We get our biggest question we get at Bonnaroo of being somebody that's

recognizable that people are used to seeing us where we are.

We've been there the same spot within 20 feet for, um, since 2015.

We've been right on the road to that.

And people always ask, how do y'all get this spot?

And I want to go ahead and answer that question.

So people will know.

Welcome back to the what podcast I'm Barry.

That's Russ.

That's Brian.

Guys, we've got another big show.

Pretty excited about it.

We've got a lot to talk about.

Um, let's just go ahead and start and go backwards a little bit.

I thought last week's episode with Brad Parker was one of the best

shows that we've done.

Um, not because of us three necessarily, though.

You guys were great.

No, I think it was me.

Look at taco, man.

He's coming around, right?

I can't argue.

No, Brad is great.

Uh, he, he gets it.

You know, we say that about certain guests.

He knows what's expected.

He knows what people want to hear.

He offered a ton of information.

Um, I'm going to ask you guys, what were some of the, I mean, there, I thought

there were a couple of things that sort of stood out to me, the idea that, and

this is in no order, but there's only like 25 acts around the world, you know,

that can, uh, headline, so to speak, fill up a big, big event, uh, and they

don't necessarily do festivals.

That was kind of fascinating.

Um, the whole, and I'm glad he said it and I'm glad we got it out there

because it made a lot of sense how much data impacts what they do.

You know, like the idea of the, uh, reentry fee and one day, you know, they

don't, they can't, they're not going to sell a four day pass cause they need to

know who's coming on Friday and who's coming on Sunday, you know, it's not

necessarily a, um, right.

And they'll, they'll work with you if you need to switch one day for another or

something, yeah, they'll do it, but they're going to refund you and then

charge you for another thing because that keeps their data consistent.

It sounded like a pain in the ass, you know, as a, as a patron, I'd be like,

what a pain in the ass.

Why do I have to wait?

You know, just do it, but it makes perfect sense.

They need that data.

Yeah.

They, they, they, they do everything very, very calculated.

I guess my biggest takeaway from, uh, talking to Brad Parker last week was he

has officially said he is not the festival.

I know.

And he said, yes, that's what I got most out of all that.

He said he's going to put us in the room with him.

Yeah.

I don't believe that.

We'll see if it happens.

Yeah.

Cause I don't necessarily believe Brad on this.

He, I think he still might be festival.

I don't know.

Clark Kent, Superman.

They don't sit around and let this stuff out.

He's going to pay some random dude to show up and say, yeah, I'm festival.

Put a pillowcase over his head.

My thought was I actually have a couple ideas on who it might be.

If in fact, that's the truth, but that's the overall thing I thought was great

about it, if by chance you, you know, you didn't get it all or you're not

through with it, whatever it might be is it was a lot of times we're just,

you were talking about a road, just talking about her talking about her.

These are real questions with, but more importantly, more importantly, real

answers that were specific answers, calculated, deliberate answers to what's

going on this year.

And that's what I got the most out of all of it was that we weren't just

sitting around, well, you know, that infinity stage is going to be pretty

cool guys, you're going to really love it.

Like, you know, it was, it was real informational, which made it fun.

And Brad's just fun to talk to.

He's so much fun.

And also, if you have more questions, info at bonnaroo.com, right?

That's a real person.

I think he said reaches out.

If you're not sure about the tickets, like the camping, a lot of people had the,

you know, question about if I want to sell my passes, but I not, you know, how

do I get rid of camping?

He didn't have an answer, but they're working on it type of thing.

So point being, if you have a question, reach out to them now.

The chances are you'll get an answer.

And the key is sooner rather than later.

Yeah.

And I, and you'll also, you'll likely get an answer based on the conversation we

had, and then I was in Nashville last night, which we'll get to for the reason

more why here in a minute, but I was talking to somebody about Bonnaroo and

these things and, and there, I, I agreed.

And it's not a Bonnaroo thing.

It's a festival wide country thing, industry thing.

Buying tickets is a little confusing.

Like the entire industry is not even standalone concerts.

It's not as simple as just, I want to buy tickets.

So to be a little confused is not like, Oh man, you know, sometimes gaslight

yourself and think I'm maybe I'm just dumb and I don't know.

It can be confusing.

Ask questions.

You'll likely get them answered.

Right.

Yeah.

Speaking of, we've got a huge discord now Brad's on there.

So if you got, Brad's on the discord.

Five, 10 times more than I am.

Bug him, bug us.

Uh, yeah, we've got a lot of people joining and big community.

So, uh, the what.co slash discord.

We'll get you in free to join.

All right.

You mentioned the, he also confirmed as we suspected, uh, the, where the

infinity stage was going to be that lineup dropped as he predicted that it

would, uh, the day before our show.

And how about that casual edition of my guys?

Not my guy.

I never met him, but I, I know people who know the dude, um, sack

squash, right?

He, he's used to be, wait, oh, I should have pulled it up.

He was in one of these legendary bluegrass bands for awhile.

Yeah.

And then he, it's almost like a here come the mummies.

Sorry.

I don't have a long time to go back into that, but it was where he did this,

you know, undercover thing, partly as a joke, dressing up as the big foot, as

a sass swatch and partially is just a be secretive who is this guy playing

these crazy signs and now he's recording with people, man.

That was a huge drop for me.

I can't wait to see that at the infinity stage.

I don't know if you thought I was kidding, but I actually interviewed the guy.

Uh, in 2021.

Yeah.

Okay.

I guess I do remember you saying that now.

Yeah.

He was, he was, uh, he was going to do man eater with John O.

Yeah.

They record, they recorded together for the big foot festival.

Where else?

He was great.

He was great.

It was, uh, you know, he stays in character.

So there's that, but he, he wasn't all weird about it.

Like some people are so, but he's very good, very talented.

It's a great show.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

Maybe we can, maybe he'll do an interview though.

So that'll be fun.

I, we're going to, we're going to pursue it.

I promise you that.

Who was it?

You were saying that was on the infinity taco that you had seen that you would,

uh, that stuck out to you, right?

Washed out.

Uh, these, they played Chattanooga years ago.

I remember, I think probably Brad drug drug me and maybe you and maybe some

other people to it said, go check out this guy.

He's great.

It was an awesome show.

Kind of reminded me of a beach house, maybe that kind of, uh, just

ambient kind of thing.

So I think that'll, I think that'll be perfect for the infinity stage.

Cool.

And then you've got this Rebecca black DJ set.

What, do we know anything about this?

I don't know.

Rebecca black, but I don't remember her being a DJ.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like I said, I think it's all experimental.

Sacs Squatch played with the Marcus King band, with the Marcus King band.

Sorry.

I wanted to make sure I got, not even a grass or roots.

Like I thought it was a blues of Marcus King.

Any who.

Uh, yeah, that was, that was the one that jumped off to me.

I didn't expect the infinity stage to have Johns that I would know.

Cause that's just not what it's going to be for me, but of the trees, I think

is on there, that's one of those EDMs.

I pretend to be the gap of the trees.

I know that, but I know those guys.

Uh, so just try to put a finer point on Brad's point last week about, uh, there's

no matrix out there or algorithm that says book, insane clown posse and, uh,

Sasquatch, Sacs Squatch and Luke Holmes.

You'll have a great, luckily, yeah, luckily machine learning and AI hasn't

quite gotten that sophisticated.

The algorithm says Sacs Squatch.

That was a great point too.

Yeah.

That was, that was a really good episode.

And if you haven't heard it, I recommend you go back and listen to it.

And, uh, Brad, I'm guessing since this is the beginning, you'll

probably hear this, uh, Wednesday.

We'll you'll hear the rest of it.

What do you say Thursday and Friday of this week?

So he listens to every single show.

That's what he said.

I have no reason to doubt him.

What else?

Uh, we are officially, by the time this comes out, less than

a hundred days to Bonnaroo.

The countdown is into the double digits.

So be here before you know it.

All right.

Shaking knees lineup came out.

Wow.

I know you're excited.

You're always excited for shaking these, uh, Ross.

And normally I am too.

This one's great.

This is so good.

Right here.

Yeah.

I mean, I know there's some of these, sorry, go ahead.

Well, you know, it's normally in May this year.

It's in September.

Yeah.

Normally we have the shaking these lineup before Bonnaroo because of,

you know, the dating this, this year, we didn't know if we, when we were

getting the shaking these lineup.

And then they started doing these Rue clues for better, lack of a better term,

shaky clues, I guess.

And everybody's like, Oh, that's great.

When's the lineup coming out?

We had no idea.

They finally said, okay, it's coming out.

Here it is.

Boom.

Worth the wait.

Absolutely amazing.

Yeah.

The there's some of these fast, forgive me for not having any

information from me today.

It's a little discombobulated day for me, but, uh, what, like

lot louder than life.

And some of these that have these just great rock acts, like so many names,

but many of those are there.

They're much legacy acts and they're, they're very curated to a, to a

very specific type of people that this thing is contemporary every year.

It is the great American rock fest right now.

I, I implore anybody fine.

Prove me wrong.

Find a festival that's giving a, just a rock and roll can, with the

most contemporary artists.

There's nobody doing it like shaky knees.

And for guys like us who are rock and roll people, certainly me and taco very

much, you love the, this Atlanta city fast.

This is really good.

Yeah, really good.

Not to mention it is contemporary.

Yes.

There's also some names on there.

Thought you'd never see on a festival lineup.

Devo.

Yeah, that's for me.

That's what jumped out at me.

A Devo.

Yeah.

Plenty of legacy on here too, but, but a lot for me.

We're now on Sunday.

Four non-blondes.

Yep.

I didn't even know they were back together.

Linda Perry is one of my absolute favorite singer songwriters of all time.

I mean, how about a one, two punch of black keys and cage, the elephant in

the early evening to, you know, not even the headliners for that Saturday.

Yeah.

Black keys and cage aren't even the headliners.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Public enemy on that same night.

Uh, our guys backseat lovers.

Backseat lovers.

They're there.

If you see, they keep getting higher and higher on that festival lineup every year.

It's because of us.

They go on the what pod.

Yeah.

That one.

We, uh, we discovered him.

Same with Michigander.

Michigander.

Yeah.

He's on that list too.

Yeah.

And, uh, the beaches, Brian.

I, oh yeah.

Saturday, my girls, the beaches.

I'm good friends.

My, my, yeah.

My good, my good gal pals.

Um, yeah, that Saturday is for me.

That Saturday is for me.

See it's Sunday for me, but, but it's all three days for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, if I could all three, I'd like to see the pixie Joey Vallance.

I've become a fan now.

Thanks to our listening, our listeners.

This is not a, we're all going to bourbon and beyond because we're excited thing.

