I'm losing jobs. I'm losing girlfriends. I'm turning 40. I'm a drunk idiot. My life was

a...

And no Pearl Jam.

And no Pearl Jam show to save my soul. I thought my whole world was in and it didn't have a

thing to do with whether I caught the flu or not.

Welcome back to the What Podcast. I'm Barry. That's Brian. That's Russ. It's March 16th.

We are less than, what are we, close to 90 days now?

I think it's technically a little less. It's getting close.

It kind of depends on whether you're like Taco, you're a Tuesday guy or a Thursday guy.

So with the exact numbers, I don't know. But we have a little bit of a different show.

We don't have a special guest. We're going to go through some news and some items this

week, including, and you can probably hear in my voice that I'm a little bit under the

weather. And one of the things that we're going to talk about is it's the fifth anniversary

of COVID and the world shutting down. And because guys, we are so committed on this

show to doing it, I have COVID.

Do you really?

I honest to God have COVID.

That is commitment.

Do you really?

That's how committed we are.

I thought it was a lie. I didn't think you could actually get COVID.

I didn't tell you ahead of time because I wanted to kind of drop it and get your reaction.

But yeah, this is the first time I've tested positive and I've tested twice. Of course,

my tests are two years old because I never got them. But I figure if it's positive twice,

there's probably a good chance. So we're going to come back to that. We're going to spend

a little bit of time talking about what that meant to us and the world and this festival

in particular.

Yeah, I think it's important to them. And I, well, maybe not important, but I really

enjoyed the calendar, right? Like I like, I like celebrating the calendar and anniversary

dates and, you know, five years, boom, gone. And that was a wild time for everybody. We'll

discuss it here shortly.

We'll come back to it because to me it's important because a festival like this survived it.

That's what that's one of the things I want to talk about. So we'll come back to that.

A lot of them didn't too.

And I also want to mention our last episode with Tuba, Tim Smith. That was a great, I

think I've listened four times, probably four and a half times. There's a lot of information

to unpack that he shared with us. And I wanted to mention while it was, while I was thinking

about it, he talked about all of the work that he's done with helping young people who

maybe want to get into the industry. And Russ, make sure I say it right, Lena, long time

listener Lena. As I said last week, that was an episode for her, you know, because she's

interested in getting into the business. But I also wanted to mention Daniel and Sharla

down in Huntsville, the real robust and their totem foundation, which is similar but different.

What Tuba is more interested in is people who want to get into the business. Totem is

more interested in people who want to get into festivals and spreading what we consider

the Bonnaroo spirit, the love, the vibe.

They're experiencing it for the first time. And I mean, we talked about this last week

that the value dollar wise is really good, but it's still expensive. Like the whole trip

to Bonnaroo outside of the ticket price is quite expensive, especially if you've never

done it before. And so especially young people, that could be in the way of their barrier

of entry and totem is helping facilitate people who might need that. And they also go both

ways on that, right? Barry helped me out with this and Taco too. They have the, not only

is it, they have people who they're wanting to help as the mentors.

Yeah, mentors and mentees.

Exactly. Yeah. Which I thought was a pretty unique way of doing it. It's not just, it's

both ends. And so that's a very cool thing that I know that you have a little bit more

involvement than me and Taco specifically.

Yeah, I've been on the board since it started. And it's because, and we say this all the

time, there are so many people around the country who have similar stories to ours who

just love this thing. And it's so funny, we talk about it year round to the point where,

we laugh that our coworkers are like, man, will you shut the hell up? I get it.

Little bit.

I get it. Stop talking about Bonnaroo. But this is a way to get involved. It's a year

round thing that it's a 401C3. They have a lot of people in Bonnaroo.

501.

501. Excuse me. I said 401, didn't I? It's a legitimate thing. Bonnaroo is involved.

They provide some ticketing opportunities. People can get involved. You can be a mentor

or a mentee. The idea is that you will take whatever the vibe and the love and the feeling

back and maybe start your own. Not just come back to Manchester, but maybe start your own

sort of event somewhere wherever you are. So pretty cool. Wanted to mention Totem.

Yeah, we'll link to the episode. We did a thing with Daniel and Sharla talking about

Totem. There's three major pillars. There's the mentor program, there's the scholarship,

and then there's this international exchange program that I think there's still a year

or two off from. That's right. That's the final goal, I guess, is they want to reach

out and bring a musical group maybe from Africa or somewhere that maybe wouldn't have the

opportunity to come to play Manchester. They actually want to get them on the lineup and

get some exposure for them.

That's right. And I think that's important. I'm glad you brought that up. Again, this

festival, if you guys, we're preaching to the converted here, but this festival means

a whole lot more than just showing up for a week of music. It's become a year round

thing. It's become a career thing. When you listen to different podcasts like Real Roobus

and the RooHamm Guys and Bonadude, people have ownership of these festivals. It's pretty

not weird. It's just unusual to hear how much people talk about the ownership that they

have. It's like it's for me. You know what I mean?

