Brad and Barry review day the first two days of Bonnaroo 2019, with Bryan Stone of StoneOnAir!
Topic: Bonnaroo
Journey Through the Stories that define the artists playing by the rules. Who are they? What are they? What will you see? The what? Which bands? This year? That matter? With Brad Steiner and Barry Courter. All right, whenever you all want to do whatever you're going to do, do it. Are you going to the open or what? I can't necessarily, you can't hear it anyway. So open is going now, Brad Steiner, Barry. And now the show is on. Wow. I don't know what that was. It's going to stay actually. What was that? That was, I don't know what that was. But you know, is that going to live with us for the rest of our lives? This is the man who nearly choked himself to death with his own headphones. The man put on headphones and legitimately tried to strangle himself and hang him from a tree behind Gestamping. Add Stone On Air, by the way. Yeah, well there's not going to be a Stone On Air. There's not going to be a Stone On Air anymore because you just hung yourself. You're done. He died from his own headphones. Which would be the greatest thing that's ever happened to Bonnaroo is Brian Stone saying goodbye to us all. Hunged by his own headphones. Right here at Camp Nut Butter. So welcome to a day, what day is this? Is it day three? Is it day three of Bonnaroo? It's day three for us. All right, so we did Wednesday night and no skunk sightings. Then we said a Thursday, then we Friday night last night and we'll go through each one individually, I guess. But apparently our skunk is back and actually got somebody last night. It got somebody? Yeah, that's what I've heard. Wait, are we talking about the same thing? I'm talking about a girl that Brian slept with. So. Ta-da. It's pick on Brian day. We've gone all week. It's been kind of nice to Brian. So Brian was smashing the nabes, basically the skunk nabes. That's enough out of you. What's that? That's enough out of you. Okay. So we talked about this skunk sighting last night. So we talked about. Not a sighting, an actual I think sprain. We talk all the time. We said this before, but we talk all the time about how there's never a bug. Never a bug. I mean, you might see a dragonfly. You might see a moth here and there. But last year we saw a skunk and we saw it again this year, apparently. It's back. Yeah, it's back. Wow. A whole family of them. I don't know. Maybe they're just big Post Malone fans. Who knows? Didn't introduce themselves. So I don't know if it's the same one or not. So what was your thoughts on Thursday? You walk in, you see all the changes, everything that's moved around and rearranged. What did you think? Yeah, I keep going round and round. Some of it I liked a lot. Obviously there's heightened security because of the two bombs that they found in Manchester. Canine dogs everywhere. Canine dogs in Santa Ru. Yeah, bomb dogs. They're not drug dogs, which seems weird because this is Bonnaroo. Right. If that's a drug dog, he's the worst drug dog in the history of mankind. That dog needs to be fired immediately. That's a great point. That's a great point. Yeah, he needs to be re-trained. They've chosen the only moot dog in the entire world. But I think most people feel like they're glad to see the dogs because of the security thing. Makes you feel a lot better. There was some walkiness on Wednesday, huh? Yeah, we had rain. We had what, five inches over the weekend. Wasn't there some weird security things that were happening around Manchester at the time? Well, they found two bombs in Manchester. Were they real? Was it a real thing? Yeah, pipe bombs in Manchester. That was after the online threat last two weeks ago. That sounded nuts. That person just didn't sound rational, but this is insane that it was actual. At the time that I read it, they didn't think the pipe bombs have anything to do with Bonnaroo. They just happened to be in Manchester. Which is such a hotbed of terror activity. Well, there's not a lot to do around here every other day of the year, right? Yeah, that could have been just for fun. A couple of guys having a good time. Math and bombs. Let's see if we make a pipe bomb. It might have been just math. That's good. It could have been math related. You talked to the sheriff though. Has he said anything about it? I talked to his information guy, Chief Butler, just today as a matter of fact. From their point of view, it's normal. I think he told me 10 arrests, this was kind of funny actually, 10 arrests and 125 citations. That's over three days? Yes. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. And I said, what causes something to rise to go from citation to arrest? And he said, the amount of drugs and attitude. My dude. I got plenty of the latter. I laughed and I said, yeah, that's usually about it. And he just said, yeah, that's right. Plenty of drugs and attitude. That's the name of my indie band by the way, plenty of drugs and attitude. Don't come after the cop with an attitude. All right, so is that number normal? Is that a... Yes, it's about right. No, there have been no injuries. I mean, there have been health issues, but no deaths, no major injuries, that sort of thing. As of, what are we, I don't even know what day we're at. I was going to say, what day is it? Is this Saturday? Saturday afternoon? I saw so many rookie mistakes on Thursday. So many rookie mistakes. We said it over and over and over. You don't get trashed on Thursday. The weather was too nice. It was too nice. I mean, people forget all the easy rules. It makes them forget some of that, but it's helped with the dehydration issues, which are normally what we have. Well, I had a girl pass out on my leg. She literally passed out on me. And our friend Nick, it was a bloodletting everywhere he went, apparently. Yeah, every time he walked by somebody, somebody bird boxed themselves. It just fell straight to the ground. We're talking about him like he's not sitting right there. He's denying he had anything to do with it. Okay, so then... And then we're standing next to this woman and he's next to her too and she just falls down to the ground. There's a face plant out there. And then what did I do? I was a Mariah Carey hero. Saved a life. Hit hero. Saved a life. Hit hero. The song. No, nothing? We got nothing? Terrible production. Terrible producer. Huh? What's going on? I wanted you to play Mariah Carey hero because that's what I was on Thursday. He saved a life. I saved a life. Hey, sorry, I can't play music on the fly at our podcast studio in the middle of the woods. There is nothing more... I can't imagine. I feel horrible for anybody who has to go through this. But this girl who had to wake up the next day had to wake up with the realization that she went face first into a mud pit on this stage, on this tent. That is one of... That's got to be a horrifying feeling. And we picked her up out of the mud, shook some of the mud off and had her sit up for a second. And when she finally came... She was wide-eyed too. You literally... You click her back into action and she's there. Nick makes a good point. He thinks that she had to deal with it that day. Yeah, well... I don't know. I don't know. But then, well, maybe or maybe not. Or you could be like Lord Taco and show up and then all of a sudden be here for 12 hours and then want to take a 20-hour nap. He did take a... We should talk about this camp. What about our camp this year? Oh, what about it? It's pretty sweet, don't you think? Is it? There are a lot of people here I don't know. Well, yeah, that happens every year. A lot of them that are not invited too. That happens every year. But we have a lot of real estate. Go get it. Go get it. I mean, just for example, right now we have what? We have some weave. We have some things. We have some medicine things. So we added Lord Taco's Volkswagen bus and now we have a hair salon. We have a hair salon. We have crimping going on. We got weaves getting done. You think I'm kidding. I'm not. Yeah, apparently I have my hair crimped gold. By Doyle here. You're putting gold on your body? And all of this is happening to Brad too, I should say. The weaves, the hair crimping, the makeup. It's all happening to Brad right now as we speak. I'm feeling like a princess today. You feel special. I feel so good. Who's doing my toenails? Someone. Barry, are yours? We got somebody working on it. Give me my toenails. Don't touch me with those. All right. So who are your highlights on Thursday? Thursday was Peach Pit for sure. Kids, babies. They're teeny tiny. By the way, they're camping about 20 yards away from us. They are babies. Are they really? Yeah. Oh, I need to go by and say hi. I know. You'd find the group that are too young to drink. Because that's who they are. They are babies. So they're probably hanging out with the AJR crew a little bit. AJR was yesterday, right? That was a great show. So you like Peach Pit. Did you do Caroline Rose? Didn't do Caroline Rose. Did you do Donna Missal? By the way, her name is Missal and not Missal. We've been saying this wrong this entire time. I know. Sorry, Donna. Yeah. She was good. I liked her. You didn't like her as much. Too much talking. But I didn't see all that. I only saw the singing. I don't want to go to, like, I don't want to insult a show while we're at Bonnaroo. It's almost like if you're the president insulting the country when you're overseas. Like, I don't want to get too far into, like, this show is terrible. But if there's a few at the top of my list of things that I don't ever want to see again. My thought from Thursday is we hyped up Thursday as being the greatest day. It was a total snooze fest. It was, I don't know, not for me, a total, but it wasn't what I had hoped it would be. So we were so excited about Grand Ole Opry. And I'll say this. I'm sure that there were moments that really got really well. They got really good. And I'm sure that Cash did a great job with the old crow stuff, especially the highlights that I saw at the end were terrific. I wish that I had stayed, but I just couldn't keep watching TV. It was, yeah, it was a little, well, it was like watching radio, actually, which is what they were doing. So, you know, they were doing an old fashioned radio show. They were actually doing Grand Ole Opry. It was broadcast live. And then you're going to have to explain to me, like, this Riders in the Sky thing, I know people like it, but, you know, I get who they are and why it's a