Atlanta is an hour and 39 minutes down the road.

I'm going to Saturday of this festival to see beaches.

If nothing else.

Yeah, I'm going for sure.

Johnny Maher, by the way, did you guys know he's playing with dead mouth?

No.

What I think I heard.

I think I heard on the real root bus.

I think Mitchell let that drop.

If I remember correctly, I mean, Johnny Maher's amazing.

So that'll be a lot of fun.

Um, it's really good.

Top to bottom.

I mean, excellent job.

Shake it up.

Excellent.

I mean, really good.

Cause we were, you know, all these other September fall ish festivals

announced and we're like, oh, that's great.

We're shaky.

Well, and they just moved and they just moved venues to Piedmont park.

People don't understand what that means, but that's a good, that's a good move.

I think that people will be happy with that.

So there was a lot of questions, new, new venue or new location, new time.

And so that means leads me to believe maybe this is a latch,

diff ditch effort.

And maybe this is kind of it.

If this is hit, this ain't it.

I mean, pretty good effort.

Yeah.

So excellent work.

And the reason it took a minute.

They had a lot to get where it worked out.

Obviously.

Yeah.

They had to work this out.

Sublime.

We didn't, you know, we were kind of denied sublime because they were

supposed to play that Sunday at South star before it got canceled because of the

rain.

True.

True.

True.

You know, you cannot wait.

Just hope that September doesn't give us some bad hurricane.

So don't even mention it.

Yeah.

Never know.

All right, Brian, you made a field trip, uh, last night, uh, went over to

Nashville to see, um, what the hottest guitar player in the history of

bluegrass, apparently, uh, Billy strings, that's a world's tallest.

Okay.

But Billy strings, um, I, I, I wanted to pull the audio and we could just

flash it.

I don't have, I didn't have time, but from last week, can I be unreasonable?

Um, and then of course you're like, well, yeah, well, we'll stop you.

You always are.

And just cause I was joking about it doesn't mean it wasn't going to

actually do it and be unreasonable.

Um, everything I was concerned about that may, that I might not like.

It's like every single one of them were true.

It's like everything about it that I thought make might turn me off.

It all pretty much happened.

I had a great time, so much fun, but I have family in Nashville going to

Nashville, something I do all the time.

And it, so it's always fun.

And I had a great time, but it's bluegrass Barry.

And now we, we, we don't like bluegrass technically overall as a music

genre for ranking them, right?

It's down this list down here.

And I got this understanding that maybe, and it's this one of those, I got it

built up by a lot of my jam friends.

And, and I expected maybe it's not quite just bluegrass.

Maybe I'm missing something.

No, it's bluegrass show for almost three hours and they didn't play

the song I wanted to hear.

They played it the night before.

And, uh, yeah, we, we were on, we, if we, if, if there was a pit, there's not a

pit because there's the, the GA floor, but there was like a Bridgestone arena.

So the hockey arena where the predators play.

And I mean, I was 20 rows out, 15 rows out best seats I've had in as long as I

can remember, so like it was fun.

He played two or three songs that I liked.

Three hours of bluegrass.

Three hours.

So long.

We didn't get out of there.

I'm surprised you're here.

We got in there at six 45, um, in the evening inside just, it was cold, very

cold in Nashville yesterday and we didn't leave until midnight central, which is

one o'clock our time and then we're recording the next day here on a Sunday.

Uh, but here's, here's the best part.

And I real fast, I know most people don't care about this.

I'm going to go way into this on the stone on air podcast next week to a

level that's annoying.

So if you want, cause there is plenty of anecdotal stuff here, but there's one

for this show we need.

I won't bore you with anything else.

So I'm standing there.

Uh, first set just ends and, and it was fine enough.

And, and, and I'm chit chatting whoever.

And some guy comes up to me and he's like, Hey man, Brian.

Yeah.

Bryan Stone.

Yeah.

Uh, man, I watched the show all the time on the floor, in the pit, essentially.

His name's Joel.

We talked for a little, and I was like, Joel, Joel, I'm not going to remember this.

I asked him like three times, like Joel, one more time.

And he's like, Billy Joel, like the Billy Joel story.

Great.

I won't forget now.

Great work.

I won't forget now.

Brad Steiner and the, uh, the, uh, Billy Joel story.

We don't have time to reset it, but, uh, good work buddy or whatever it was.

Great work.

And Joel works at Bridgestone arena.

I didn't get that far in.

He wasn't on like duty at that moment.

Didn't get that far into it for all.

I know he runs a damn place.

He owns a place for all I know.

And, uh, boy, that was as cool as it gets.

That is pretty neat.

If I was sitting there thinking that this show is not exactly hitting it for me,

man, Joel, thank you.

And, and I appreciate any time you guys say hello out there, but wow, what an

just rando ass thing and he was loving it.

He, and he specifically asked, that's why I know he's not just

a familiar with the show.

It's like, okay.

So what do you think so far?

It's like, I don't know.

I don't know yet.

I'll get back to you, but it was great.

It was great.

But

speaking of your stone on air, I wanted to mention, cause I, I reached out to, I

knew you were going, I think, I think I'm, was it Friday?

I sent you a link to a Rick Beata.

Yeah.

Um, interview with Billy strings.

Really, really good interview, but you did a bit on your show last Wednesday about

Billy strings and Rocky top in the fact that every bluegrass song starts out with

the same

Rick Beata.

He plays about 12 songs.

They all start exactly the same.

You're and you nailed it.

It's so annoying.

It's bluegrass, man.

There's three songs fast, faster and fastest.

I know.

And so right.

Yeah.

The Rocky top down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, downives.

And so many of them do that.

And I got to what I thought about this more later.

I kind of thought I left this part out.

It would have been a fun way to compare it.

The Wilhelm scream, you know, the will that you hear in the commercials and that that

was from what a Hitchcock movie in 1950 or something.

Some Western and then they put it in star wars and it's been an in joke.

I was at my knees.

It is so many movies now.

Yes.

My niece who's five years old was playing on an iPad.

I heard that's the Wilhelm scream on whatever video game she's playing.

So I got to thinking maybe that down, down, down, down, maybe that's the Wilhelm

scream of bluegrass, right?

That it's an in joke.

Yeah.

We've got a great song here.

Let's just start it with down, down, down, down.

Yeah.

Ooh, I like this one.

Let me be clear.

I have nothing but respect for the musicians.

I just, it's not for me.

It's the roots of all rock and roll in the history of, of, of civilized string and

percussion music.

It is the roots of it.

Yeah.

And it is, it can be boring, but I'll also this real quick guys.

If I told you this, would it surprise you?

There's no drummer for this band.

That's how strict, that's how strict that's how stripped down grass it is.

They don't have a drummer, but they're electrified.

Right.

I'm, I say that Cindy Pinyon does the boxcar Pinyon bluegrass festival here.

I'll send you one of the bumper stickers, taco.

It's not just Chattanooga.

These stickers are all over the universe.

Yeah.

They're, I mean, literally they're everywhere.

That's her.

She is a bluegrass lover through and through not electrified and I don't think

drums and no banjo that ain't grass.

So she's a purist.

So it's his, he is generational.

Billy strings.

He is singularly generational.

Like I watched him.

I, I mean, I watched it very close.

That guy is wild.

How good he is.

And he has a pedal on that acoustic that makes it very electric sound.

Yeah.

And he blazes and it's, and his back and his backing with the stand up and the fiddle

and this traditional instruments and, and, and players, boy, they play in a way

that adds that percussion.

I did.

I even thought I was like, I don't see drums.

I wish I did, but I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm still hearing percussion.

Like it is done.

Marvelously still bluegrass.

Yep.

Still bluegrass.

So I'm not, he's not dead to me.

I think I said he's dead.

He is not dead to me, but I'm not going to another one.

What's the line I would sing with the birds if I knew the words.

Oh, yeah.

I'd sing along with the birds.

If I only knew the words, I know it sounds a bit absurd.

That's funny too.

Cause you said, uh, I know you said you don't want any spoilers on the set list.

You're so you're like not looking at social media, trying to keep state dark.

So that was funny.

Last couple of nights ago, somebody came in the discord and they were like, Oh,

I'm so excited.

Uh, Brian's going to go see Billy strings.

I got the set list from last night's show.

And I'm like, wait, stop.

I wondered what that was for.

That's thank you.

And I had several people who didn't know any better send me some stuff and it was

getting, and, and, and cause he plays a different set every single night, like a

jam band and I didn't want, I wanted to be disappointed in real time.

I didn't want to be disappointed in advance.

That sums up Bryan Stone right there.

Don't disappoint me before I get here.

Disappoint me as it happens.

But I want to be disappointed in real time.

That's the Bryan Stone we all know and love.

Right.

There's one or two other things that were pretty funny that are, that are mean

nothing to most people and next week on that, on that other pod, I'll, I'll

spend some time on it, but thanks for listening to it here, but I, I, boy, Joel,

man, thank you so much for saying hello.

And especially if you've got any pull on that arena and be there for Pearl jam,

send me an email.

All right.

So on our show today, guys, church boners, church boners.

Um, this was a lot of fun.

These guys reached out several weeks ago, right before Christmas and wanted to be

on and, um, they're regular listeners or the show means a lot.

Um, I will just sum it up cause it's a pretty lengthy and we were already pretty

lengthy.

There's a lot of boys, a lot of stuff going on.

A lot of stuff, a lot of people.

Um, it just reiterates improves as I've said over and over and over that there

are whatever 80, a hundred thousand Bonnaroo stories, they're all different,

but they're all pretty much similar.

There's a lot of connective tissue in all of them.

And, um, yeah, no, they're, we're this it's given a minute.

If you're like, I don't know what's going on with this.

Give it a minute.

It'll get there.

Yeah.

All right.

So let's get right into it.

Uh, here we go with church boners.

I look, I thought when I came up with camp nut butter, the double on

Tondre was pretty funny.

Church boners takes it to the next level.

How are you guys?

Let's introduce everybody.

Who we got Rick.

Tell us who's with us.

All right.

We've got Chad.

Wave at them, Chad.

We got Chad.

Ted's my son.

We got Sean.

Sean's our group leader.

Hello, Sean.

We got Nick and I'm bonadad Rick.

Bonadad.

No, that's Barry.

Barry's the dad.

You guys can be co-parents.

Co-parent.

My two dads.

My two dads.

I like it.

All right.

As we've said many times, there are 80,000 Bonnaroo stories.

They're all different and they're all almost identical in so many ways.

And this I think is going to be an episode about that.

Let's go ahead and get started.

Who wants to tell us about the origins of church boners?

I guess, I guess I'll take that one since I started it with our buddy.

Yeah, there you go.