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Ownership. I remember this just popped into my head,

but so long ago in the media industry, I got complimented for something I was doing. It's

like you're doing, you took ownership of that. And that's when it really started to take

off. And I was like, what the hell is that? What does that even mean? What are they talking

about? That was many years ago. And I was like, oh, later on in my older midlife crisis

life, I go, oh yeah, yeah. When you make it important to you as much as anything else,

some people might find that silly, but we all get it. We all understand it.

That's not silly. That's part of talking about the squarch with Tuba last week. That's part

of why there was such a backlash about it because it's like, everyone's like, you're

messing with my festival. People think that are so in touch with stuff like the arts that

it's like, you can't change any of this because this is what the festival is to me.

And speaking of which, in another version of using the word ownership, they took complete

ownership for bungling that one. And then fixed it better than your wildest imagination

could have ever imagined. So yeah, that's a great point.

Even with, even now, I mean, we still get comments on that episode about some, you know,

opinions are varied because some people are still like the scorch did nothing wrong. They

loved it. Other people are saying the scorch was responsible for COVID. So that's actually

my favorite. That's my favorite one. There. Well, there's a certain part of me. I mean,

I'm not going to say I liked it better, but that old wood rickety arch that I had seen

since I was 22 years old, I still, if you said, Hey, we're going to tear that down and

put up what's there now. And that's just what we're going to do. Cause we feel like it.

Like, no, you're not. No, you're not. That thing's been there forever. You're not taking,

you can make another one or you can do something that that would be my, my probably my first

response. But based on all the facts that we've already knew and known, and then we,

we got reiterated last week, it's like, of course this was the best thing to do.

I mean, you made a similar point about the roads and the asphalt, you know, when they

had, when you said concrete, but when they asked for the roads, we were like, wait a

minute, that's, that's different. But yeah, that's a lot better than a dusty gravelly.

I am so glad you just brought that up. Cause I don't even know if I wrote it down. Last

night I was going through a lot of different things and I found the picture very, that

I reference, I didn't reference a picture, but reference when I saw during the COVID

spring of 20, the first, that production road, it's the first slab of concrete or asphalt

in Centro that, that, that was ever laid. And I'm guessing that was in the fall of 19

because that was that this was early spring, 2020. So that's funny you mentioned that.

Cause I was like, Oh, there it is. There's the asphalt. And then we were like, yeah,

I don't know about that. Yeah, I know. Right. What an idiot. Yeah. Stop changing things

that, well, that's like when I showed up, they moved guest media us from that field,

which is now where basically the infinity stage is going to be. That's where we used

to camp. If you guys remember, I think Brian, you were probably in that bunch moved us into

the woods. And I was so mad when I drove up, I'm like, you moved us. We're farther away.

This is horrible. And then all of a sudden I pulled my truck in. I was like, Oh, wait

a minute. We have trees. Yeah. Well, essentially what Barry just said is, is they moved us

to nine three one. And he didn't like it. I didn't like it for about five minutes. And

then I got your wish. Cause we got trees, but they did have those little spiky things

that they'd cut stuck between your toes. But anyway, they did kick us out. They did kick

us. They did eventually figure out cause we bragged about it too much. But also you guys

let the church boners down. You said we would ask about the arts. We'll figure it out. You're

a hundred percent. Thank you for bringing that up. Thanks. Those guys. That was a great

episode. That was a lot of fun. We did promise we would ask Tuba about the music and we lied.

And we lied. The Peter Pan reading. But I know we're going to have Benson, Brian Benson

on pretty soon. We'll ask him if not Brad and Corey want to come back on and talk about

music. So we'll get it answered and hopefully we'll get that thing turned off for you. Cause

that sounds horrible. What else did we miss? Russ? See, this is what happens when you take

a week off. We get lost, man. Somebody's got to lead. Somebody's going to remind us of

all the dumb bleep we do and don't do and forget about and all that. Yeah, it was a

great episode. I, you know, I enjoyed it. And, uh, you know, one of the things we didn't

talk about was the new arch. Remember this is a steel structure. This is not just a half

assed, you know, another wooden thing. This is an actual engineered, it's got a certificate

structure that is going to last for a long time and actually designed to withstand years

and years and years. So yeah, I think I have a picture of it. I'll look for here that,

that in the off season when it's, when it's deconstructed, it's the skeletons or the skeleton

is still there, but it can withstand wind. You know, it can, it doesn't have, it's not

any kind of concern. So yeah, we didn't get into that structure remains, but yeah. And

they just build onto it. They have the screens, they had the decorations, you know, each year

and a significant upgrade of monstrous proportions, huge upgrade. And part of, I think another

reason there was so much backlash against the scorch. Cause we also remember 2019 was

the year of exit one 11. That's right. I actually did use kind of that, the squarch

as the, you know, they put exit one 11 graphics off on it, obviously, but I think that was

part of what people's fear was, was, Oh God, you're adding more events to this place. Bonnaroo

was losing its identity. We're losing kind of the iconic parts of it. It's just going

to be a generic spot. And of course that turned out to not be the case because exit one 11

didn't happen again. And it really wasn't a very good festival.

