this conversation

to see if events like Bonnarooo benefit from some of these.

Well, maybe, but the big three, you know,

of the big three, only one had a bad year.

You know, the city festivals are doing really well right now

because, you know, you have other things to do.

Right.

Lollapalooza did just fine.

Lollapalooza sold out.

ACL's selling out.

Coachella did just fine.

So, you know, Bonnarooo is the only one that really struggled

and there's, for years why, well, look, let's put it this way.

For years, they were the standout

because they were a camping festival

and that's what's made them unique.

That was also the reason why they probably struggled

this year more so than any other festival.

So it's a give and a take.

Right, right.

Yeah, I'm really, really curious to see.

I think we sort of, Russ and I,

I know that Friday night maybe, or was it Saturday night?

I guess it was Saturday night

because you were asleep on Friday night.

But you and I were talking about.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Why did Russ fall asleep early on Friday night?

I forget.

Because you went hard on Thursday.

Yeah.

I knew it.

He was, he put his dinosaur costume on.

He went into hibernation.

Yeah, he went into hibernation.

He went extinct.

Went extinct.

But I do remember you and I on that Saturday night,

I think we talked about it on our last episode,

do we wanna stay in media, do we wanna go out to GA,

what might we do different next year?

And I don't feel like.

Well, you have plenty of time to think about it, Barry.

You have plenty of time.

I'm glad I went, but it was,

I'm glad I went, but I'm not in a hurry

to go experience 2022 again.

Well, I mean, look, oh, shoot, sorry.

I know that much.

No, I think what I would start wondering is

with the comment from a higher up in the industry

saying that the music festival business

is in a really tough spot, you get Music Midtown gone,

you start wondering and looking around and saying,

well, who might be next?

Is a forecastle in trouble?

Are you gonna get a shaky knees in trouble?

These seem like no brainers that they come back

because they've been so successful.

I mean, shaky knees was very successful this year,

but the economics of this is, they're really tricky.

At the second that you have to jack up prices 25%,

it's gonna really change the way that you ask yourself,

can we sustain this?

And I don't know the answer.

Right, and just from a local level,

we've got Moon River in what, three weeks?

Three or four weeks.

Four weeks, three and a half, four weeks.

How are sales for that, by the way?

It's not sold out.

It's not sold out.

Well, I was gonna say, so Moon River doing okay.

Well, wait a second, they're not doing okay.

They haven't sold out.

And that's a festival that's only,

I mean, they're only selling 10,000 tickets, right?

Yeah, between 10 and 12,

depending on how they configure it each year.

But right about that, yeah.

I think they're close from what I understand,

but not sold out.

And then I understand to your point just a second ago

that the River Bend Festival, which is local,

almost 40 years old, totally redid it this year,

went from an unlimited number of admission

to a 15,000 cap, which they hit,

but it basically, it just about broke even

from what I understand.

And part of that was because of a $2 million,

was it a grant that the government gave to?

I think so.

Entertainment, yeah, I don't know if it's a grant

or whatever you call it, but basically a grant.

And so, that's a big bunch of money

to get that you can't count on next year.

So like you said, they're probably looking at raising.

I haven't tracked the money, followed the dollar,

but I wonder how many of these music festivals

got bailed out during COVID with these kinds of programs.

And you just made a really, really great point

and that can survive them this year,

but how does it bring back next year?

Hence, you're seeing a lot of these cancel.

You know, look, I think that we all universally think

that Firefly did a nice job.

I mean, our buddy Sean is now booking that Firefly Festival

and I think that he did a great job booking it,

but it's not sold out.

And Firefly always does well.

These second tier festivals, I think,

are in real, real trouble.

Now, I know that there's conspiracy theories

going around about Music Midtown

because they're trying to hide behind the gun law

and maybe they weren't selling as many tickets.

Well, look, I don't think they were selling

as many tickets as they thought,

but I was absolutely 1 million percent

reiterated to that it was the gun law.