The Blake Blake couldn't join us, but Blake's definitely a part of it.

But so I started going to Bonnarooy in 2007.

I've gone every year since the first year I went.

I didn't even have a job and I went with a buddy of mine because his sister gave us

tickets and so the first two years I went with him, then I went two years alone.

And that's fun.

And then I just started making friends.

So everybody I've camped with throughout the years I've met at Bonnarooy, you know,

and then it's crazy because now I've got this big group that's even international now

because we have we have Canadians.

We've got a girl from Korea.

We got a guy from Australia.

I mean, it's been really fun because I just just made friends on the farm, you know?

So the way that church boners started is my buddy Blake, who I literally I met the

week of Bonnarooy in 2014 at a show and I overheard him saying that he was supposed

to go to Rue and his friend back.

I don't know, man.

He was he was, you know, bummed about it.

And I was like, well, he's at this show because it was an underground kind of show.

You got to be cool to be there.

And I was like, he's got to be cool.

And I was going to go along again that year.

And so I go, hey, dude, I don't know you, but I'm going to Rue alone if you want to

go. And so we literally we we met and then a few days later off we go to Rue.

And and so we we we had to develop a trust really quickly, you know, don't bring sand

to the farm and all that, you know?

And so we had a great time in the following year.

I wanted to make a flag.

I was I was looking for inspiration of what would be a funny flag to have.

And so I was going through photos and there was a photo and I think it was from 2009,

but literally it was I saw the writing on the wall like somebody had just written in

Sharpie church boners on the wall.

So I stole it.

You know, this whole thing stole and it's not a secret.

And so I'm but I was like, there's something there.

So I started screwing around just on paint and I made the first logo, which was the

church lady from Saturday Night Live and just the church boners.

Yeah. And so initially we were going to fly it above our camp.

And I'd gone to Home Depot and got concrete and did this whole thing.

And when we got out there, it just didn't work.

So we just hung it from our easy up.

The next thing we know, people were coming up and taking pictures with this flag and

they just thought it was really funny.

And we started making friends because of it.

And so that's like that's that's church boners.

And what's really cool is years later, because we started doing stickers and like

and then every year we'll have a different sticker.

Years later, the guys that actually wrote that on the wall years earlier, they came

by and they were like, I did you guys come up with this name?

And it was like literally stole it like it was somebody just scribbled it on the top

of the wall. And he goes, that was us.

That was me and my buddy. He goes, that was like an inside joke between me and him.

And and he sent me a picture.

I couldn't find it. He sent me a picture of him on his buddy's shoulders writing out on

the wall. But he was like, but we would that was as far as we were ever going to take

it. And he was like, I love that you guys like just ran with it and made this whole

thing out of it. So, yeah, completely stolen.

But it's church boners. That's who we are.

Yeah. So he didn't come after you with copyright infringement or anything like that.

So you're good. They loved it.

We gave them tons of stickers and they loved it.

They thought it was cool that I was inspired by that.

Yeah. Well, when I first heard it, my comment was I grew up Catholic.

So, I mean, it struck a chord, but I'd never heard it before.

But I was like, that's funny.

I think that's why it's so catchy is because it does strike a chord with everybody

that walks by. It's just two words that don't go together.

They just don't know, but are somehow they shouldn't.

I made a sign last year to we put an actual definition on to what a church

boner is because people ask us nonstop.

So we just kind of point to the sign.

It's got some Webster dictionary definition of a church boner.

So Rick, Rick was really into chat GDP last year.

And so he asked child GDP to define it.

And it knows everything.

That's probably good. Yeah.

You know, make it up if you don't.

It pulled our history.

All right. So we didn't do that when we were around the table.

Where is everybody calling?

I know, Nick, you're in Michigan, right?

Yeah, I'm in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Western Michigan.

My mom's from Grand Haven.

So I'm a Misshagander.

All right, Sean, where are you calling from?

To blow Mississippi, the birthplace of Ellis Presley.

That's correct.

There you go. Right.

And Rick, you and Chad are where?

Athens, Alabama, home of Alabama Shakespeare.

Well, you know, wow, that's right.

That's right. Nice, nice.

All right. Well, as you know, Russ, Brian and I are basically the Chattanooga area.

So this is always what amazes me again about the whole Bonnaroo thing,

is it literally is a national and now international festival.

So all right.

How many in your group?

Oh, I'm sure it varies, but what's the core?

The core is about 12.

Wouldn't you say, Sean?

Yeah, it go anyway, it can go anywhere from 12 to 15 to 20, depending on the year.

And then depending on who can come.

But we got, you know, we've got our Canadian contingent.

We've got an Australian.

We got a great girl named Adi from Seoul, Korea that wandered up

one year and by herself.

I wanted to know what a church boner was.

Yeah. Can I tell that story, Sean? By herself.

It was I love that story because she wanted up.

She wanted it by herself with and had a just a little suitcase

and a Hello Kitty tent.

And she had taken the shuttle from the airport in Nashville.

And they just dumped her off by the arch.

And she was like, how does this work?

And we're like, are you here by yourself?

And she's like, yeah.

And so everybody's like, sit down, we get her a drink.

They start setting up her tent like we got you.

And she was so much fun.

And she came back two years later with her boyfriend

and he didn't speak much English at all.

But I woke up one morning and he's like, you know,

he's putting whiskey in his coffee.

I'm like, oh, now we can talk, you know, and we got.

We universal language.

Yeah, we got to become so much so so good friends.

You know, I mean, we we all just tend to adopt each other.

I mean, I just everybody on here I've met, you know, through through honor.

You know, we'll always we say we got 12,

but we usually get a stray boner every year. Every year.

That's a stray boner.

And you write that one down, Rick.

You write that down.

I got it wrote on the bottom of my computer.

Stray boner. Work it in.

It is. Be prepared, man. Be prepared.

That's good. Like he says, well, we're going to essentially take one person

every year and give them a front row seat to 100000 person event.

That pretty much happens every year.

We just grab somebody and be super nice to them.

Well, we in the camp nut butter at one time when we got to our highest number

around 26, 17, 16, 17, we had I wanted to push it more.

Didn't happen as much.

The superlatives and we had a rookie of the year or an MVP kind of thing.

It didn't really stick.

We didn't do it as well as I'd like to have.

But yeah, you got to find the rookie and you got to, you know,

you got to guide them. You got to hold their hand for a minute.

And then the MVP and all the different awards you can give out.

Hey, Nicholas, real quick, we'll get you in here.

I don't I don't have a specific question for you because I don't know exactly.

Tell me whatever you want.

But your poster back there, everybody's got a poster of something, a record,

a hand bill, the show you're at.

You got the campground poster behind you.

I do. I love that.

I love that.

Show them the vinyl thing. You should.

I'm in. Yeah, I've also got.

I also see your arch light up back there.

I've seen that all over on that. I've always won.

Yeah, that's great. That guy is on Etsy.

Yeah, I've seen it. I've seen it.

I've also got. Got this

schedule from 2013.

I think this is this camp posters from 2013.

That looks about right, because that's the old layout, but that's cool.

You don't see that every day.

Nicholas, what brought what brought you into the church boners?

I met orbit, you know, that was your first boner.

What was your first book?

My first year was 2011.

I met Rick and Chad in 2013 in tent only the old tent only.

Yeah. And.

Then my cousin Carlos and I, we went we would we would go together every year.

We camped in tent only.

2013 was our first year in tent only, and we met Rick and Chad.

And then the next couple of years, we ended up camping

in tent only, but in a different spot.

But we would see Rick every year.

We ended up hanging out with Rick and in in the couple of years

since we had camped with Rick,

that he had met Sean and they had started working out this whole church

boner thing, and then me and Carlos got linked into it.

And then you just became a part of a part of the ethos.

Now we're family. Yeah. Boner family.

So, Rick, you and Chad obviously are family.

Everybody else met just through Bonnaroo.

Is that Justin and Caroline?

Yeah, obviously. Yeah.

But you guys met there, is that correct?

Or is that is that another couple?

We are. We did not mean it.

We did not mean it.

That's not about it.

We've got everyone else.

We got invited to monitor by Blake.

Blake's not on is he?

No, he's going to work today.

Oh, well, yeah, Blake invited us.

We were going to go alone.

I bought Justin tickets for his birthday in 2016,

and it was just going to be us.

And then Blake found out we were going and he was like,

oh, you guys should camp with us.

And we had no idea what we were getting into.

And like Chad said, a front row seat to the festival is exactly what it was.

And we were just blown away.

But now we met each other just at a Halloween party, actually here in Oxford.

Nice. That's going to be an interesting

conversation in a couple of years that you have with your daughter

about this camp church boner church.

Well, let me tell you back in the day when me and your dad

met all these cool people at the church boners.

Sean, that reminds me, I wanted to go back.

You Blake's sister gave you passes.

No. So so no, there's my is my friend.

Granny actually lives in Spain now.

He's never coming back.

He's never coming back.

But he that was my good.

Good for him. 2007.

Yeah. He said they just hang out over there.

Apparently they work a little bit.

They take like three hour lunches.

It's fine. But but but the Blake who she's referring to is the guy that I met

at that random show the week I was going to go along.

And and we went together.

And actually, I wish she would have been able to make this because

I've been able to make this because he is he wears a taco outfit at Bonnaroo

and really has a little beef with Lord Taco.

So I was going to say we need some clarification.

He dresses like Lord Taco or he wears Taco Bell, a taco onesie.

So we're very we're very well fed in our camp because we got two guys

that ran food trucks and insert in Blake ran a taco truck.

And then and then Justin and then now the way we camp

now, they bring a flat top grill.

They just they feed us really well.

But to go back, you said somebody's sister gave you passes for two years.

And did I hear that right?

Yes. So the first year I went 2007, my friend and I, Grant, were unemployed.

And I would always listen to music.

But I actually had that wasn't going to shows and stuff.

And in his sister did.

And she had bought these tickets to Bonnaroo, which I'd heard of.

And in then couldn't go.

And so she gave it to me and Grant.

And and so we went and I mean, literally.

And it was it was a complete.

Shit show like we never kept before.

We were didn't have any money.

We got some Subway sandwiches.

We thought we got enough, you know, five dollar sandwiches to last us the week.

And that turned into a debacle.

We by the next day, you were out of food, probably.

Yeah. And so we we had this little grill from Dollar General.

And then we would we didn't know how to work.

I called kept calling my mom.

So we made these burgers in and there were ants all over our

our table, which was our cooler.

And we had sprayed the cooler with bug spray.

And then we put our burgers down on the cooler and we got ready to eat our burgers.

And we're just going like our mouths are going numb and they're just soaked with bugs.

Oh, but we're lucky you're alive.