I had a great time. Me and, you know, as you know, it was cold, but it was fun. But I,

kind of happy that, that, that didn't, that experiment was a one and done.

That also was that whole transition thing. C3 was taking over. Live Nation was sort of

buying it and taking over. So there was people like us were looking for issues.

Yeah. Like what are they doing? How are they screwing?

They're messing with my festival. They're going to screw this up. And, and Tuba said

it the other day. And I thought it was really interesting. No one has ever done that. No

one has ever transitioned a major event from ownership to ownership.

Not to that magnitude.

And I didn't think about it until you just said that Russ about that. It was all about

that timing. So yeah, so that's happening. And then we get pictures of the arch on fire

and we're like, they're killing us. They're ruining our festival.

That's funny.

Yeah. It was like a, just a tornado of all these different things happening that just

kind of made it seem like, okay, we're losing something here.

And then COVID hits. And then we really do think we're going to lose it. So yeah, that's

a two and a half year stretch before, well, about a year and a half before COVID even

begins to even let us have an idea of what we think is going to happen next, which obviously

none of us had any real clue what was going to happen next.

Very odd time.

And, you know, Russ, you're probably, you're not as cynical as Brian and I were. We're

sort of, you know, three quarters empty types.

Every time.

You know, somebody's trying to screw me out of something. So we're looking for the negative,

but I've gotten over that. I think these guys do a good job and they try their hardest.

They don't always get it right, but they try and they care.

There's some talk that just came out this weekend on the Reddit about maybe Mattra

Mooney leaving Centauru, if not all entirely. Does that break your heart?

No, it doesn't break my heart. I don't, it's just speculation at this point, but that's

what this medium is for, speculating. I don't know that it needs to take up the footprint

it does in Centauru. I don't know how much it's used. I've actually, one of our guys,

or my guys anyway, that was there last year and got married. I've been communicating with

and the beaches were the guest officiator or whatever it's called, minister, I don't

know, ordained or whatever. And hopefully we can talk about that experience here soon.

So I thought it was really, really neat, but there, it feels like it's like a rebrand of

sorts of like maybe someone said something about a love shack kind of thing or more of

a party atmosphere rather than a, you may all be seated. Maybe, I don't know. And then

Yes, you know, released their, what I never really know what it means. It looks like a riot. It

sounds like a party at every hour of the day, a little risque, right? Like a little, little,

I don't want to say drag showish. I'm not sure if that's what they do, but it might be part of that.

I think it's got kind of a burlesque flavor to it. That's the best word right there. Burlesque.

And so they've announced there, it's not really a schedule. It's just kind of a, I don't know,

itinerary of sorts. So people were pretty excited about that. And that's about as much as it gets

with, you know, quote unquote, oneroo news for the week. Yeah. You mentioned the house of match

drew Mooney. And of course you and I already got married there. So it's already served its purpose.

We had no all that later, but it was, yeah. But remember that started life as a snake and

Jake's barn, which is a connection, which is a huge space to dedicate to macro Mooney,

you know, half a dozen or whatever they had weddings agreed. Everybody. I mean, I didn't

care, but most people did the match or the snake and Jake's going away. People still talk about

that. Maybe just bring that back. Please. That would be awesome. Especially now that I've done

both. I've been to the one in Bonnaroo and the actual original snake and Jake's in New Orleans.

I think it's great. It was, you know, and it's part of this transition that we've talked about,

you know, AC and superfly, you know, kind of had of its roots in the New Orleans culture.

And part of that is kind of lost now that they've kind of removed snake and Jake's and,

you know, super flies out of the picture. That's a really good point. A lot of that has faded,

like the preservation hall, the little mini venue there, and then the preservation hall band

that anybody who enjoys music at least has a small amount of appreciation for, but that kind

of ran its course and that's kind of out. So yeah, I don't know. Maybe there's some license.

Yeah, maybe there's some license. They did a parade. Yeah. I don't know why they

decided to kind of remove some of that. Well, I mean, you might've hit on it. I mean,

superfly was from New Orleans and Bonnaroo for people who don't know is a Cajun word for,

depending on who you're hearing from is a really good time or a good time on the street or

best in the streets. Yeah. I mean, it's a Bonnaroo.