And even if they are doing a really good job messaging that

and getting everybody on the same page

and making that the point, I believe them.

I believe them.

But it is good timing if you want to get out of the business.

It's a good time to start reallocating dollars

somewhere else.

Not just that, but as we've said,

and I hate to again be doom and gloomy,

but not having an event for two years.

Well, I actually don't think it's doom and gloom, Barry.

I think it makes the ones that survive better.

I think the reason why we are so bummed out

in some of the Bonnarooo and some of the other festival lineups

is because we've seen it happen.

It happened last week and a half a week before that

and a half a week before that.

Like how many more times do we have to carve and copy

the same music festival lineup over and over?

And so, and it goes back to a conversation

that we had with Quaer and other professionals,

these more curated experiences,

these places that have really special identities and brands,

they're the ones that are going to probably survive

more than others.

And your regular music festival that's in your hometown

or in your region, they're probably the ones

that are gonna pack up.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah, it has to have that special reason.

I mean, you can see band XYZ almost anywhere.

It's what's surrounding it.

I mean, look, Gumball was a mess this year, absolute mess.

Does something like that survive next year?

Why would it need to?

It was in the city field parking lot, for Christ sakes.

What kind of brand experience do you think

you're gonna get on Asphalt?

Yeah, right.

This is not a music festival, that's a fair.

I know we're gonna talk about Woodstock 99 too,

but it all, a lot of this is,

I mean, I just watched it this week

and it was stunning to me to see the progression

from 1999 to 2002 when Bonnarooo started.

Well, don't get too much into it,

because I haven't seen it yet.

And it's all about.

No, I haven't.

I saw the first one, but I have not seen the latest one, no.

Oh, man.

It's more along with detail.

Well, somebody told me that,

and you can tell me if I'm right or wrong,

but somebody told me that it was more

not putting the onus on the musicians

and putting it more on the promoters,

that the first one was way to blaming

the bands for everything.

Yeah, Fred Durst for everything.

Fred Durst.

Yeah, there was a lot of that.

It was a lot more emphasis on how women were treated

in this one, even though it was mentioned in the first one.

That was a big, big issue.

And we, you know.

No, I don't wanna wait,

because I want us all to watch it first.

And then.

And then, seeing it, because I, okay.

All right, so my point in bringing it up really is

kind of what we were just saying is,

as we've learned, and the reason you and I and Taco

were doing this podcast is we've just appreciated

that level of customer service and branding

that Bonnarooo has had.

You know, thanks to guys like Jeff Cuellar.

I mean, just guys who wake up and think,

what would I want, you know, as a fan, what do I want?

I want water, I want shade, I want comfort, I want.

Well, I will say, bring it up.

Well, I will say, bring it back home.

If there's anything that Bonnarooo's been really,

really good at in the last 16, 17 years, very,

they're fantastic listeners.

And there's very rarely a time

that something happens on that farm where they don't hear it

and reacts in some positive way to it.

So I have no inside track on this,

but I can promise you, whatever was said this year,

they heard it, which brings me to my demand.

I have some demands.

I do.

I have some demands.

I've spent two months, three months now in New York.

Four months, I'm sorry, four months in New York.

And I have come away with a few things

that I am absolutely demanding Bonnarooo consider and do.

And this is not because it's not self-serving,

although it's self-serving.

All right, so I am starting demand number one.

I cannot believe after 16 years, 17 years,

however long this festival has been around,

I cannot believe that not one time

they have booked Rage Against the Machine.

It is almost derelict of duty

that one of the greatest rock bands on the planet

has played Coachella how many times,

have done how many tours now, few and far between,

but never once come to Bonnarooo.

I am out of my mind in love with this rage show

that I saw on Monday.

Now you're seeing somebody who is,

I'm a casual Rage Against the Machine fan.

I like them.

I know their songs.

I know it was gonna be good.

Barry, I didn't know it was gonna be incredibly great.

I had no idea that, first off,

you forget that there's only three guys

putting out that sound.