Well, we didn't have any more food, so we just ate it like that.

That year was like a learning experience.

And what that's what's so funny to me is like now, like I barely have to pack up

because I've been doing it so long and everybody knows my boxes.

They have everything.

If you walk up and your glasses are broken, I can fix them.

Like I have anything you ever could imagine.

Like people are just amazed what's in these boxes that I have.

And they just we have it right every year.

Man, we have a dent. We have a dense and go ahead, Rick.

That's our dense and go ahead.

I share about about our group, the Bonnaroo, the church bonus.

We go. We have fun.

We we bring the party, you know, but what our vibe is and what we really want to do

is is bring that Bonnaroo vibe to everybody that we cannot.

We all caught and we're addicted to.

And, you know, so we're set up. Our tents are ready.

You know, we got on the hot years.

We've got the missed and fans and everything else.

So the crowd, we always get positioned pretty much right in front of the arch

on the roadside.

So the whole crowd is coming by us.

And that's one reason we've become so visible over the years is then we interact

with them as they come by.

We may take our missed and fans and set them out on the road on a hot day.

And everybody just you can see the glee on their face when they walk through this.

So it's just those little things that we've learned at Bonnaroo,

which is the Bonnaroo vibe is to bring that.

And I think that's the thing that's kind of endeared us to so many people,

is that we generally love the community and we and and we try to bring that vibe

to everybody.

Well, you're trying to you're trying to add to the community.

There's no that's kind of what my question is going to be.

There's not really any kind of advocacy advocacy here, right?

Like, there's not some great mission you're trying to push or so.

Absolutely not. Yeah, right.

But but but but you are bringing from what I'm figuring out here in the just

you know, 15 minutes we've talked is that the vibe that we all want

that's made this place so special and fun and different than anywhere else.

You very much are are are feeding into that.

And and so that that's as good as anything else.

Speak to it or move along to something else.

So I got it. Yeah, go ahead, Chad.

I got something to add to that.

Yeah. What one year we were we were inside Bonnaroo

and we were like, God, this music is so loud.

We want to be upfront, but we don't want to blast it.

We tried to find some earplugs to buy and the earplugs were like five dollars a pair.

It was it was ridiculous.

So from then on out, every year since then, we bring two thousand

or so pairs of earplugs every year and we get a megaphone

and we go up to the line and we yell in people's faces as loud as we possibly can.

Protect your motherfucking ears.

You know, we get from here.

And they're like, what what what does this cost?

What what?

No, just just have it.

Oh, that's good lines.

Just dollars was too expensive for a pair of earphones.

So you bought two thousand

and they go quickly.

People will literally come up saying, hey, you still got earplugs.

There you go.

Justin, I wanted to ask you along those lines and we can go around the room

because I have said this this festival changed my life.

I mean, Brian and Russ, we've all said the same thing.

Were you guys?

I mean, would you consider yourselves you did similar things prior

to joining this?

But I mean, honestly, I mean, we've known Bonnaroo

for the vast majority of our relationship.

Like we met in 2013.

So there was only three years there where Barney wasn't part of our lives.

So now that we've been going every year, it's like I don't see.

I feel like it's definitely brought us together as far as like,

you know, interest and, you know, like the friend group we have now.

You know, we all have the same set of friends basically,

and including the Bonars.

We have done like

Jazz Festival, music festival and Jazz Festival,

but we had never done a camping festival before.

You definitely learn how to take it.

Well, if you can survive a weekend at Bonnaroo as a couple, as a family,

then you can survive anything.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Just setting up the tent alone with your significant.

Yeah, that'll that'll be a talk.

We've come closer for sure because of our, you know,

a lot of bands that we've never heard of, you know, we go see for the first time

together, you know, just random musical acts at three in the morning.

You know, really bring you together, I guess.

Just just to be clear,

Caroline setting up the tent is sitting in a chair while Justin.

True truth comes out.

Truth comes out, Caroline.

That must be really tough on you, Caroline.

Call me out, Nick. No shame.

Somebody has to be the boss.

Yeah, that goes over there.

That goes over there.

You're doing it wrong.

Whatever you're doing, it's wrong.

I want to point out that Caroline is

now like since our Canadians don't come any for her,

or the only girl and in we we always do a winter trip.

And this year we have a new Bona baby coming along the way.

And she thought that she might not be the only girl on this trip.

But we found out we got another Bona boy.

And so it's Caroline just and the rest of us, you know.

And the fellas. Yeah.

And the swing and.

Yeah. Did you have somebody who met or got married at Bonnaroo?

That's in your group. What did you tell me before about that?

So when Caroline and Caroline and Justin,

I think when you guys first started coming,

I don't even think you guys were calling your situation whatever it was.

Like you guys were just chilling.

Yeah, we weren't engaged or anything.

We didn't get married at Bonnaroo.

We talked about it.

That was a plan there for a minute, though, you know, making that happen.

Yeah, the Bonnaroo, Bonnaroo cake.

We did his groom's cake was the Bonnaroo symbol.

Nice. There you go.

How often are you guys communicating throughout the year?

I know you get together once in the winter, you said.

And last year, you were actually in Chattanooga.

Yeah. I talked to Caroline about twice.

There you go, Justin.

So my thing about my thing about Bonnaroo is it's and that's what I loved about it

from the get go when I got there, because I was like, this exists.

This is like this utopia.

You can is everybody so kind and it's like adult Disneyland.

And so like it Bonnaroo for me and I think for most of us, it's like a year round.

And we talk constantly, even though we don't see each other a lot of times,

but twice a year now and before we'd only see each other once a year.

But I mean, I have my personalized tag on my car is Bonnaroo.

I mean, we just we live it like and we breathe it in because Bonnaroo is so cool.

And then we've met so many people that, you know, we don't we don't necessarily

see every year, but but it's just it's every year when we get it set up.

I love and to go and I go take a walk because I'm I'm back and I mean,

I started going in my 20s and I've I've a lot has changed, but that's the

thing that's remained constant is is Bonnaroo is just like is it's it's

and it's the same roads.

I love that they they've not messed it up too bad as far as reorienting things

because it's still you know, it's amazing.

They take this blank slate and they build it up and you know how to navigate.

And it's it's it is I don't know.

My heart is so full when I'm there.

OK, it's I can't describe it.

It's it's so great.

Sean, I'm glad you mentioned that about how they've kept the main infrastructure

the same all these years as far as how to get around.

A lot of stuff has changed around it, but the main infrastructure is the same.

So you said you started in 07.

Boy, that campground looked a lot different.

No seven. We're still talking about Marty McFly and you know, and and

movie movie.

Yeah. Movie references from the 80s and 90s and maybe the 70s, too,

and all that stuff that we all love.

But they've moved on from that.

So you started primitively and you've moved up and now you're close to the

to the arches you've talked about.

Have you done group camping?

Have you looked around in different ways to to expand this?

Or has it just happened in that spot and just where it continues to build?

So shout out to InfoRoo

and the OGs and remember the InfoRoo?

InfoRoo in 2004, I was on InfoRoo and it was a

it was the place to go to get Bonnaroo information.

I'm glad there's still a thing.

So when we so when we got those tickets, I I start researching.

And and so InfoRoo just a wealth of knowledge.

And that's how I knew about tent only.

And so that's the only way I've ever done it.

I've always camped in front of the arch.

Every year, like, you know, I've got pictures like

now I've got this great big group, but I literally my little

I had a little green triangle tent and I unzip it

and I'm looking straight into the arch.

I've always I've always been up up there and like and just work.

It's magical.

The first year we didn't even have anything with wheels

because you had to haul everything.

And it was I mean, it's it's it's you really figure out what you need.

And we do.

Honestly, it's nice that we can park our cars up there now.

But it was such a better look when it was just tense.

And honestly, like in it, in it, in it, it separates the ones

that really want to do it from the ones that don't,

because if you've got to haul your crap up there,

you it the the vibe up there, it's it's it's not it's changed.

It's changed a little.

But I do miss like just the hodgepodge of tents in it.

And those photos through the arch, it looked like Glastonbury.

I mean, it's just, you know, the cars kind of messed it up.

But but but yeah, I know I missed the I do miss the camp names

and all that stuff.

But yeah, but the layout, you can still find your way around.

Like, I mean, the walls are still where they're at.

And you just walk on those roads, man.

It just it just it makes me happy.

Let's go around along those lines, then tips for you.

What are the things you guys have learned?

Obviously, don't you know, don't spray bug spray on your burgers.

Yeah, that you take it up to.

But anything you've learned the hard way, those kinds of things.

Guys, we'll go around.

But I want to hear Justin and Caroline, too, when he comes back,

because you all are a married couple.

We have said, you know, don't bring a spouse unless the spouse is 100 percent

into it. Yeah, that's a bad weekend.

This isn't I hope my girlfriend or boyfriend likes this as much as I do event.

If you don't know, 100 percent agree.

Just from the female perspective, the thing I had to learn

the hard way was get a tent that you can stand up in. Yeah.

There's nothing more difficult than trying to lay down on your tent

and get dressed and put makeup on and all that kind of do.

I do it every year.

Sands the makeup. Yeah, you should see Brian's tent.

It's no bigger than your sock.

It's like a cocoon.

I'm going to turn into a butterfly in that thing.

Yeah, I feel like our camp has gotten steadily

bigger and better every year that we've gone.

Because your pros, that's how it goes.

Well, they had the Taj Mahal this year.

I had like a double layer

queen size air mattress with a headboard.

Our guy, Brad Steiner, would be real proud of that.

Bring a full length. You get a full length.

No kidding, Justin.

I I'm asking lessons learned, especially for like a couple.

But also, how do you I mean, I assume you have to know when to give

each other space, right? You can't be together 24 seven.

Definitely. Well, Gold Bond is obviously the number one.

But yes, for festival performance, dancing drug.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. But yeah, definitely.

I mean, we see most of the shows together, but every now and then,

you know, like I'll go somewhere with, you know, like Blake or Shaft

or Nick or somebody in Carolina.

So, you know, we're together, but most of the time we're not.

Most time we are together, but sometimes I mean, honestly, like,

you know, I went 20, 23 by myself for the first time without her.

They definitely I could feel the the difference.

I don't know, like I still had a great time.

Don't get me wrong. But I mean, it's just I like to go with my wife

and really communal thing and always really.

Well, it's like I didn't know Farrou without her before then.

So it's like, I don't know, it's just a weird experience

to go by myself for the first time.

You know, but yeah, I mean,

and you're really good about being faithful.

Yeah. Well, on that trip, yes.

But I was a good couple right here.

You're good when I'm there about being patient with me,

if I'm tired or if I get hot or, you know, you're not like

dragging me to do things I don't want to do.