So, you know, at some point it's going to distance itself from that. I mean, the C3 guys are from

Austin. So, you know, and we have to keep reminding ourselves 50% or more of the people who come to

this event are there for the first time and they're getting younger and younger. So, you know, the

things that we remember and hold onto, they have no idea about. And so, you know, at some point we

start sounding like you kids get off my lawn type of thing. You know, it's not the same as it was

type of thing. So who cares? And it's some ways. It's not like the, the, let me, let me finish that

though, Brian, because you made a great point. I thought last week talking to Tuba, even with like

the asphalt and the changes and the Portageons, they've done a really, really good job of not

losing the identity. I think. And that's important. Right. I mean, they could, they could

corporatize this to death and we would hate it. In some ways they have. They have compared to where we were.

But, you know, like you said, I'm not going to complain about a flushable toilet. No, no, and this kind of

comes from also like the sports ethos of, of when stadiums started getting names and everything

started getting a corporate sponsor and then all the purists, maybe one of them would get angry

about it. And then you stop and think, yeah, you want your team, you want your festival, you want

the organization you support to have more cashflow and funding to be able to continue this thing you

like. Right. Correct. Right. And they got to raise money somehow. And if there needs to be a, the true

music lounge brought to you by Budweiser or whatever, then that's what, then that's what you

do. And, but they have, you know, the main stages are still the classic names that will be a problem.

Yeah. They changed the what to the Verizon stage. We got to start having a long talk.

I'm with you. I'm with you, but also 20 year old Brian and 20 year old 39 year old Barry will walk

through the mud to go see a favorite band, but 60 year old Barry, you know, that flushable toilet's

pretty sweet. Yeah. You know, so there's that. And I was glad you brought that up last week.

You're right though. Sorry I interrupted you. To finish that point. Yes. Keeping their identity

and recreating the identity and keeping and melding it has been done borderline perfectly.

But anything that the New Orleans connection was to this festival was just because of Superfly.

The festival was never designed around a New Orleans flair. That was just because that's where

they were from. If they were from Portland, Oregon, it would be more things probably that

they added that would be from their Pacific Northwest. So yeah, it was just, it was just an

homage and it was pretty neat. And it's a, well, if you're going to homage something,

New Orleans is a good place to start. Absolutely. The only other piece of news, I guess you guys

covered it last week was the announcement that the Who stage is moving out to the campgrounds.

Yeah. Your thoughts, Taco, cause we spent a couple of minutes on it.

You did. My first thought was, guess I'm not going to the Who stage. I mean, not to, you know,

be mean about it, but you know, it's, it's a lot different when you're where we are in Centro. If

you, you know, well think about last year, last minute we dropped everything. Cause we heard,

wait, Monrovia from Chattanooga is playing the Who stage. And now he's one of the biggest artists

in the Southeast anyway, or at least the trajectory wise. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, we, and we

canceled everything and went to go see him because it was right there in Centro.

If this was happening out in the campground, that's a different story. You know, it's kind

of a long hike for us at least, especially if we're going to try to cover some of this.

And well, let's forget how long the hike is. It's just, it just adds another layer to trying to get

to something that we would have done if it was easier within the confines of Centro. And I agree

with you on that one completely. But I think from the other perspective, if you are, if you are

camping out in GA and you happen to be camping near this stage and you're not in Centro and,

you know, some band starts playing and you're like, what the hell is that? That sounds great.

It's a lot easier to come in and see something you might not have otherwise seen just because

of where you are. So, you know, I get why they moved it maybe. And, uh,

I still have this feeling that we're going to see more, uh, curated stuff out there.

Not, not more events, but narrower, less events, but more fine tuned.

I think they put a lot of money and energy out there the last three or four years

on purpose to, to animate those spaces and to make camping more fun and appealing to people.

But I personally, and I don't have any, you know, proof on this, but that's a lot of energy spent

from an organization's point of view. It is, but they do have proof because they have the data.

They know at any given time, 20% of everyone they love their data is not in Centro. So,

you know, yeah, I understand that they're thinking, okay, for these 20% that are sitting back at camp

for whatever reason, what can we give them and what can we give them that benefits both of us?

Let me go a different, let me go a different direction real quick. Uh, 20% or whatever the

percent is that are at their camp might be there because they don't have any interest in being in

Centro. They don't have any interest in being next to the who stage. They don't have, you know, that

not everybody is in campgrounds dying of boredom. Some people are just in the campgrounds

wanting to chill. So, um, and I'm not trying to make a greater point there other than maybe the

who stay. I don't know where it works in my head. I can't think where does it who stage go. And it

really, really, yeah. Well, I agree with you there. I have no clue. I can't think. I can't think of

where it would be to me. It feels like it should be like the opening band, like right up in front,

like by the wall that runs by the clock tower or the, uh, the, uh, the mirror ball tower,

that entrance. And maybe like, that's the who stage. And so everybody who's on their way to

Centro is like, Hey, look, there's a professional stage with real bands on it. That's like the only

thing I can think of where it really makes sense. But Hey, what the hell do I know? I'm not a

festival player. Here's my free tip. And I offered this up to our friend, Ken Weinstein several years

ago, because I happened to be out there when they opened the gates at noon at the arch.