Outside of Zack, there's only three guys

making that thing feel so big.

Not only that, you forget how great

of a guitar player Tamarello is.

You say it in your head, oh yeah, Tamarello,

great guitar player.

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

He's not great.

He's the greatest guitar player alive.

And it is incredible how he keeps that whole operation

sounding pitch fucking perfect.

Every note is perfect.

It's insane.

Third, Zack had a broken leg,

which I think made the show better.

He had to sit on a gear box.

He had to sit on a, well, it didn't feel like,

he only had to do vocals, right?

So he didn't have to bounce around the stage and make a,

no, no, no, he just had to make the vocals right.

So he had to sit on a box,

and he had so much energy on this box,

it almost felt like sometimes when he was spinning around,

spinning around, putting his leg in the air,

it felt like he was levitating.

He had so much energy coming off of that box.

Does that, why do they say break a leg

when you go out on stage? Literally, yeah.

You'll be a better performer.

Fourth, I have never seen a show

at Madison Square Garden before,

but the only thing that's ever come close

to the almost perfection of sound that is on the what stage

is what I just heard at Madison Square Garden.

Oh my God, Barry, this venue,

I've never heard a venue better.

Aside from Bonnarooo's what stage,

it may have been the best sounding venue

I've ever been into in my life.

Every seat is padded and comfortable.

I can't tell you how much I love this entire experience.

Fifth, the knock on rage is too negative for Bonnarooo.

Too negative for Bonnarooo.

Not the right kind of energy.

And man, if that's the argument,

I wanna point you to the screen that they have behind them.

Whereas during some of the songs,

they were posting names and stories of social justice,

people who have been abused by police,

social justice warriors,

a celebration of people who have helped,

putting people's stories up that haven't been told before,

that have been forgotten.

People who have been completely used by the system

or abused by the police,

they throw these stories on,

and there's nothing to me more Bonnarooo

than rage against the machine

and how they are social justice warriors

and trying to affect change in all of the right spaces.

That's exactly what Bonnarooo is.

How have they not booked rage against the machine?

Who's saying they were too negative?

And I'm sitting here thinking that tool show

wasn't exactly a big warm fuzzy hug, was it, Taco?

I mean, talk about the video.

I demand.

They're definitely not too negative.

Well, I mean, look, killing in the name of,

you can find people who would say

that's just not the right sound.

In fact, I got a few.

I got a few messages saying it's just not the sound

that Bonnarooo is known for.

And I just don't buy it.

I don't agree with it.

Nobody in our generation has been able to write songs

and put a message out in lyrics

this profound and this impactful in what, in a generation?

What is keeping you from?

I understand the rationales that we've heard before,

not everything works, the Tory.

There should be no debate here.

Get rage or nobody.

This is the one last band that you haven't gotten.

And you can make an argument about the Stones,

but give me a break.

This is a real band that you could absolutely go get.

Why are you not throwing money at them?

That would be the single biggest thing they could do

to get back into who we know Bonnarooo is.

Second demand, second demand.

I demand Bonnarooo bring CeeLo Green

to be the host of the next Super Jam.

All right, CeeLo Green did an album with Dan Arbok.

Now, Dan Arbok made him do this beautiful sort

of Pentecostal church Teddy Pendergrass album.

It didn't get heard for a long time

because CeeLo was in a bit of a Me Too mess,

and not of a bit.

It was of his own creation,

and he just kept making it worse.

So he damn near ruined his career with his Me Too moment.

Well, the album gets put out,

and now he's doing shows, he did one at Jazz Fest,

all a tribute and a dedication to James Brown,

where they're all wearing a jumpsuit

where it says Brown Automotive on the back of it.

So they're going effortlessly

through James Brown's catalog, through his catalog,

through Meat Loaf, to Celine Dion.

They are weaving so many hits

through the James Brown catalog,

and it's done with an absolute stunner

of a band behind him, absolute stunner.