thing. But one of the guys was literally trying to play an instrument out of his mouth hole. He was just like, that was part of his rap. That was part of his Slim Shady rap. His name is Slim. Okay. Did you not get that? I mean, he's the real Slim. I thought it was kind of funny. I thought it was a one time only funny. I wouldn't do it again. But for Bonnaroo, I thought it made sense. All right. And so our boys, Jack's project canceled. So yeah, we've had a double hit. Yeah. And when you come to the What Podcast, you are done. It's not the what, it's the done. It's your career over. You will cancel immediately. So Donna, not Donna, so, uh, Drax project canceled. And DeLacy. Yeah. I don't know if I'm really supposed to say this, but who knows? There's apparently a lot of costs that go into coming to Bonnaroo if you are a smaller artist like this. And sometimes you just can't afford it. Sometimes you just can't afford it. It's maybe something we need to look in a little deeper. The whole pay to play thing is a big issue in the entire industry. So we saw a Grand Ole Opry and then we got to All Them Witches. A lot of people liked All Them Witches. I didn't spend any time with it. I didn't even walk by. And then Rolling Blackouts, I thought were absolutely unbelievable. They were terrific. They were really, really good. They just have this, they just have this thing where, where I don't really know how to pitch and hold them. I don't know where to put them, but I know I'm getting just insane craftsmanship. Even as sloppy as it comes across. I think Nick and I were talking about it while it was happening. It's just the way they layer those guitars. The drums are so, so simple. The drums, he just gets in a pocket and the bass player stays with him. And then the guitar player is just layer upon layer upon layer. I think it has sort of that 90s post-punk kind of thing to it that I like. I like quite a bit. And then of course you have the Plaza shows. Then I went to bed. I met a local Chattanoogan kid who plays for 3 Star Revival who did the Plaza show. I heard that was a lot of fun. And then you go to Magic City Hippies and Comets Coming. And this is one of the big sort of problems in most people's lineups. And when you start on Thursday, you look at all the sudden Comets Coming, Magic City Hippies, and they were essentially a, it's a draw. Which one are you going to pull? You're going to flip a coin and go to who? I made a rookie mistake, stayed up way too late on Wednesday so I was asleep by that point. And I'm glad of it. Had a hard Wednesday night? It wasn't like I hit it hard. Not well there was that. But it wasn't that. It was just stayed up so late and then got up early which was stupid. It wasn't that late. We were not up that late on Wednesday. How late were we up on Wednesday? You keep saying 2.30. It was 4. Hey Peanut Gallery. Hey Peanut Gallery. Well how late were we up on Wednesday? 4. How late? 4. It was 4? It was 4 last night. You guys keep saying that. It was 4. Oh man. Boy. Told you. We made this happen until 4 am on Wednesday. Yeah it crushed me. It killed me. We blew it out at 4 am? This is unbelievable. I was there. I was there. I was on the rail. I was there. I was on the rail. I'm explaining why my Thursday went so early. It's because he was out until 4 am apparently and when we say out we mean two camps down. Two camps down. It might as well have been. Wednesday feels like a week ago. Feels like a week ago. It does. That's a good point. Alright so Thursday comes and goes. We did Saba again. Am I going to criticize an artist on the game for this? Except that you are. I'm not saying a word. Alright and then Friday. Let me just say this. My picks have not held up so much this year. I have gone about one for five so far. That's fair. That's fair. That's big of you to admit. Brian you going to let that go? Alright good old 25%. About three days from now we'll be like damn it I should have said that right then. Alright and then we go to a jerk store. We go to Friday and we started our day with Cherry Glazer again. Boy Brad is now one for six. One for six. The numbers just keep getting worse. I didn't go to that one. Wasn't very good huh? We missed up on Moncero Perrine which is one of your picks. Rival Sons. We still don't know who they are but apparently they're huge. One of our camp mates was obsessed with Rival Sons. I don't know how this was. I don't know who they are but I know they're a thing and I don't know what thing it is. Right. Alright then you did Parquet Courts. What did you think when your first Parquet Courts experience? I didn't go. I think I was. Glad to have that conversation. Good. What was I doing yesterday? I don't know what you were doing but Parquet Courts is a show and I've said this on the show before. I was working. I think I was in the media area listening to AJR's press conference and writing a story. Parquet Courts just keeps getting better and better and better. For guys that have been doing this for 15, 20 years with the same guys, I don't know how it keeps getting better but it just does. I don't know how but they just keep getting tighter. The sets keep getting better. I've seen six, seven Parquet Courts shows now. This was the best one I've ever