I felt like they should have like a celebrity guest announcer, like NASCAR does. Yeah. Counting

down their gates are open in 10 seconds. Yeah. And I was like, he was like, look, he looked at,

he didn't know me as well as now, but he looked at me like, okay, sure. Who are you thinking? I'm

like Don Pardo. And he was like, Oh, okay. You know, Dave Grohl, Dave Grohl on a Thursday at

1155. Come on now. That'd be pretty cool. That's actually not the craziest thing ever. Like I

thought it'd be pretty cool. No matter how crazy the idea is at Bonnaroo, it's usually, you know,

we've talked about it. It's usually kicked around at least a moment or yeah. Some celebrity guests

opening each day. Come on. I thought it'd be pretty cool. Um, all right. What was what else?

What are the other one last push on this contest? We're going to give these tickets away.

And we just decided this like in the pre-show meeting, uh, the extensive pre-show meeting

we have every single week, um, April 1st, 2nd, whatever that first Wednesday is, that's the day

we're going to announce our winner. I think we decided that real quickly and what we would love

to do here. I know we've been dragging this out and you know, Hey, what would all we got to do is

kill time in life. Last year we had a lot of great feedback and it helped me immensely when people

would get ahold of us. If you just want to type a note, that's fine. A voicemail, anything you got,

any way you want to do it of suggestions and not like Olivia Rodriguez or we got that,

but suggestions for us to sample. Cause it is time to start making the playlist. It's time to,

I purposely put it off. I didn't want to, I didn't want to do this for six months,

but it's time, right? Like I got to start, I got to find chapel rone this year, right? Where's chapel?

She on this thing? Who are the green bananas? Who's the green banana this year?

As Tuba said, the green bananas and two of them that I got from our listeners that were huge for

me was, and I'm blanking on her freaking name. It was chapel rone and the other young lady who

sang similar kind of sad girl stuff. Guys, help me out. Who was she? Renee, Renee rap.

Renee rap. I had never heard of either of those two now. Renee rap is she, she's fine. Chapel's

queen, but I wouldn't, without this show, I wouldn't have known about that until I got there. So if

y'all want to give us some of that, we'd love it. We'll get you the last few names in there. We'll

pick a name out. We'll have a winner in the first week of April. Isn't that weird that we haven't

done it? I mean, all three of us have like purposely not taken the deep dive yet. And I don't-

I have a little, I've gone pretty hard into King Giz, just because it's such a huge-

Well, you need to. It takes a long time.

Joey Valance, I mean, Dom Dahl, I have a few, but not the deep, deep dives.

I absolutely have not. I've been doing King Giz just because I'm excited about these three sets.

And then somebody, I can't remember who keeps posting in our discord, all these

fantastic looking King Giz records. They have this incredible vinyl with all this artwork and

they're colored vinyl in different designs and patterns. And I got to own some of this.

I got to get some- Well, if only there was a place I could go to get more information about

Bonnaroo. Oh, that's right. Our discord. Maybe I'll show up one of these days.

Right. That was a huge help for me last year. So we'll-

Yeah. Help us out. Maybe you've-

Go ahead, Russ.

Well, just telling you, drop some artist suggestions to us. You can enter, we got several ways,

the whatpodcast.com. Go there, click on win tickets, you'll figure it out. We have a voicemail

line. We've got an email. We've got a fax. You can fax us your suggestions. Or you could just record

a video of yourself telling us, send it to us. We'll play it.

Awesome. By April, that's my date. April 1st, my month, favorite month of the year. I'm going to

start making my playlists and cramming and getting ready. Cause at that point-

We'll do it for Bryan Stone.

Do it for Brian.

We'll pick winners and that way you guys hopefully have enough time to make your plans.

I would be interested in knowing-

What are we giving away, Barry?

Pardon me?

What are we giving away?

That's right. We have three different things we're giving away. We have two

tickets, GA tickets and camping pass. We also have, what is it, the Bonnaroo yearbook from our

friend of the show, Caleb. And we have an original print from I am Bonnaroo David Bruce,

which is awesome. So we have three prizes that we're going to give away, which is amazing.

Yeah. So even if you've already bought tickets, go ahead and enter anyways. Even if you're

interested in winning extra tickets, which I don't know why you wouldn't be, but you can win

one of these other things too.

Yeah. Let us know not only maybe an act that you love that we need to check out, but maybe one that

you've already taken a deep dive on that you didn't know about that we should check out as well.

Are we ready to do a little, a little depressing, bring everybody down?

Yeah.

A little buzzkill?

We got to use the, the Wayne's world.

We're going back in time.

So five years ago, and as I said at the top of the show, because I am so committed to this show,

I currently have COVID according to the tests. Anyway, it sucks. I don't feel like I'm dying.