And I think that's the biggest thing is like you have to compromise.

And if somebody wants to go off and do their own thing, let them

and don't try to as a couple, especially even in a friend group,

like don't have to stifle what somebody's going to do.

Like you've got your wanderer and you've got your, you know, person

that wants to, you know, experiment with different things.

And, you know, that kind of stuff.

And if you're not on the same page about those things, it can get bad.

Yeah. That for a long time, Bonnaroo people, which we all are,

that's kind of day one, week one stuff.

Rick, what about you?

What have you learned the hard way?

I think I wouldn't say the hard way.

I think what I'd like to share more is what to expect.

There you go.

I think I think if you come to Bonnaroo,

expecting people to be friendly and open and want to talk

and want to have a conversation with you, a lot of people don't realize that.

Bonnaroo is not like everywhere else.

You know, if you're coming to Bonnaroo for the first year,

expect to find a group of people and a bunch of folks

that would like to have a conversation with you.

If you just want to know about you.

Yeah, they want to know.

Yeah. Be real, be open, be honest.

Be yourself and expect people to accept you.

I mean, that's the thing.

I think the expectations when you come to Bonnaroo can change

from what they are in the regular world.

You can expect people to accept you for who you are at Bonnaroo.

And I'd say that's one thing that just go ahead on day one

and realize people is going to accept you for who you are.

I would just add that I leave every day on day whatever six, seven, thinking,

why can't it be like this the rest of the time? All the time.

I want to add a couple of things.

So I love Caleb's episode, the Bonnaroo yearbook.

And I actually, you know, and what's so crazy is we met Caleb, obviously.

And then I have Caleb's contact information.

So I should reach out to him the other day.

But I love how because I didn't actually know the origin of how that started.

But he did it just to figure out a way to talk to people.

And so what I've changed, changed his personality.

That's what I've what I've always encouraged.

And because I had to, because I did go alone.

And whenever I see people on infrared or on a loophole,

you'll see people asking, you know, my friends aren't going.

And it's and it's the same way with like a local show.

If that's what you want to go, go to the show.

You're going to make friends like most of my friends I have now.

I've met at shows that I went to alone.

I've met sitting outside, you know, waiting to get in.

But at Bonnaroo, even if you don't go alone,

take some time for yourself and go into center alone and explore.

Walk around the campground, but make friends like do your own route.

Because, I mean, it's you know, it's it's it's find your own adventure.

And it's and it's it's it's it's a great way.

You get it forces you to meet people.

And that's how I met all these people.

And then I want to do if we're still on the the topics of tips,

Nick needs to talk about our Mr.

fans, which had been a game changer in our lives.

And we started out with one. I think we've got five now.

Well, the Mr. Fan, I just got one of those.

I use cobalt drills.

They have misting fans.

Mr. Fan.

I was like, I know it's like Mr. Fan, like I'm Mr. Fan.

No, no, it's it's literally you take a five gallon bucket,

fill it with water and Lowe's sells the cobalt fans

that use the cobalt drill batteries.

And they have a pump that mists onto you.

And it just has changed our lives.

We may be. I think he's I think he's underselling it.

It was so popular last year.

Our entire campground was covered in mist.

We had two or three people out in the road misting everybody that walked by.

It caught on so much that actually the news came.

Forget local news came and interviewed us specifically about the Mr.

Fan. And we know how many hundreds of people just stopped by

and chilled under the mist for, I don't know, five or 10 minutes.

That's pretty cool. Yeah.

Last last year, I bet by Sunday, that was a very popular place to be.

Yeah. Very moist boners.

Hey, Nick, what's required for those fans? Water.

Was the power did we have the the

rechargeable generators we had? Did that have?

Do we need the generator fans?

We have the generators so I can recharge my my cobalt batteries.

But really, I mean, it takes it's about a four hour charge on the cobalt battery.

I think is the real MVP for making all the tricks to get the water.

Yeah. At least several dozen trips.

Yeah. I just showed up with a fan and gave it to someone else to take care of.

Hey, you got to delegate it all out, man.

You can't you can't you got to delegate everything.

I delegate every day.

And I I I'm an ops manager and I do nothing.

But so I love to just show up to camp and let these guys do all the work.

Yeah, I kind of do that, too.

I kind of do that, too.

Bring your skillset. Yeah.

So I do have a tip of my own that kind of it kind of plays off of what Sean and dad said.

We are a group of about 30 folks.

And your your natural tendency when you go to an event as a group

is to stick together as a group.

But really, that will stifle your enjoyment.

You have to be totally fine with breaking off into 30 individual groups of one.

Go see what the hell you want to see and then regroup,

you know, temporarily later and then break back off.

If you try to stick together as one cohesive, you know, waste a lot of time.

Oh, my gosh, you're going to waste everything.

So be OK with being alone because everywhere you go, because of the

positivity and the morale that dad was talking about earlier.

Everybody's your friend.

If so long as you keep that up and that that energy becomes contagious,

everybody you stand around is instantly going to become a friend no matter where you are.

So go see what you want to see.

Be OK breaking apart, but have some way to meet back up later.

Brian, have you and I well, Alice Cooper

and that little red hot jelly peppers in the tent.

Shows we've seen.

Have you and I been to shows together?

Not many. There was Alice Cooper that was, you know, 2012.

And then there was a time we all went somewhere because there was somebody

with the Backstreet Lovers or something like that, maybe a couple.

Yeah. And we had Tare and a bunch of them.

But not normally. No. And me and Taco.

I mean, you and I have seen nothing.

I don't remember. Maybe one or two.

But maybe I can't remember.

But I am a loner at nature and just regular life.

And and I do I do a little bit of, you know, meet you here, meet you there,

I'm a side side quest all day, whole quest like that.

That's kind of my that what I love and and it works for me.

Some people works for a minute.

You know, you said it, Sean, earlier.

Choose your own adventure.

It's it's it's the most

clear way to put how you should handle bond or at least most people agree with that.

I'm thinking, if anything, Brian, we probably just ended up there together.

We didn't go together.

I can't think of last year we went to see the band from here.

Oh, yeah. Our guy Monrovia.

Yeah, but that that was a little different.

But yes. Yeah.

Typically, it's just kind of we all we all run.

Here we are. And all right. See you.

Yeah. Whenever I see you.

We always will usually do some kind of costumes on Sunday night.

That's the show we always go to and we always go as a group.

And we usually dress up and take us a group picture before we go.

This year's Sunday was Sunday Sunday.

So we all had some.

God. Yeah.

I'm not your your bonderoo family is a little more cohesive than our bonderoo

family. Hey, you want to wear a sundress?

Nope. See. Yeah, but I look good in mine.

I bet you did. I bet you did.

Sundress and a misting fan.

Well, you were cool. You were cool.

That hair blowing back. Yeah.

Your body temperature was lower than mine.

Can I answer a question that Barry asked?

Yes, sure.

So Barry, you'd ask, you know, how has it changed us going to bonderoo?

Yeah. Yeah. So me and your similar ages.

And I don't know how much of your audience is our age.

But one thing with me is I grew I grew up and lived

and all my friends before bonderoo was real conservative.

And I never just fit into all of that.

And so I think coming to bonderoo changed me in a radical way

because I was always very inclusive, but I just didn't have that group

that felt the same way I do.

You know, so I go to bonderoo and I walk up.

You know, I've done bonderoo first time was a guy my age.

We did it together.

And the next time it was my daughter, she did it with me.

And then I came by myself one year and then Chad came and then church boners.

But I was walking up to center one time early on in my bonderoo days.

And I walk in and a couple of guys walk out of bonderoo and they've got

both of them have got speedos on.

And that's it.

And and they was obviously in love.

And you're thinking, dang, I didn't know that was an option.

Well, yeah, I was everybody else was glad I didn't know was an option.

But but he but they came out.

And I don't see this in Birmingham, Alabama, in my home.

And they come out and they were in love and they were they were body to body

and they were close and they were having fun.

They were smiling and they were happy.

And obviously they were gay guys, you know, and and it was it was.

So that was the beginning of challenging my worldview and everything that I'd

ever experienced where I live.

And, um, Bonnaroo is a different place.

It's in Tennessee, but it's not Tennessee.

Yeah.

You know, and I was, I'll be on the moon, but yes, we're proud to have it here in

Tennessee, but all along it is every step of my journey through Bonnaroo has

challenged, no, not challenged.

Let me rephrase that has helped to mold a worldview that fits me, fits more who I

am as a person.

And then I've watched these guys grow up.

I've watched them have babies.

I've watched them go through college and create their careers and, you know, and

all of that.

So I've enjoyed, you know, every step of all that, but it has truly changed me.

And, um, and it's really, you know, in a way helped me kind of find myself and,

and not only that find a place that says, Hey, you're not alone.

There's a lot of people like you.

Yeah.

I love, I've loved it.

Thank you for sharing that.

Thank you.

Nobody's like you.

That kind of gets back to what I said about that last day when you leave

thinking, why can't it be like this all the time?

I mean, those, that couple you saw, they were just having a good time, right?

Well, they're living their life.

Why's it got to bother you?

You know, it's your don't having a good time.

It's hard to describe the overwhelming sense of freedom you get when that

festival starts, you, you can be yourself and you're, you don't have to be ashamed

of anything.

You can, you can act like a total idiot.

And people, people who will just adopt you and be like, yeah, you're cool.

No, I'm not.

Let me ask you this, Chad.

I'm sorry to expand on that.

You're talking to the choir here.

You're talking, and most of the people listening to this that are also part of

the choir.

Do you have issues?

Anybody can jump on this anytime, but Chad, I'll start with you.

Do you, do you try, are you the dork in real life when people who don't do

Bonnaroo and you're trying to explain it?

Cause you said it's hard to explain.

Well, it's not hard to explain to me.

Is it hard to explain the guy at ACE hardware?

Like, and do you find yourself like, I want to tell you all about this thing, but

I don't know how.

Like, have you, do you, do you see that in your regular life?

Well, let me add on that real quick.

Cause I haven't heard it in a couple of years and Brian, you and Russ will know,

but forever when we started going, the only question non-Bonnaroo goers would say,

you camp?

You sleep on the ground?

That's all they could picture was the mud and the heat.

And so to Brian's point, when you try to explain the rest of it, they're just like,

no, no, no trouble with you.

You run into that in real life.

I mean, you know, I've, I became an adult that more responsible and of course I

try to be professional at work and you know, here, but when I, when I stepped

foot on the farm, I am not professional at all.

So it just freeing.

It really is freeing.

There's no judgment.

Nobody cares.

Everybody's going to high five you.