seen. Just keeps getting better. Every one gets topped from the last. Good for them. We passed by AJR? AJR is next. What did you think? That's an interesting one. Kids. Babies. I happened to be with one of our campmates, Chrissy. We were watching that show and we were overwhelmed at the size of it. Unbelievable. My God, it was huge. Which stage was packed all from front to back? They played the running of the Chihuahuas in Chattanooga, Tennessee in front of 200 people, not four years ago. It was a terrific show and the way they intro'd their hit I thought was absolutely genius. What did you think? They came out and started and burned the house down and they came out and said, we're going to give you a little sample of how we create a song. They got the little drum thing and they started doon, doon, doon. Give me a little more griddle to that. Give me a little more gristle to that. They changed it. Then he added, let's add a little guitar. Then they added, let's try a clarinet, I think. Stop it. That didn't work. He's like, no, try a horn. Then the horn player there started with the bam, and the place went absolutely nuts. It was so clever and so simple. That's really neat. But here's the question that we had. They were basically playing to tracks. I didn't know how I felt about that. Really? Yeah. The drummer was playing live and the singer, Adam, was singing. There's a lot of noise coming. There was a lot coming out of those speakers that wasn't being produced on stage. It sounded good and it was a terrific show, but we were kind of like, ah. I don't know. Wait a second. I don't know why that... When did that start bothering you? That's 75%. That's 75% of every act that's out here right now. It's old school with me. I don't like tracks. I want to see live. Well, if you... To my point, Childish Gambino just a few hours later did it all live and crushed it. I can't... I'm going to cut this close because I don't want to get into this conversation right now. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't... We just talked about it. No, the next one. I don't know what to say about Childish Gambino. Yeah, you were a little bit overwhelmed. A little bit extra. I've had a moment and I don't know what to do with this moment. I really don't. It was so good. It was so unbelievably good that I had... When we were walking back with the ladies, they were just talking, talking, talking, talking. Bradley looked over at me. She's like, I mean, do you have anything to say? I said, bro, I just got to think about this for a minute. You had your same moment your buddy did after the McCartney show. I just can't talk. I can't speak. I don't have anything to say. It was unbelievable on every level. Yeah, it was good. It was beyond anything that I thought it could have been. Even watching the show from Coachella, I knew it was going to be good. I didn't know it was going to take me into a completely different place with songs that I don't even know. Right. It took 30 minutes for me to turn around and realize that he had played a song at that point. I was like, oh my God, he's been playing this whole time. I'm just so entranced by everything that's happening. He is damn near one of the most grab you and pull you onto stage performers I've ever seen. The way he held the audience and he did it for people who haven't seen it. It's just him on stage basically. They have these cool props, these giant, what would you say? These screens, double sided screens. Seven by seven square screens and there were probably eight of them and they rolled and turned and they created a black wall and they had lights and the smoke came out of them. And then him in a pair of cotton pants, not sweatpants, but similar. No shirt and that was it. It's like something you wear on a beach. Exactly. Like beach wear. And just his, to hear you talking about it last night, I kept thinking David Bowie always had that sort of reputation where every single move was choreographed. There was nothing, no wasted finger move, hip move, nothing. But of course Bowie had other production around him. This was simple. It was meticulous. Very meticulous. David Byrne a lot like that too. David Byrne, that's a great, that's probably a better... Every step is absolutely calculated. That's a great, it does stop making sense. That's very similar. But see, why David Byrne be calculated, you know it's David Byrne being calculated. I never got that from Gambino last night. Like it feels so improv. It feels like it's off the cuff. It feels fun. It feels all moving. Like he's just going with it. It feels so much more organic than that. If you felt that, okay. I'm not disagreeing. I felt everything last night. I'm not disagreeing, but I mean the way all the staging and the people around him, it was practiced. It was not a... No it was practiced, but even his dance moves, right? I know he's got that act perfected. He knows exactly where he's moving. Yeah, okay. We were saying the same thing then. I didn't care. No, it didn't feel, you know, ABC. It felt very, very natural. I'll agree with that. But it was pretty terrific. Oh God, I just can't. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop thinking about it. I'll think about every moment. And this is going to be one of those shows that I love so much, and artists that I love so much, songs that I've never heard really before because I never really listened to much Gambino. Right. And this is going to be one of those things afterwards, I still probably won't ever listen. I mean I might listen every now and then. The show was part of it. It's great, but this is like, it's just a live thing. Like you can't transcribe. Absolutely. I agree with that. I don't know if it's transcribable everywhere because I've listened to the albums. I'm like, okay. And nothing really attaches to me. I agree with that. And by the way, I was there. On the rails. Bro, I was there and I was on the rail. I saw Solange's Soundcheck and guess what? That was exactly the same show. So I hope somebody liked it. Good for you. Our campmate, Jonathan Sussman, blown away by it. I liked Beach House a lot. Beach House. Talk about a show that just keeps getting better. I didn't know if it was going to work in this space and this time, especially being so sleepy at 1.30 or 10.30 at night, 11 o'clock at night. I didn't know if it was going to work in that space, but boy, it was great. One of the two too many fish sets that are going to be here this year was another Boar Fest. Just let everybody know. Unless you're a super fish fan. I've heard that from a couple of people. Unless you're a super fish fan, that was a damn Boar Fest. And I know a lot of fish music. A lot. But hang on. Don't get too crazy. Super fish fans are two thirds of the audience. Two thirds of the crowd here today. We can argue about that all day long. I don't know if that's true or not. Yeah, I could argue it too based on watching those kids run to the EDM stuff. So there was nobody out there. Was there? Is that right? Let me back it up. Nobody is too absolute. But it was really, really, really a lot of space. And it was great. I mean, it sounded good. They're an incredible band. They really went deep on some stuff last night. I have a feeling Sunday is going to be a little bit more of a here's the stuff. Well, there's nothing else going on. Well, there's nothing else going on. And the French fan, like here's the stuff that you... Yeah, we'll be there. Yeah, I'll be there too. How'd you feel about the Super Jam? Meh. Meh. I didn't feel good about it. I thought Diva Mahal killed it. She was great as I was hoping. I would've loved to see her but I took a nap in the field. Yeah, you passed. I was long gone by then. May I say, in the first time in my Bonnaroo history, my Bonnaroo career, I fell asleep in the field for the first time in 15 years. You've never taken a nap under a tree? I guess I shouldn't be shocked. I was close, man. If I didn't have a chin, my head would have rolled down... Layed right there on the leg. I was close. And then we got up in a little girl talk. I don't know how we got you to girl talk, but we did. Well, I had taken a nap. So I was well rested. Which is fun. It was really fun. We were on the outskirts. I mean, we couldn't get up in it. It wasn't correct. Yeah, exactly, because we stayed in the back. And it probably would have been a different show if we were up close. But it was still fun. And Barry needed a chair. Barry needed a chair. So Barry's old man issues are about 150 yards away from the stage. One of our campmate, Tara, she disappeared. I was like, where'd she go? And she came walking up with a chair. Dad? Yeah, I was like, all right. I am now officially the old guy. But I needed it, and I appreciated it. Everybody's worried about Dad's hip. Is it OK? I couldn't bring the walker in. They wouldn't let me. So coming up the rest of the weekend, your big thing you're looking for the next two days? John Prine still today. John Prine, Casey Musgraves today, right? Who is tonight? Post-Balone and the National. The National, yeah, for sure. And then somebody I've been meaning to talk to you about and talk on the show, Clara, who I'm obsessed with Clara. I love her so much. And she is flying up Festival lineup. So the Bonner lineup announced in January. She's way down it. Man, they brought out the ACL fan. I can't remember what Festival lineup was. But she's on the third line all of a sudden. Well, Republican hair, that's one of those small bands, the Nashville bands that I wanted to go check out. But that's opposite the National. So yeah, we're not going to give you a feel of the National. All right. There you go. By the way, if you haven't listened, go back and listen to the Beer Fest podcast. Terrific, yeah, that was awesome. The Redaroo guys were so much fun, dude. That was great. They were so much fun. That was great. And we got to hear from all of our, I don't know what you want to call them. What did you say? Like a Reddit reunion. Yeah. Bonnerubian, Rubus. Yeah, I feel like I was swimming in a real life subreddit. I wish their handles were just over their heads. Yeah, that would have been funny. Yeah. Name tags. All right, day two in one, two, and three, I guess, for us down in the books. So I'll see you next time. Bye. Hey, hey, hey, hey. How y'all feeling? Journey through the stories that define the artist's playing Bonneroo. 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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