I don't feel like I need to go to the hospital. So there is that, but five years ago, man, I can

remember we kind of at work, we're getting the, you know, these questions from HR. Can you work

from home? Are you set up? Do you have computer hookup? Do you have internet? And we're like,

what the hell, you know, and this is where the Chadnick at times, times free press.

And, you know, being the cynic, as I mentioned, I'm thinking they're going to fire us all. They

hate us all. The world's coming to an end, you know, whatever. And it's like, no, it's because

they're thinking they're going to have to send everybody home. And sure enough, this week, right,

I think we sent everybody home March 8th, but I want to say March 15th, right? Was when

basically everything else shut down. It kind of depends on who you ask. This show is going to

drop on the 19th. There was somewhere in that, if you have 15 to 20, 15th to 20th, it depended.

Some people took this more seriously than others. The battling culturally hadn't started yet.

Everybody was still equally confused. And so the vitriol hadn't started yet. Didn't take long,

but it hadn't started at that point. So it depends on who you ask. But the interesting thing to go

ahead. The major turning point for me that I remember was that they announced, remember South

by Southwest, they announced they were canceling it for that year. And this was before anything was

considered shut down. And so they did that very early. They did that very early. And it was like,

whoa, wait a minute. If they're shutting down that event, what about this event or that event? That

was kind of the first in a long line of dominoes of things kind of falling into place. I'm glad you

think like this is bigger than just, I'm glad you said that because I was getting ready to make the

point that part of the reason that we're talking about this, obviously we focus on music and

festivals, but that was a huge part of the conversation. Not just because the show,

but that's what I did for the time, the times free press was cover music. And things like

festivals were at the very top of the discussion. How can you bring 80,000 people together

to an event? Yeah. Everything with a large crowd. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I focused for two years on

restaurants and music. And I'm very proud of what we did on this show. We joked about it. We did a

show for two years about events that didn't happen. Yeah. It's pretty wild. And good shows.

I'm very proud of what we did. Well, I remember to just go back to like first hearing about it was

in December, December of 2019. I work in the beer industry as my day job outside of the media work

I've done over the years and we, we distribute Corona. And so when the Corona, so when the

Corona virus is first anywhere on anybody's, you know, Google search, I was sitting at my desk and

someone said there was someone was talking Corona. I don't know what work wise. And they're like,

yeah, well, hope we don't get that Corona virus. And I'm thinking, oh yeah. Cause this beer sucks.

I know Corona virus. That's hilarious. Like, no, man, look it up. Wow. Whatever, dude. And then I

looked at it. I'm like, okay, whatever. That was in December. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty sure Russ,

you, me and Brad, our co-founder and former co-host, we all had it at the end of that

December, February, right? Didn't we all three get sick? Cause we're sick. I've ever been in my life.

I got sick, but mine was the flu. Oh my God. I don't know what I had. Cause we didn't have

tests at that time, but there wasn't a COVID test at the time, but I tested positive for flu. Now I

don't know if a flu test would show positive if you had it. I don't know. I put my head on a pillow

one night and thought I'm not waking up and I'm okay with it. Cause I, this sucks. I blame Brad

for giving it to me because I mean, it was like we hung out and then literally the next day I was

stuck in bed. But I mean, no kidding. We had, so because of that, and I don't remember names,

I know we had Allie and John on who book booking agents. They were on during that time period to

talk about, they were very kind to correct a lot of things that I had thought were true about how

bands were booked. I think we talked about Brian, you and I did on the phone the other day. I always

assumed that Chattanooga being in the middle of Birmingham, Knoxville, Atlanta, Huntsville was

prime because we were 90 miles away from everything. And they were like, no, six hours.

We don't do 90 minutes. We do six hours. And they were talking about how bands are booked and

whether they're going to have product out. And they think so far out. So that was really telling.

And then, and I don't remember his name, the attorney that we had on that introduced us to

the term force majeure. That's one of the- Jeff Becker.

Pardon me? Jeff Becker.

Jeff Becker. That's right. That was a fascinating episode. That was a term we never heard of. And

it was all about who's on the hook if something like this happens.

If you remember too, before all this happened, what was the major news about Bonnaroo that came out?

Before it happened.

It sold out.

It sold out here.

Yeah. It sold out so early too.

It sold out super early. And you remember we scrambled and we got Ken Weinstein on the phone

to talk about the sellout. And we got to do an episode about that. Yeah. So we threw together

this kind of last minute episode that, oh my God, Bonnaroo sold out. This is amazing. Let's talk

about it. So we went from that super high of big news. And the next thing you know, it's canceled.

And he corrected me. It wasn't the quickest it had ever sold out. It was the earliest.

Earliest.

That it had ever sold out. Yeah, you're exactly right.

Which I still don't know what the difference is.

Well, they announced later in the year, I think. And I think the one year it sold out in like two

and a half weeks or three weeks or something. Well, the first couple sold out.

