Welcome to Bonnaroo 2018! Brad and Barry are joined by campmate Bryan Stone to talk the additions to the grounds, Brad's ridiculous theory, and who to expect to hear on the podcast this year!
Topic: Bonnaroo
Journey through the stories that define the artists playing Bonnaroo. Who are they? What are they? What will you see? The what? Which bands? This year? That matter? With Brad Steiner and Barry Courter. Well, I've got breaking Bonnaroo news. I bet I know what it is. What do you think my breaking Bonnaroo news is, Barry Courter? I think you've discovered that Bonnaroo can move mountains. No, breaking Bonnaroo news. Move mountains. Brad Steiner's hair is on fleek. Day two of Bonnaroo. Brad Steiner's hair is on fleek. We are at the happiest place on earth. The happiest place on earth. This is the Bonnaroo podcast. The what? Bonnaroo podcast. A podcast for Bonnaroovians by Bonnaroovians. I'm Bonnaroovian A. That's Bonnaroovian B. I guess you could be B too. I could be a B too. It's Barry Courter from the Chattanooga Times Free Press in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I'm Brad Steiner from WDOD Radio and Hits 96 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We made the trek right up the road from Chattanooga to Manchester on Wednesday night. Now we see basically thousands of people dropping right on top of our serene setting backstage at Bonnaroo. Where do these people come from and why are they bothering me? Barry? We had it so good for how? 12 hours? Oh my God, it was so good. It was so, so good. But last night we stay up until 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock in the morning and we see nothing. Nobody's around us forever. But yet we hear the faint distance and the faint distance, partying and happiness and people excited. We weren't part of that. No, we were left out. We were left out with our own gin and tonics and tears. We should introduce who we are, don't you think? I just did that. No, we have a guest. We have a guest already? I don't know. We have a guest? We have a guest. Oh podcasting superstar. There he is. Glad to be here. Glad to be here. Thank you guys. The home of the Stone On Air podcast using all the Stone On Air podcasting equipment backstage. Podcasting genius. Podcasting genius. Yes, podcasting genius. So Brian Stone, member of the Camp Nut Butter, if you want to follow along you can at the What Underscore podcast on Twitter or the What Underscore podcast on Instagram as well. So while everybody was partying last night, we were tracking a skunk. Literally a skunk. That's a great point. Brian Stone, so if you can go back in your memory banks of being in this space for like the last decade or so, we have never, and we talk about this every year, we've never seen a bug. We've never seen a bug. I've never gotten a mosquito bite. You always worry about these things. We pour insect repellent on us all the time, but there's never any insects. Until last night, we were accosted by a skunk. And I'm not talking about that girl you brought to our camp last year by the way. Enough out of you on that one. Or a skunk. Somebody said skunk weed. We have a, we've had a carpenter bee, which I've never seen. We've had a handful of mosquitoes. Still, we're not infested by any means. No, it's just so rare. But there was a damn skunk. Yeah, we did twice. 20 yards away. Yeah, this place. And at one point maybe 20 feet away. That's concerning. This place is falling apart. It's completely falling apart. So the skunk happened last night. That was our part. That was our DJ set. DJ Skunk Face walked up to our camp and accosted us. But the party was pretty crazy last night. And I wish we were to gotten out to see it. RV had a nice event with Repeat Repeat. Repeat Repeat did a show out in General Mission RV. They had the parade with the giant Volkswagen Bug go through. It was a massive operation last night. And they were killing it out there. They were killing it. But you guys have Repeat Repeat coming up before the weekend's over. We hope so, yeah. We hope to have them in Camp Nut Butter very, very soon. So wait a second. They're coming to this camp? That is the rumor. I heard that. They're going to show up at camp and just hang out with us? They're going to come and do a podcast with us. So this is what's amazing. So if Repeat Repeat is going to come and check out Camp Nut Butter and sit down and hang out, that means they were here last night, Wednesday night. Their show's Sunday night on the Who stage. These guys are going all in. They're going six days just like we are. They're here for a long time and a good time. And a good time. These guys