So yeah, I mean, I've done some very stupid things on the farm, but it was fun

and you know, it's a way to safely get it out of your system.

And I re I really appreciate it.

Not, I probably will do it with dad forever for the next hundred years.

And a lot of it.

I think the biggest thing we get when we tell people that don't go is aren't you

old for that?

Aren't you too old to still be going to Monteros?

Tell them to call me.

There you go.

Right.

And we're in our thirties.

We go with people in their forties plus.

Like, I don't know why people outside of this community think it's something you

grow out of, but it's, you know, it's crazy.

I think a lot of people don't even know what Bonnaroo is.

Like there are people that live in Tennessee that are like an hour from

Manchester and I talk about Bonnaroo and I was like, what is that?

I was like, how do you not know?

I mean, come on.

And it's, it's like, it's so big and it's been around for so long.

I feel like I'm like speaking another language when I try to tell, you know,

talk about Bonnaroo.

I was at a bonfire not too long ago and I feel like I need some of my stories,

Bonnaroo stories.

And then I feel like I'm saying the word Bonnaroo.

Who's the Michigan guy?

Is that you, Nick?

Let's talk to you a little bit further away from the South here.

What about you in regular life?

Do you talk to people?

Do they marvel at it?

Wonder what the hell it is?

Think you're a crazy person?

What do you run into?

Yeah, I get, I get a lot of crazy.

First of all, I'm very much a Northern person and I, I make this joke every year,

but I always say like, it's the weirdest thing in the world for me to go down to

Tennessee for my family reunion every year.

But yeah, it's, it's, it's the, this, there's a lot of people in Michigan

that actually know what Bonnaroo is.

I don't really have too many problems explaining it to people.

Um, but like, like I said, I'm, I'm a man, like I'm, I'm the boss at work and stuff

like that, so people think it's really weird that I go because I'm a completely

different person in regular life.

He's going to be gone at Bonnaroo.

We can get away with anything.

You gotta wear a coat and tie on the farm.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm very, um, very much a different person outside of, um, outside of work than I am

at Bonnaroo, obviously, but it's, uh, it's not, it's not too hard to explain to people.

How's that haul?

How's that drive?

Is that 10 hours or so?

It's, it's about, yeah, it's about 11 or 12.

Yeah.

Uh, probably, probably close to 16 once, uh, once we get everybody wrangled in, in

the state of Michigan before we head south.

Three of them that comes down together.

Yeah.

We, I mean, we're obviously very close and, and the one thing that I've, I've always

wondered if I was further away, if it was a 10 hour drive, if it was you guys in

Mississippi, that's still a little bit of a drive, especially at the end of the,

the weekend, you know, when we're all ready to, we, we don't want to go back to

reality except we do want to go home.

We do want to go to our beds.

I always wondered if I was further out with that, would that, um, maybe or

influence how I thought about it going forward?

Clearly for you, Nick, it hasn't, but that's just a thought.

It hasn't.

What has helped, um, is I have a lot of close friends in Nashville.

So now I do take a day in Nashville.

There you go.

On each end of it.

I just got back from there an hour ago.

Great place.

Yeah.

It's a, uh, well, it's a place for me to sleep every year is what I do.

Drive down, sleep, hang out in Nashville for a night.

And then we head over the next night and then the same thing on the way back.

So it's, uh, it makes it the trip a whole lot easier.

All right.

I want to make a really strong point.

We have been on here for 52 minutes and not mentioned music one time.

I know.

Right.

Well, as we always say, it doesn't matter who's playing, right?

This is my lineup.

Right here.

When we buy our tickets.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter.

How amazing is that?

That we don't even care who the bands are playing.

Like we've been, we know this, we all get it.

It's still, I'm like, we, we don't even care.

It's great.

When we get there, bring it on.

Oh, sure.

All we care about is what's in Sean's box.

So Rick always says, and I love this because we, we, we are like a black

Friday pre-sale, like we're, we're in, we're going, it doesn't matter.

Rick always says, where are the headliners?

For him.

Where's the headliners?

Yeah.

This guy's a headliner.

As long as we're all there then, and then everything else is just gravy.

You know?

And, and then we, we, we do talk about the music and we, we, and we, we,

we listened to the lineup.

We always get a, get a playlist going and we are discovering stuff.

But yeah, like, I mean, it's.

Yeah.

It, it, and it's funny for me because why I first started going, especially

when I was alone, I would grid out Excel spreadsheets of who I was going to see.

And I was like a machine.

And I mean, I, and I would barely come back to camp and I would see so many

shows, but now as I've gotten older, I, I, I'm, I've got my must-sees, but I'm

willing to bend because it's all about the hangs and so, and if, if the group,

uh, I've got gaggle wants to go to this instead of that I'll, I'll go because I

know I want to hang out with my friends and then we, and we do that.

So yeah, I'll say that's the downside of the misting fan though, is it makes it

much more difficult to get out of the leave and get into the sun and go, if you

guys are by the arch and you've got a good, uh, time of day when there's not too

much noise pollution during the day, when all everything's banging, you got the

what right there.

Exactly.

I mean, it's right there.

It helps me tremendously.

Yeah.

We, we watch a lot of, or we listen to a lot of what stage concerts from our,

we talk about, we talk about how great that stage is.

I I'm in love with it.

We all love it.

Um, not only is it great sounding when you're in the field and you're down there,

no matter where, that's why I've barely ever in the pit.

Doesn't matter where you are that travel, that music, that sound travels for like

a mile, you can go so far and still hear that cause it's got its own directional

positioning.

You guys are in a good spot.

It used to be better before they started playing the music through the arch

itself.

That's been a huge problem in the last couple of years is the arch likes to play

the, the number one hits of the two thousands for some reason.

Wait, hold on.

What?

We have a problem here.

We have a problem.

All right.

I'm making it up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The arts plays music now.

Uh, they have like the old PA system below the arch.

Okay.

It's playing like Mr.

Brightside.

Real quick.

Sorry, Justin.

So it's got the visuals are amazing these days and the arch is as great as it's

ever looked.

It's got speakers regularly playing music, just almost like house music.

Music that's not at the festival.

I didn't know that.

Five songs on repeat makes you hate all five songs.

It's four hours of music.

I have the whole playlist right here and they do it over and over and it rolls all

day at night.

One time they read a book.

Well, it starts at 10 a.m.

And it goes until 10 p.m.

I think.

Really?

Did you guys know this?

No, I had no idea.

This, this, this was like a point of our attention with all of us on our surveys

this year.

It's, it's, it's awful.

And it's like, we'll talk to Tuba about, we'll talk to Tuba about this and we, we

got, we know a guy and we'll see what we can do.

And actually, because I was a big fan of Radio Bonnaroo and I, you know, he got

some of the guys worked on that dude, Radio Bonnaroo.

I not only that I would listen to it throughout the year on the app.

I love all that stuff, but I'm like of all the content they have.

And so it gets Nick is Nick's kind of his brain works that way.

He got to where he could call out what the next song was going to be.

And it was so loud.

And so, I mean, we honestly, we tried to dismantle those speakers.

We would turn them.

We would try to do everything we could to make it stop.

But it did.

But what, but you would have, you would have a ban on a what, and then you would

have Mr.

Brightside blasting at you every five songs.

And then one night in it, and this was legendary.

There was a night, it was, I think it was a Thursday night or maybe it was, I think

it was probably Wednesday.

They put on the first chapter of Peter Pan, the audio book, and it played on loop

throughout the night.

People were losing their daggone minds.

And I walked down to the there's two people sitting in chairs at the arch.

And I'm like, what is going on?

And they were like, I don't know, but I'm about to go crazy.

So we finally got some girl to go behind the wall and find whoever is responsible.

And they said they were doing an audio check and forgot, but they looked at them.

But it was literally the first chapter of Peter Pan over and over.

That's like parking next to an ice cream truck or something.

That it was at its worst.

I think it was maybe in the last year.

I forget what it was.

It's the same.

We will get to the bottom of this one.

We will get to the bottom of this one.

Please help us.

Yeah, this is how bad it was.

It was so loud at our tent.

We could not.

So I walked up to the bar room teammates under the arch and I could barely talk to

them. It was so loud.

I took out my phone with the decibel meter and it was like 95, 98 decibels.

And I said, I said, how am I behind the speaker?

I'm not in front of the speaker.

I'm behind it.

It's 98 decibels.

How do y'all stand here?

We can hear some earplugs, put some earplugs in.

And they said, no, we're not allowed to put earplugs in because we're part of

security.

How can you hear anything anyway without earplugs in?

So they would not.

They were not allowed to wear earplugs.

So the following day that we figured out a way to didn't completely quiet it, but

we disable some of them may have been disabled.

Denier confirmed.

Yeah, I'm not promoting that never happened again.

Nothing was damning that.

I'm not necessarily promoting that, but this is a, this is an interesting turn of

events. I wasn't expecting to find today.

I heard Brad Parker mentioned that, you know, some of the most dedicated loyal GA

fans are the ones that's closest to the arch.

And they're the ones that's really having to deal with this, you know, where you

can't listen to your own music.

You can't even have your own conversation.

We're going to be there next year.

We're going to be there every year we get there, but we would love that music to go

away or at least, or at least curate it to the Bonnaroo vibe, the Bonnaroo way.

It's like you was at Coachella or something.

It's not, it's not that kind of music.

To like play a little devil's advocate on this, I guess, I mean, I could see that's

the main entrance.

You got people coming in.

You want it to have the house music feel you're on your way to a big show.

Like I can, I guess I'm trying to make sense of it as we do this show live, but

I mean, if they would play the artists that are there, that would be fine.

You know, like there's, there's hundreds of artists that are playing at Bonnaroo

play their music on the party.

Don't play fair.

Fair to me.

Sounds fair.

Not.

Yeah.

Don't play people that's never been at Bonnaroo and blast it.

Or Peter Pan's like, oh yeah.

Chapter two.

I worked with the music on there.

I say Nick's the playlist altogether because my favorite thing at Bonnaroo is just to sit

and hear the music from the stage and there's literally music on the stage and I can't

hear it because there's the arches in between me and the stage and I'm just hearing that.

Well, I'm taking notes there, Nick, and I agree with you.

I think my, my opinion would be Nick's it too.

My guess is they're not going to do away with it.

No, no, no.

But we'll at least talk to them about it.

Cause I am now dying of curiosity.

Yeah.

But there's seriously nothing cooler than like, cause where we are usually camped, you've

got the main stage right there and then we've got the back end of that tent right next to

us too.

Yeah.

You get this weird, like sometimes you'll hear the main stage.

Sometimes you'll hear that tent.

Yeah.

The middle of the day, you're going to get this.

Yeah.

And it's just really cool.

It's one of my favorite things.