They always announce in January.

It was whatever the technicality was.

They also move numbers around to make their narrative work. So whatever.

But either way, that's huge news. Forget everything. That's huge news. I forgot all about

that. We haven't even come, well, we came close to a sellout last year, but it hasn't really even

approached that.

It hasn't happened since.

Not like that. No, for sure.

Yeah. For me, I mean, I was, back then, five years ago, might as well have been 500 years ago.

My life was so different then for so many ways that I won't bore anybody with.

And it's difficult to talk about something that where you're trying, the message you're trying to

give is, listen, how awful this is, right? Like it's difficult to tell somebody that when you know

every single person you'll ever have that conversation with went through the same thing.

So it's like, it's story Topperville, right? Hold on. I got one better for you. And not that that's

what I'm or most people are trying to do, but it's a different dynamic that we're not used to.

You can grab a few things, 9-11 and a handful of other things where everybody was experiencing

the same thing. This was to me on a different level of just, of that. So it's difficult to

talk about, but man, that year sucked. It was so awful. Every single thing about it. I turned 40.

My Pearl Jam toured for the first time in years on a massive world tour, canceled the whole thing.

I was so mad, so angry. I'm surprised I didn't get more radicalized overall. I was so furious.

I had a breakup that was going through that was horrible. Like everything was bad. And I lost my

last radio gig. Now I'm five years since having a job in like official traditional media, which

I'm good with. I don't need it anymore. It's fine. But I'd never gone that long without working

somewhere. Even if it's just some little rinky-dink nothing station, March 1st, 2020 whole line of

cuts. They did exactly what you thought was going to happen, Barry. They did it to us. I knew it was

drama. I didn't care, but I mean, I did care, but I got over it pretty quick. So I mean, I'm losing

jobs. I'm losing girlfriends. I'm turning 40. I'm a drunk idiot. My life was a-

And no Pearl Jam.

And no Pearl Jam show to save my soul. I was a wreck. And so I wasn't really even around

you got Brad had just moved to New Orleans. So he's one of my regular run and drinking buddies,

Brad Steiner from the show. He's gone. I thought my whole world was in it and it didn't have a

thing to do with whether I caught the flu or not or COVID, right? Like, so it, man, what a wild ass

time that-

See, it was different. It was different for me. I hunkered down. I moved all my equipment. I,

for some reason, I had been planning unintentionally. I didn't know that was coming,

but I had been buying equipment and stuff like this. So I could do podcasts or radio.

That's when your obsession started with gathering equipment.

Correct. It started before that. And then when that happened, I mean, I was like, this is the

best thing because I could do zoom meetings from home. You know, I mean,

Yeah. You mentioned Brad moving to New Orleans. He moved to New Orleans in February. It was like

two weeks and then the world shut down.

What a lucky SOB. If that doesn't happen, he's still unemployed.

Nobody falls up. Nobody falls up better than that guy.

Instead, he's the king of New York. Sorry. Go ahead, Dango.

Well, but we were transitioning from doing the show in person to now we're trying to figure out

how to do it remotely, not because of COVID, but because Brad moved away.

Yeah. Yeah. We didn't have his studio. We didn't have his radio studio anymore.

Didn't have access to the radio studio.

That's right.

So yeah.

Which for context was the same station that I was working at at the time. Brad's dismissal

from that station had nothing to do with COVID. We won't go into any of that for any,

no, because it's not important, but it was just a very transitional time for really, I guess,

look at your life. When is it not transitional?

Yeah, for sure.

When are you not, when is it like, I think if COVID happened a year ago, we could all probably be

like, Oh, that was, you know, it turns, it gets relative at some point.

And that's for me, I was really proud of the work that the paper did, because we,

we hate to use the word because that's what everybody did. We pivoted. It was like, suddenly,

you know, there's, there were tons of stories. It was cherry picking, you know, and for me,

it was calling the venues, calling restaurants. I can't tell you how many interviews I did with

artists that were not touring, but would be like, how are you doing this? And they were,

you know, doing things from their kitchen or their living room, or they were doing mini shows.

So there was lots of things to talk about.

I mean, they got nothing else to do that why they're not going to say no to an interview

request.

No, no, they were thrilled to have the attention.

And yeah, talk to anyone. That's where Post Malone did his Nirvana set from, remember?

Yeah. Yeah. The RSD really coming out now.

So many of them, you know, and this is, we're like, this has given me a chance to reconnect

with my family, moving back home. I'm living with my parents or I'm back home with my kids. Do I

get to see year round? So there were some positives. Most people, there were some like you,

Brian, that, you know, just didn't want to be stuck at home. But then there were some others who

found out.

That's absolutely true.

There was a way to make a positive out of it. So that's what I remember the most. And restaurants,

you know, they figured out how to do takeout in even liquor stores, which I just thought was the

weirdest. Suddenly, suddenly you can have liquor delivered to your house.