are my kind of dudes. Yeah. And you don't like them. What? Hey, this band we're about to have on very hates them. It's going to be like that. I'm pretty sure they were my pick. Oh, OK. I thought you said that. Well, I don't know. I couldn't remember. You thought one of the guys was really dreamy or something. That might be right. Oh, that's right. Yeah, he had an awkward picture. So this is the Thursday schedule. I probably have to apologize again to him today for that. So Sunday, they play Sunday on the Who stage. But today, we started out the show with Lizzy, who hopefully we get to talk to a little later this afternoon too. Because I think that Lizzy's sort of fallen, got in your heart, grabbed your heartstrings there, Barry Corbett. Yes, absolutely. How was that? Why is that? Well, it's just good. Yeah, you like it that much, huh? Yeah, well, I mean, it's good. And, you know, truthfully, when we reached out to people and said, would you like to talk to us? And they said, yes, they become one of my favorites. She's kind of one of those overnight sensation after a decade and a half kind of types, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the 10-year overnight. She's been doing this a long time. And then... If only the Grammys had the same sort of level as Barry Corbett did. Answer the phone. You're my favorite. You won a Grammy. Congratulations. You're an L Award winner. It's not that far off. We're going to start because of a listener pick. Who was at that blank range, by the way? Was that Drew? It might have been. All right, so we had a blank range at 415. Then we've got Ron Gallo at 5. Then we got Lissy at 630. What else do you see in this afternoon there, Barry Corbett? You caught me without a schedule in front of me. Hang on. You're going to do Doron Jones. We're going to hopefully talk to him as well. Doron, yeah, yeah, maybe that one. Boy, by the way, can I talk about how this has all sort of come together in the last minute? Just like this whole podcast started, we threw it together in three days, and it became this. We threw this whole, let's do this backstage at Boderu in the last 72 hours. Because you're so amazing and because Barry Corbett is the most powerful newspaper writer in all of America, go to hell, Glenn Thrush. And your stupid hat. You've been able to compile a pretty solid list of artists that we might be able to talk to. It's pretty exciting, isn't it? Pigeons is another one that- That's my jam now. That's my jam. Yeah, I don't know about all of how it happened, but yes, it came together quickly. Who else you got other than Pigeons? Do I need to be here for any of this? What are my responsibilities here? We don't know if that's going to work. Oh, Closie is the other one tonight I want to see. Oh, yeah, you're obsessed with that Closie. Yeah, that EDM. Probably won't see you over there, will I? No, you're not going to be seeing me in Closie. But you know what? Big chicken floors today. I will say the other stage is fascinating because last year I didn't even trek out there. I didn't even give it a try. But what we did do on Wednesday when we got here is we did the walkthrough. So Ken Weinstein from Big Hassle and Ashley Capps from AC Entertainment, some others. Rick Farman from Superfly was there. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Jeff Cuellar was there. They took us around the entire grounds and showed us everything that was different. And I didn't even notice, mainly because I didn't go out there last year. Or in the last 13 years, actually. Good point. There was a whole oasis over there by the others that they've built. Oh, there's a lot of changes that we saw last night. I swear to God, we drove by the oasis, which is basically a big beach party. I swear to God, I heard Kenny Loggins playing. I don't know if you guys heard it, but playing with the boys was just the happening play as soon as I... I didn't notice that one. I missed that one. It's a Top Gun reference, guys. Come on. Beach volleyball. It was pretty cool having them... And it was a media thing. It wasn't just us three, but driving around general camp, general admission camp, is where we spent all our time. What they've done with the plazas, what you guys are seeing if you're out in GA right now, is something that I didn't... First off, I knew that they had some sort of plaza activities that used to be the grind, and then they had the garage, right? So then they turned the grind into what's now the Ville, a whole thing dedicated to Nashville. But then you go to all these other plazas, it is absolutely phenomenal what they've been able to build. Plaza 6, nothing but