And now you've got the arch blasting music in your face.

So you can't hear any of that.

Hey, Brian, if they don't want to Nick, if they don't want to Nick sit, why not have

a DJ and just like, and like something organic going on?

Because literally it was, it was like when you're at a show and then the show's over

and then they throw them the house music and it's just some random crap.

Seven nation, seven nation army or something.

It's it was just, it was, it, it's so much of it is so random, but yeah, have just like

have a little DJ going, like, I mean, something like something organic because there's so

much good music out there.

And I'm like, we're at Bonnaroo, but we're literally like, we're getting to where Nick

can call the sex song because it's so short.

Like a restaurant.

So y'all, um, we get our biggest question we get at Bonnaroo of being somebody that's

recognizable that people are used to seeing us where we are.

We've been there in the same spot within 20 feet for, um, since 2015, we've been right

on the road to that.

And people always ask, how do y'all get this spot?

And I want to go ahead and answer that question.

So people will know it's a miracle.

It's a Bonnaroo miracle.

It's a miracle.

How do you do it?

We pray to the Bonnaroo gods and they pop us and then we click our heels, fine

intervention, and we pop up in that same spot.

We've actually had, we've never had any assistance from Bonnaroo on it at all.

And we don't expect that one, but we have had some people, we'll take it, but we have

had some people in line when they say, Hey, these, these are the guys who are the church

boners.

Y'all got to let them go first.

That's happened a couple of years.

There you go.

But you got to build your own cloud.

But it's a, it truly is a miracle.

We shouldn't have been there every year since 2015.

I was going to say you get it.

Cause nobody else wants to listen to that music.

Yeah, but that's gotta be guys to clear this up.

That's probably been since that's been since the arch has been now high tech.

Right before that, that probably didn't happen.

Two years.

It's like, Sean, Sean definitely hit the nail on the head.

We don't get preferential treatment, but if you have it, please give it to me.

We'll be there anyway.

Doesn't hurt to ask.

Yeah, never.

We are stressed, seriously stressed out for a month and a half leading up to

Bonnaroo trying to worrying about whether we're going to get our spot or not.

Every year.

Well, we talk about it all the time.

I'd be the miracle.

I would think would run out any minute.

This might be the year that we don't do it every year.

And then some, some kind of weird thing happens and it's a team sport.

We just all, I'll add this one thing.

Um, so this sticker right here is it, they gave thousand stickers out to the first

people that got into center route.

And we had one, two, three, four, five, and six.

But I will tell you this, the very best spot, the number, or not the best spot,

the number one spot in Bonnaroo for the first person that comes in and they park.

It's a horrible spot.

All of our spots have always been good.

We've always got lucky, but we had that spot one time and there's like a

gully going through, it's kind of funny.

You know, there's like a gully going through.

So like, if you're the very first person that comes into Bonnaroo, you're going to

actually get a gully in your camp space.

Your second spot, you're great.

Third, great.

But the first one, the first year that I met the guys that ended up being in

camp nut butter, they thought they had a great spot and it was 10 feet from

a row of porta potties.

Yeah, that was a bad idea.

Bam, bam, bam.

Dad, you remember the year that you called it and that we were headed to BFE

and you pushed me out of the truck?

Yes.

Yes.

I knew that was going to get locked in BFE and our guys was already waiting for us.

So I just drove Chad out of the truck and threw all the gear with him.

I said, I'll see you in the morning.

Start setting up son.

Get out there.

All right.

You guys do camping.

We all do it.

Stone, Stone can't answer this, but every year the rest of us bring something new.

Like last year, I added a cot, a tent that attaches to my easy up.

What, what are you guys bringing this year?

What's the new guy to have the misty?

Yeah.

What's the addition?

Mr.

Fan is pretty epic.

I'm going to look for that one.

And Brad Parker's tip last week about the, uh, the juice packs.

That's pretty, that's pretty strong.

Hey, Justin, uh, can you take this one?

Because the way they do it now, or it's not the tent only is not 10

on anymore, we're able to bring a lot more stuff and Justin's is cooked.

He's able to cook for us now.

So he brings a lot.

Yeah.

So what's the new addition this year?

I do miss tent only, but now that we are able to bring our, uh, vehicles closer,

you know, we can bring way more stuff and I have to love stuff.

So we bring generators now, lots of fuel, uh, you know, cooking stoves and,

you know, used to it was, I would bring a cooler clothes and a tent, you know,

but now that's all I do.

It's gotten so, I'm able to bring so many things now, like, and, uh, uh,

annex like freestanding and just three or four tents and, you know, for backup,

just in case, you know, like somebody is the first time they didn't know that

you did a tent, which has happened.

I mean, honestly, very, very underprepared.

I mean, I look forward every year, you know, after the last bottom, I'm just

like finding stuff I can frame.

It's like, Oh, what if we brought a ice machine for her?

So now I have a portable refrigerator where I can bring food and I don't need

ice anymore.

I mean, that's, that's a huge upgrade, you know, cause the ice has gotten a

little out of control out there.

You know, I think it's 10 pricing wise, something like that.

You know, I think the generators are a huge upgrade to me and Sean

bringing generator.

And, you know, so now we have unlimited power and we can, we have ceiling fans

last year in our tent.

Hey, there you go.

I mean, that was huge upgrades.

So, I mean, I don't know.

I love just trying to just one up myself from the year before and the year before

that.

Yeah.

So he's, he's our dancing.

Yeah.

Very Brad with the carpeting and at Russ, Russ brings two things, PBR and, uh, a

certain Mason jar and Alabama gold.

I think this year I'm going to try to bring a large community fan just for

people on the road with a mister.

That'd be good.

There you go.

Well, I can't wait to come see you guys this year.

Um, you guys got it licked, man.

I love to hear the evolution of the story starting in Oh seven.

So we're not talking about, I mean, I know not everybody from Oh seven, but the

origins of this whole thing.

That's really neat.

Yeah.

Anything we didn't ask him to get into.

Like I said, we hadn't even taught music.

We'll do that later sometime.

Yeah.

I got nothing else for you, but I look forward to seeing you guys this year for

sure.

But yeah, what else?

Anything you want to throw out there guys?

Anybody jump in?

I mean, I mean, it'd be nice to meet you guys.

Absolutely.

For sure.

I'll swing by.

I'll swing by for sure.

We'll see you on Tuesday.

Yeah.

I'll be there.

Tuesday.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You guys can have a big party.

I'll you can tell me about it on Thursday.

Yeah.

So we run Monday to Monday and we.

Woo.

And every bit of it.

It's so much fun.

And I like the RVs and all that.

They like that's great and stuff.

But I love the nitty gritty of being dirty, you know?

And it's yeah.

And I just can't see myself doing doing really any other way with what these guys

and in in in that spot and or at least up front there and in a bar is just.

Banner is great.

Oh, wait, I do got something else here with you.

This is important to have.

This is a walk, Whomper.

So you're just whacking people with it as they walk by.

Just the word.

Just the word.

That's my guess.

That's my guess.

Everybody knows what a book is, right?

But anyway, so we get a lot of randos that come wander up to our camps.

And it's and it's fine.

Like we love chatting with people.

But as soon as they get to the point where they they they're they're getting to it,

they they they want some war.

Warrant out there. Welcome.

I get up and I'll go one second.

I'll balk them on the head.

And then we give them a beer or whatever.

It's fun. But they would.

We never had one that didn't think it was funny.

But but yeah, get you a walk, Whomper, because they respect it.

And you balk them on the head there, Nick.

Nick, maybe you can use this in your professional life at work.

Just probably does bop them in the head and see how that works out for you in real life.

I got one thing to add.

Go ahead, Rick.

So this year, people will see this that's coming by our tent.

And, you know, we have many people's those with air.

And if we get there this year,

yeah, come by and see us come by.

And we love it when people stop by and we chat with them and and we love to give out

stickers and all that.

And if you've got something, if you want to come and give,

you know, bring something that we can give out to other people

and you want to share with Vibe, you know, whether it be bracelets.

We have people coming by with church boner bracelets and Bonnaroo bracelets.

And we'll put them on the table.

And then other people come up and they just take so we got to give and take table.

So it's a collective.

Yeah. So I got something to add to the given tape table.

Bring it on by and throw it in.

If you want to make something special that you want your other Bonaroovians to have,

put it on the table and they'll get it.

I've also seen online a lot of people think that we're actually

when they talk about church boners, there's other people that chime in

that think that we're actually like a church, a church group. Yeah.

And we are not that like we have.

We just stop reading halfway through the same time or services.

Yeah, we have no problem with any anybody that's

with religion or anything like that.

But we are we're not that at all.

We are just a bunch of people who are idiots.

Found a silly name and it's done.

Yeah. And we like to be upfront because we want to see you more than you want.

Want to see us. We love it's up.

It's like watching the weirdest parade every day

when you get to sit in front of the arch and just watch these people.

I bet it is. Oh, my God. I bet it is.

And we love it like we love everybody.

We want everybody to come to our camp.

I love nothing more than just some of the conversations of somebody

randomly wandering up.

And there's been many cases where someone

realize that they can't take their backpack in or something like that.

So they come to us.

They keep their backpack there.

We like these are things that we like.

We like to do because we like.

Yeah, I mean, that's a level of trust.

You just don't. Yeah. Yeah.

Can you hold this for me, stranger?

Yeah. So that happens more organic usually not on a podcast.

But you're right. Yeah.

We're not going to be able to put that out there.

The official lockers have been moved to the church.

Hold my stash. I mean, my bag.

Yeah, but it really is the coolest parade every year.

Like I bet.

Just weirdness and fun and just

another fun thing that's happened the last couple of years is

the road is no longer dirt in front of us.

It's now now.

So we we we bring out chalk now and everybody draws on the on the cement.

And it's so much fun.

It evolves to a bunch of phallic shapes.

Yeah, of course. Of course, it does.

I'm shocked chalk on concrete and snow turns into exactly that.

We always we've talked about having karaoke this year, too.

Doing karaoke one of the nights.

I don't know. I think one of my favorite things about the whole

our camping group is just hearing all the wild theories

of how we get our spot every year.

You just hear it's almost like just the gossip around

bar about, oh, I heard somebody's rich uncle or heard somebody like it.

It's crazy. All the theories you hear about.

I mean, honestly, it's like Rick was saying and Nick was saying,

it's just pure luck.

Oh, that's the law. Let it happen.

It has to the law. Lean into it a little bit. Oh, I do.

Well, we used to get our spot when we were in nine, three, one,

because Buddy Brad Steiner would show up with a roll of police tape

and he would take off like an acres.

Yeah. It's like we can't do this, Brad.

And then I was OK as it gets rules.