Or you could go to a bar and get a mixed drink and walk out the door with it.

How awesome was that for me for six months?

That was always the weirdest thing was what was, what did they call it? Critical?

You know, who was, who was vital? The workers that were vital?

Essential workers.

That was the stupidest thing ever.

That was dumb because it was like, yeah, come on now.

Bartenders.

I'll tell you this while we're on the subject, you know, my day job is the beer industry and it

always has been and still is and hopefully always will be. And that, that we are sales

explode did it. There was no problem. Like there was no like, Oh, I wonder about our jobs. It's

like, we don't have enough employees. We're selling. I mean, the volume was amazing. And I

mean, we got bonuses, like your six figure, I mean, six, you know, a thousand plus dollar

bonuses just because they were being friendly as a company, because they were making so much money.

And it was, you know, the narrative would be you're putting your, your employees in, in danger,

agree or disagree. That's up to you. So it was a, for that, for me in that moment, that's the only

thing going for me. Well, it was like, well, at least I don't have to worry about losing a job

that matters. I only lost a job that doesn't matter. Talking into a radio station microphone

that nobody listens to. And then just to, you know, kind of podcast that nobody listens to.

But just to put a bow on it and Tuba mentioned it, you know, 2021 comes around, they move everything

to the fall and we get weather and all kinds of uncertainty. And then 2022, 23, everybody,

all the musicians that have been sitting at home saving up, whatever you want to call it, came out

and hit it hard. And then it sort of, you know, rubber banded back to the center. So now we're

kind of where we are. So yeah, the, and the 21 canceled, uh, weather show was, that was such a,

a time, my perspective on that year, the 20, the 2021 year was ever the anger and the, the cultural

fighting that I mentioned hadn't started before was so heavy at the time. And I was just tired

of everyone. Bonnaroo was like, well, now we're going to do it in September. I don't want Bonnaroo

in September. It's not supposed to be in September. Like I remember thinking that way because I was

just so tired and angry at everything. And then it's like, Oh, of course it's canceled. Maybe I'll

never go to Bonnaroo again. Yeah. But it was not only that it was due, you know, there were still

those questions of, do I want to go hang out with 80,000 people? You know, I think we still have

some of that lingering. It's a legitimate thought. Um, it's not an overreaction. It's a legitimate

thought. Especially to somebody who's sitting here with COVID. I have no idea. Especially if we're a real old guy like Barry, you know, the old people might die.

Exactly. I have no idea where I got it. What bathroom handle did I get this from? I have no idea.

So it's one of those grand babies just not around probably could be. So, but anyway, you know, there's, I could talk about this forever. There's no reason to do that. But

it, a lot's happened since then. And I think I'm, I feel like the, the festival's in a good place. I feel like we, as individuals are in a good place. Y'all can speak to that and tell me I'm wrong if you want to. Um, and I think the show's in a good place and I'm pretty happy about it.

Let me ask you guys this, because I remember asking in 2021, 22, and maybe into 23, when I would talk to musicians and artists and creators,

I, my, not the concern. I would ask them, are they concerned that now every artist is going to, every piece of art that they do is now going to be COVID related? Are we going to be inundated with, woe is me, I'm stuck at home type of thing?

Didn't see a lot of that. I mean, there are some things, there are some things that are sort of hidden couched, maybe that came out of it, but not like I feared.

Yeah. Jason Isbell did a little bit of that. Um, he did some, some pieces where he talked about how, how awful it was. Um, I also think that that's, if you reverse engineer his divorce to Mandesheyr's, I think it pretty much starts right about there.

If you care about such things, if you care about such things and, and being speculative of someone else's life.

Uh, but yeah, no, I mean, it does feel like though it's, it's in the rear view mirror as far as like all the concerns, all the worries, all the curb side pickup. Come pick up your TV at Best Buy in the parking lot.

Yeah. Yeah, I know, right. So yeah, we're better place in 2025, at least when it comes to infectious disease for now.

All right. What else? What else? What else? I don't know, Taka, you got anything? I think I'm, uh, I think I'm pretty good on what I, what else? Yeah. I think I got it.

Yeah. I mean, you know, I was gone last week, so good to be back.

Answer the question guys. Tell us who, who we need to be listening to.

Help me get my playlists going.

We need help.

And hopefully, uh, my goal is to get some of those names and to reach out to some agents and line up some interviews.

I'd love to get some artists on here. Uh, we've got a couple other things lined up.

I'm very happy with what we've done since January with, uh, Brad and, and Tuba and, uh, church boners.

Anytime you can say church boners in public, I think it's a good day.

It's fun. It's fun. Yeah. We just trip our way through this thing, guys. We try our best. We appreciate you very, very, very much for, uh,

dealing with the silliness week in and week out and the whole Bonnaroo community. We, we, we love you.