Now, CeeLo can hear and are there,

but imagine CeeLo hosting the Super Jam

with Dan Arbok half an hour away in Nashville.

And you see the drama that's around the Black Keys right now,

and Patrick Carney's, you know,

whatever is going on with him and Michelle Branch.

But I don't think the Black Keys

are gonna be touring much longer

considering the drama that's happening between them.

So you're gonna get Dan sitting on his hands in Nashville,

already produced an album with CeeLo.

Bring it down.

Let him curate a James Brown Super Jam.

What do we, this is a slam dunk.

Yeah, why not?

Wasn't CeeLo banned from Chattanooga?

He was, he said some curse words

and he mooned the white people.

They were very upset.

Yeah, he was never officially banned,

but he's not on anybody's short list

to invite back anytime soon.

So the big, so the big.

But whatever, all right.

So I wanna hear the other demands.

Well, so the knock on CeeLo,

the reason why you would say he can't do it

is because of his Me Too movement.

And to that, I would say I hear you,

I'm not discounting it,

but they had no problem putting All Time Low on the bill.

And they had no problem putting Machine Gun Kelly

on the bill.

Now, they might've been missteps

and they might've regretted it,

but there is precedent for them to bypass, you know,

certain indiscretions or problems and an artist's past.

The rest of my demands are not so much demands,

although they are gentle pushes.

It is time for us to look around

and celebrate the friend of the shows,

Duran Jones and Indications and Aaron Frazier.

One of the great shows I have seen now twice

this past year and two years, Aaron Frazier at ACL

and now Aaron Frazier at a small Brooklyn club

right around from our house.

Duran Jones is gonna have a new album.

Aaron Frazier is slowly going to be a solo superstar.

I am betting, I don't know why

we're not putting Duran Jones

and booking them almost immediately.

And then finally, it is time to bring Julian Baker

and Angel Olsen and Sharon Von Etten back to Bonnarooo

and let them curate an entire female empowerment experience.

I think that the best female artists

that we have on the planet right now,

Brandi Carlisle, Sharon Von Etten, Phoebe Bridgers,

Maggie Rogers, Julian Baker, this group is a knockout.

We are in a almost a golden age of female performers

and they're getting zero love on the radio.

They're selling out everywhere.

They're streaming everywhere.

I don't know why we're not putting all of them

with Bonnarooo's problem with women

and their first headliner being Lizzo and then Stevie Nicks.

Man, now's the time, now's the time to just bring them all.

Do whatever you can.

I mean, those girls are in Nashville.

Do it, bring them all.

Make an entire day, an entire stage dedicated

to just female liberation.

Fuck the patriarchy.

You know, put them all on one stage and let them run.

Do something completely different,

completely out of the box.

Give them an entire plaza too.

This is, I don't see why not.

At this point, it's time.

There you go.

That's what I got.

I hope they're listening.

That's what I got.

You done?

Oh, oh, oh, there, you know.

Good, I'm glad.

I just was taking notes.

So, Taco, do you wanna reach out to Steven and Brian

up there in Knoxville and tell them, guys, it's done.

You know, your work is done.

Brad's done it all for you.

Do you want me to?

Cause I'm happy to share these.

Believe me, I'm sending this recording

to the C3 people right now.

Wow, they're gonna be thrilled.

Yeah, solved all your problems, guys.

Solved all your problems.

Yeah, amazing.

Yeah, they love getting these kind of notes.

I know who you're gonna get.

Look, it's not so much about who you can get.

It's that this, we're in a time now

where it calls for sort of a different approach to things.

The standard operating playbook and all of these things

are just not going to work as well as they did in the past.

It's time to do something different.

And yeah.

Well, I mean, I think that we've been saying that

for the last three or four episodes

that this whole year felt like a do-over.

It's a reset.

And I mean, I still think so.

We didn't have the suggestions in the demands.

I'll tell you why.

I've had a lot of time to think about it.

And I don't say this as some sort of uppity

all of a sudden walking into New York New Yorker.