Me and Stone would stand there sweating because he was like,

you guys hold this while I run off.

It's easier to say sorry than ask for permission. Right.

Well, that is very true.

It looked official.

So they left us alone once we got it.

We appreciate you guys.

And we've listened to you guys for years and it helped us a lot to learn

how to do Bonnaroo from all of y'all's guests and and, you know,

and y'all y'all give us Bonnaroo throughout the year.

So we greatly appreciate y'all.

Hey, Rick, thank you very much.

Thank everybody here, man.

This is a nice view.

It was a juggling act.

I didn't know where I was going to go or how,

but that's half the time when we do these shows.

So that's cool stuff. Thank you very much.

Yeah. Do you guys have social media or social media or anything

you want to shout out where people?

Yeah. Anything you want to throw out for people to get ahold of you

if they wanted to, for whatever reason.

We find some of the arch.

Yeah, find us some of the arch.

We have a we have a we have a Facebook group, but we locked it down.

Got out of control.

It's internal use.

Yeah. Give them your phone number.

The owner got too big.

OK, so we want to run for city council one day.

We kind of keep our Bonnaroo life.

This podcast is going to ruin your shot at city council,

I can assure you of that.

Lives were altered today.

Let me talk to you about that time back in March.

And bring back radio Bonnaroo, man.

I miss that. Like, man, it was so much fun.

I mean, you when you get close, you get close to Manchester, you tune in.

And I loved all that stuff.

And then I love being a listen on the app and the heybell sessions and all that.

Radio Bonnaroo was best.

Yeah.

Sean, you're speaking to the choir on that.

If I used to do a lot of that.

Yeah, that was one of my babies.

If I could do anything about that, I would.

I can't. They don't care what I think.

But I would love we would come over to the top of Monteagle

and then you could dial it in.

And so for that last 30 minutes,

well, the line getting in, you left the real world behind and you were in.

You said in the line to get in and for five hours, it's not like that anymore.

So like.

I don't need to listen to radio Bonnaroo as much because that's what I.

There's a lot of reasons why it went away, and that's one of them.

That eight hour line is when I listen to it.

Sean knows this because he's been there for so long.

I mean, if if there was weather issues, which there is almost every year,

maybe not every year, but close radio Bonnaroo is the only place

you were going to get the latest updates now.

You know, the app is that good for you.

Yeah. But anyway, but I don't like going back to what you were asking

if you want to get in touch with us, know any one particular platform.

Just make sure you tag it with hashtag charge voters and we'll we'll find it.

Yeah.

Yeah, see, so there you go.

Right. I mean, we know these guys.

I've never met them.

We know these guys.

They're my friends.

For years now. Yeah, I feel like I know every one of those church boners.

I've known them back since oh seven.

How cool is that, though, that you buy a fan

so that people walking by your camp can cool off?

Yeah, that's right.

Barry, we're going to Lowe's right after this.

I OK. I think you imagine Brad Stiner doing that.

No, no. Imagine him making, you know, bitching at us

because we didn't do it fast enough. Yeah.

Yeah. We're not thinking about the fans walking by enough.

Yeah, I'm considering making one of those.

That's that was a really good idea.

That's a great idea.

I think yours is in Milwaukee, the fan with the uses the the drill batteries.

Oh, and I'm a Milwaukee. I'm not a tool guy much.

I have a few Milwaukee brands, so I've got the extra batteries and everything.

We're already ready to go.

I did buy that last year and it was great.

It was great to have, but I didn't think about the misting.

So, yeah, we're going to have to figure that part out.

That may be our upgrade for this year.

That was a lot of fun.

All right. Like I said, this is a long episode.

Yeah, I got to take a nap, guys. So we got some.

Yeah, we have some questions because we missed last week, by the way.

My fault, my fault.

We I was traveling.

We were just hitting Atlanta traffic, so I forgot to ask

the contest question, which, by the way, we hope to wrap up here pretty soon.

I don't know if we'll end it next week or the one after whatever.

But soon. Well, we did get a question in for on their discord.

The what?

That's the oh slash discord if you want to join.

And the question was, do you remember Baring?

I do. It was based on Brad Parker and Brian's question about

had they sold any Rue Insider camping experiences.

And my question was, which would you rather if money were no issue?

Would you do group tent, moon colony, whatever?

Basically, would you, you know, spend the big money

or would you prefer to do camp tent camping?

Because some people do.

And as you just heard,

church boners, I think they would choose the tent camping.

So yeah, they they're staying true to what they love and what they've grown to know.

But what do we got, Taka?

So we did get an answer.

We got Lena, who has also sent a few videos and stuff.

You probably remember her answering the other questions.

She sent an email this time.

So we'll put it up.

But she just says her dream way to experience Bonnaroo is as a festival director.

That's why she liked listening to Brad Parker so much.

Watch out, Brad Parker, your jobs and yeah, you're replaceable.

We all are. She said it's a pipe dream right now,

but she's working hard to soak up lots of knowledge about the industry.

And she hopes to use her creativity to continue and expand the Bonnaroo magic someday.

So if there's any, Brad, you're going to intern.

Lena, you're going to love next week's episode as well.

I think more inside stuff because things happen.

And I hate to tease something and it not happen until it's for sure.

But you're going to love it. We've already done that once.

So we're going to we're going to do it again to a mess it up.

It's fine. It happens.

All right. What else? You got any others?

Got a couple of faxes in one came from Busco, who sent in some other faxes.

I think he's really enjoys doing this.

He has no other way. He's got no.

Yeah, he's just excited. He's got somebody to fax.

So I would be to also kind of an answer to this week's question.

He said he was torn because there's part of me that knows that regular

camping and group camping is the real way to experience Bonnaroo.

I don't know about that.

He says, but I'm not in my 20s anymore.

I'm all in on area nine, three, one, even though their version of regular car camping.

But if money is no issue, I'm absolutely getting an RV

for some air conditioning and being able to get a full night's sleep

before the party starts again the next day.

Sorry, Camp Nut Butter got kicked out of the woods,

but you're all welcome to hang at my camp in nine, three, one this year.

So look at that.

Don't promise things you're not ready to fulfill.

I can drag a sleeping bag over there.

I will figure out a way in there.

Yeah, we'll bring the church boners with us, too.

Yeah, I know my way around nine, three, one.

I grew up in that place in my late 30s.

We know where it is for sure. Absolutely.

What else? We got one from this is from Chris in Nashville.

Since you just went to Nashville, he says he loves the show.

He's been playing catch up on the podcast.

This is back a few weeks ago.

We asked the question if you could redo any one show at Bonnaroo,

which would be the one you choose.

I really like this question. I love this question.

He says for me, it would be the Sunday in 2022.

I plan to see Lettuce followed by Tira Whack.

Tira was one of my favorite artists coming up, and I absolutely love Lettuce.

My problem was that earlier that Sunday, I decided to take a couple Benadryl.

It starts with me dozing off while standing at the Lettuce show.

On a Sunday, dude, you're going to be snoozing.

Sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, starts off dozing off, standing at the Lettuce show,

which leads to me sleeping against the fence near the tent where Tara was playing.

And on a side note, don't ever sit down or sleep against the fence.

You know why. Yeah, there's a lot of reason, especially not on Sunday.

Do that on Thursday, not Sunday.

Yeah. So he basically slept through the entire Tira show,

only cut bits and pieces of lettuce, which is more upsetting

because I keep missing whether they'll be at Bonnaroo or shows in town.

So well, that was probably a pretty good nap.

I've been insomniac my whole life.

I'm better now or way better than I used to be.

But there was one remedy. Benadryl. Yeah.

If you want to. Now, if you want to be loopy,

if you want to be a little loopy, too, and wake up. Yeah.

Feel like you've been drugged.

But yeah, Benadryl will do the trick.

Be careful with that stuff.

All right. And then finally, since we missed last week, we got one voicemail.

This is Lily.

Hello, What Podcast friends.

My name is Lily. I'm calling into the contest.

And I don't really have any questions about the camping.

But I figured that maybe I could share a tip that I've learned

from camping at festivals.

Please do for Bonnaroo, for maybe some people who haven't been or having camps a lot

at festivals, maybe for first year camping.

But I would say just ditch the tent and just go underneath a canopy,

put some tapestries up for your wall.

But the tent just gets so high.

And it's just honestly just not worth the hassle to put up.

It's just honestly way better just to ditch it

and just hang out with everybody under the canopy.

You could put your air mattresses there.

But yeah, I just wanted to share that.

But I'm so excited for Bonnaroo and it's going to be great.

I guess. Thank you, Lily.

That has been a common suggestion for the last half decade or so or more.

Is that the get out of the tent, get out of the easy bake oven.

And there's so many different ways to do it now.

Bad weather comes in, screws up all ideas.

But in best case scenarios, I'm hearing that more and more.

And I'm believing it more and more. Yeah.

Which leads us to this week's question and also a comment for me.

Like last year, they they have made a tent that snaps onto your easy up,

which I got last year. You guys saw. Yep.

Naps right to the side of it.

It went up in about what? Three minutes.

It was a nice place to change clothes, do all those sorts of things.

Had a lot of vent.

You know, I like it.

But I agree with her.

The easy up is the way to go this week's question.

Every year we always get together as as we're leaving or whatever

and say, what's the one thing we're going to bring next year?

What's the new?

Yeah, how are we going to how are we going to improve this already masterpiece?

Right. Of a or at least somewhat of a masterpiece.

Sometimes it's taking things away. Yeah.

You don't bring we don't need this.

Yeah, we don't need to bring the keg with the camp nut butter tap marker anymore.

We won't do it. Sorry, Vonra.

We don't do that anymore. We don't bring keg to beer anymore.

Not that we ever did, but we don't want to do it anymore.

Well, we did do it once.

We did. That was the eggs Benedict.

That was like 2014.

Yeah, it was pretty great.

We get a nine, three, one in the woods.

Yeah, party.

So like this year, the tips from Brad Parker last week about the juice

boxes or the the I don't know what you call it.

The to go applesauce. Yeah.

The adult apple. Oh, that's right.

That was a great baby food.

Baby food. Yeah, that was a great tip.

That's some good energy right there.

And the guys from church boners just now talking about the Mr.

Fan and the

bucket of water blows cool air on people.

That's a good one. So yeah, what is your what's the one thing

you're adding to your camp this year?

That's the question for this week.

Yeah. And then I'd say we'll we'll pick a winner probably after this question

the next week or two.

So get them in and we'll we'll do that soon enough.

And thank you for your patience on that.

All right. Anything else, guys?

Good show. So I know it's fun.

Good show. See you next week.

All right, guys. We'll talk soon.

Bye. See you. See you.