health and wellness. You got Matt from Cage the Elephant doing an entire plaza in Plaza 9. This thing is massive that Tim Love doing... Yeah, the Schultz thing with the birthday, it was all the birthday cake and the birthday presents. You'll have to go look at it to make sense of it, because I didn't know what I was looking at. This is what I wondered the entire time. If I'm in GA, right, if we're our buddy Lord Taco who's camping out in GA... Our Lord and Savior Taco. If I'm him, and I'm in plaza too, do I walk to all the other plazas at some point and just hang out in all the other activities? I would. I would too, right? Yeah, we did ask that yesterday. You can pick your plaza, but you can go to any and all of them. Boy, I sure would. I would want to see what everyone else has going on. I'll tell you, that's the thing that bugged me so much. Where we actually camp, we could get out, but we wouldn't be able to get back in. We would be stranded on 75 for about two hours. So for the first time in our 13 years, Brian's 17 years, everyone else had it better than us. I was really jealous. For one night, yeah. It was fun watching the skunk run around, but not quite as fun as the sounds we were hearing from about 500 yards that way. It literally sounded like a Saturday morning, didn't it? With the roars from the crowds and the thumping. That's right. Saturday morning being 2 a.m. Yeah, that's what I mean. That's when you wake up. Yeah. I know. It's usually when old man Bear is waking up for... You know what? I think I could enjoy... I got my six hours in. I'm good. So last night is the opening ceremonies, essentially, and then they open the gates on Thursday. When do they open the gates today? 3? Is today the 3 o'clock? Yeah, 3. And then if backstage is any sort of marker, it is going to be packed today. It is going to be absolutely packed. Yeah, they're coming in already, aren't they? We talked about it last night, and I don't mean this in a bad way, necessarily. It's a little cluttered out in Centauroux, and there's some little new pop-up ways to spend your money. I couldn't tell exactly where it all is. It's going to be a little cluttered. I think we noticed when we walked through last night, we got to walk through Centauroux and see some of the changes they've made to the festival grounds. Dude, it's more of a carnival than I can ever remember. That's the word it looks like. I always loved the way that they specifically found places and homes for things. The Christmas Barn being one of them. They rearranged the Silent Disco a couple years ago. But last night, it feels like there's something... it's ADD. If you have ADD, this is perfect for you, because you can't turn around and not find something that's going to whop you up in the head with some sort of flashing light. We need to go back today, obviously, because some of it looked like it was under-constructions type stuff. So some of it might have been cleared out. I don't know. But there were a lot more tents, structures, whatever, in places that were once open fields. I turn that into the user experience. The user experience has become so much more elevated this year. And I'll go one step better. Those damn lights on those trees is the best addition this place has had. I mean, you can keep classrooms. I want those lights on the trees. They look amazing. I'll take both. For just saying, yeah, there's some lights on the trees, it's a little more complicated than that. It's pretty darn cool. It really adds to the ambiance. Well, how would you say if it's not lights on trees? I just mean it's easy to say, yeah, there's some lights in the trees. Like we have lights around the 10 by 10 here. It's the 40 watt bulb in your backyard. It's not like that. It's impressive. They spend a little bit more money on their light show than we do. Is that what you're trying to say? It's nice. You failed us at the camp, not butter, for the lights, Brad. Everyone else will up their game. Man, you guys. Cause people to up their game. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. All right, so we walk around center route last night and I noticed something that I think is... Yeah, I want to challenge everybody else out there. This is a question for Red. Oh no, are we about to go down this road again? We're going to go up this hill. Yeah, let's climb the mountain. So I noticed something yesterday in this walkthrough when we got to the what stage at the end of this media thing. We were literally standing in the pit and looking back onto the empty field. Dude, they have moved that VIP Hill. Can I now set this up? They've moved this VIP Hill. I think you would be better to set it up than Brad. There's nothing to set up. I'm standing there talking to Ashley Caps, the co-founder of this festival. And Brad is with Ken Weinstein. And Weinstein's been here as long as I can remember. Exactly. And he's pretty much doubled over laughing. Who is this fool saying we moved a hill? We moved a mountain. He just asked, have we moved the VIP Hill? Yes, it's a legit question because they have moved that hill. That hill has not been there before. That hill was further back in the field. And when they made all the improvements to VIP, I swear to God, they dug that hill up and they placed it right 100 yards away from VIP. And I know this for a fact because if you remember, Reddit, somebody on Reddit proved me right on this. Did you find the aerial shot? Oh yeah, because it's on Reddit. It must be accurate information. I trust my guys on Reddit. I still can't figure out why Ken and Ashley would say no if they didn't do it. I guess it could be out of their decision-making processes, whether the hill gets moved 50 feet. They snuck in one night and moved a hill. Well, their question was, how do you move a hill? I said, have you ever seen a damn golf course? They move hills all the time. So look, I'm making my case, and this is going to be the last time I bring this up, except I'll bring this up every day this year. If you remember, to the left, where everybody says there are bees, the left part of the what stage, if you're looking at the what stage on the left, there used to be a giant bank of bathrooms, giant bank of bathrooms, and the guys on the stage would even remark about it on stage because the air would wash onto the stage and they would smell it. So those aren't there anymore. Okay, that's fine. That's right. That's correct. So then on the left side of the bathrooms was a long line of vendors and a long line of beer, and that went on for a good hundred yards. Then you got the VIP Hill. Now you have three vendors, VIP Hill. I just think we had a much more, two different times and two different capacities, a different perspective of that landscape than we're used to when we're there with lots of people. And I think that it just looked different because we saw the middle of the day by ourselves, we saw the middle of the night by ourselves. We came up with a theory. I don't think they moved the hill. No. I don't think they moved the damn hill. What I think has happened over the course of the last five years is they make it a little bit more interesting. They add more gadgets inside of the festival, like tents and flashing lights, to make you feel like it's more of an experience. And if you're going to spend a lot of money on VIP, they're going to want to be closer than they used to be, which was 150, 200 yards past the current hill. Telling you, man, they're good. Hashtag move the hill. Hashtag move the hill. Use it. Hashtag move the hill. I mean, spend the weekend. Let us know. Hashtag move the hill. Hashtag move the hill. This is going to change. I'm telling you, something's changed. All right. If you want to follow along. All I know is I was embarrassed for you at the time. I was not embarrassed. I have no reason to be embarrassed about this. I feel very confident with what I remember. I'm fine. By the way, they did not let... Well, we'll talk about that later. We've got artists coming up. I hope Repeat Repeat enjoys our campsite. By the way, we've got a new addition to the campsite. He just rolled in. Denson, we've got artists coming by today. Can you clean the place up? We've got to... We need to tidy it up. We've got company. He's not answering. Get to work, Denson. So here's what we've got. We've got artists coming up this weekend. We'll do some pop-in podcasts. Please follow along at the What Underscore podcast on Twitter all this week. And of course, at Brad Stinks on Snapchat. Barry, are you going to be doing any tweeting and Snapchatting? Yes. Are you a Snapchatter? If I can get... At Stone On Air, am I allowed to do that? I'm the new guy here. I'm sorry. At Stone On Air. I've never heard of you. Love it. Love you, Brad. I got four more days. That's my dude, man. That's my dude. Help me. All right. This is the What Podcast. The What Underscore Podcast, thewhatpodcast.com. We'll talk to you intermittently throughout the weekend. All right? Happy Bonnaroo. Hey, hey, hey, hey. How y'all feeling? Journey through the stories that define the artists playing Bonnaroo. Who are they? What are they? What will you see? The What. Which bands? This year? That Matter. Yay. Brad Steiner and Barry Courter.
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