But when you're here, I don't want it to sound like that.

No, I don't want it to sound like that.

The reason I say this because I've seen more shows

in the last four months than I probably did in four years,

even including Bonnarooo, right?

And so when I've been so like jumped into this pool

and swimming around it and I start looking around,

first off, it's the reason why I didn't need

to like break my neck to get to Bonnarooo

or Lollapalooza this year is because

every week is a music festival here, right?

Like the challenge is to stop yourself

and to not do something.

But I've seen enough of these shows now to say to myself,

you know, doing the same old thing

and finding the same old artists,

they're just not gonna cut it anymore.

I don't think that that's being an uppity New Yorker is it?

Oh, come on, Barry.

Maybe.

Well, I mean, you know, not everybody got to see-

I know, that's why I want them to,

I demand them to bring them to Bonnarooo.

I demand it.

I will be your fighter, Bonnarooians.

I will be your warrior because I will not rest.

You will hear me say it every episode

on this goddamn podcast from now until Bonnarooo 2022.

Bring rage, bring rage.

I would love to have a meeting.

I just can't, if it was that good a Madison Square Garden,

imagine how good it would be on Friday night on the what.

I wish, probably our next episode,

maybe Russ and I can come up with-

I'd love that.

I'd love that.

That's a little strong for me.

Yeah.

I don't know that I have a list-

More blue hairs.

Got it.

Taco based on,

based on last year, I mean,

what changes need to be made?

I know, you know, we talked about,

they moved us from the trees, but that's a-

Okay, you just beat me up about,

you make me think about me.

And then Barry's like,

I just didn't like being out in the sun.

No, but there were the issues with the jam tracks

and some of the gates and some of those sorts of things.

Maybe we ought to think and come up

with our own lists of changes.

See, I'm not asking for a lot of changes.

I'm asking for them to rethink how they are approaching

putting this lineup together.

Well, what I was gonna say was interesting is

now we're talking about lineup being,

you know, we've all, the last couple of years,

we've sort of been lineup is important,

but it's not all encompassing.

And does it feel like this year-

Oh yeah.

The lineup is gonna be variable?

Oh yeah.

And look, look, I just,

if we go down this path of, you know,

come October and November when we're doing lineup hunting

and we are, you know, throwing out our mock lineups

and saying, you know, my wish list is this, this, and this,

man, I tell you, if we come to January, February,

when the lineup gets announced

and it's the same old load of crap,

we're all gonna be like, we don't care anymore.

I'm telling you, you're just not gonna care anymore.

I know the experience is wonderful

and we're gonna all talk about how great we love that.

Yes, we do.

But at some point we got to,

you got to do something different.

Yeah, I don't disagree.

I mean, this last year was a, eh, you know,

I've talked about it.

It was a lot of, it was a work year for me, which I knew,

and it was also a different kind of thing

for a variety of reasons,

but there was nobody on that lineup

that was a must, must see for me.

There were a lot of people that I wanted to see, you know,

but there was no bucket list or can't believe I saw act.

And it certainly as an entirety, it wasn't like that.

I hear you.

You know?

I hear you.

Still had a good time.

But yeah, I think you're right.

I think this, the lineup better come strong.

It better be one of those.

I can't miss it.

I can't miss it.

That's right.

That's right.

That's what they need.

All right.

That's all I got for this week.

I know there's a lot still left on the table,

but that's about it.

Yeah, I want you to watch.

Russ, have you watched it?

I want to watch the new one.

No, I'll watch it this week.

All right, so that's our homework.

We'll do that and we'll try to reconvene next week.

What do you say, guys?

Watch it with this thought in mind

because when it was, after it was over,

it really stuck with you.

It was in 1999, obviously,

and then Bonnaroo was 10 years later.

Transition, not just from festivals,

but social society and just all kinds of,

watch it with that in mind.

All right, we'll do.

You're the best.

All right.

Talk to you guys soon.

All right, love you, bud.

All right, love you, guys.

Love you, bud.