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
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All right, whenever y'all want to do whatever you're gonna do, do it.
Are you gonna do the open or what?
I can't necessarily, you can't hear it anyway, so the open's going now.
Brad Steiner, Barry, and now the show is on.
Wow.
What?
I don't know what that was.
It's gonna stay actually.
What was that?
That was, I don't know what that was.
But you know, this is-
Is that gonna 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 guest camping.
Add Stone On Air by the way.
Well, it's not gonna be a Stone On Air anymore because you just hung yourself. You're done.
Totally done.
Which would be the greatest thing that's ever happened to Bonnaroo is Bryan Stone saying goodbye to us all.
Hanged 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?
Alright, 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.
Yeah, so Brian was smashing the nabes, basically the skunk nabes.
Alright. That's enough out of you.
What's that?
That's enough out of you.
I actually did have a skunk incident last night.
Not a sighting, an actual 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.
Wow, a whole family of them.
I don't know if it's the same one.
Maybe they're just big Post Malone fans, who knows?
We didn't introduce himself 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 has 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 Saint-Aurieu, yeah, bomb dogs. They're not drug dogs, which seems weird because this is Bonnaroo.
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 retrained.
They've chosen the only moot dog in the entire world.
That's a great point. 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. And that was after the online threat last two weeks ago.
Which 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. It might have been just math.
So 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 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?
Yes, it's about right.
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? 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 trash on Thursday.
The weather was too nice.
It was too nice.
That made 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.
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.
Every time he walked by somebody, somebody burned a box of themselves.
It just fell straight to the ground.
We're talking about him like he's not sitting right there.
He's not 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.
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.
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.
He's not sure she waited.
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?
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.
Yogurt, yogurt, yogurt.
I mean, just for example, right now we have what?
We have some weave.
We've added some things. We've added some things.
So we added Lord Taco's Volkswagen bus and now we have a hair salon.
We have a hair salon. We've had crimping going on. We've got weaves getting done. You think I'm kidding, I'm not.
Yeah, apparently I'm getting my hair crimped gold.
You putting gold on your body?
And all of this is happening to Brad too, I should say.
I'm sorry?
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.
He feels special.
I feel so good. Who's doing my toenails? Someone. Barry, are yours?
We've got somebody working on it. 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, we 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 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. 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 like 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.
Well, my thought from Thursday is we hyped up Thursday as being the greatest day.
It was a total snooze fest.
It was not for me a total, but it wasn't what I had hoped it would be.
So we were so excited about Granolopuri. And I'll say this.
I'm sure that there are 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. Right. 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.
They were doing they were actually doing Granolopuri.
It was broadcast live. And then you have to explain to me like this writers 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. His face.
That was part of his Slim Shady rap. His name is Slim. OK. 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 we had a double hit.
Yeah. Boy, if you come to the what podcast, you are done.
It's not the what. It's the done. It's the it's your career over.
You will cancel immediately. So Donna, not Donna.
So the Drax project canceled and the Lacey.
Yeah. And I don't know if I'm really supposed to say this, but who knows?
There 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.
Yeah, that's maybe something we need to look in a little deeper.
But the whole pay to play thing is a big issue in the entire industry.
So we saw a grand alopory and then we got to all them witches.
A lot of people like all the 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 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 so the drums.
He just gets in a pocket and the bass player stays with him.
And then the guitar players 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.
We've got a local Chattanoogan kid who is a place for three survival,
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 draw.
Which one are you going to pull? You're going to flip a coin and go to who?
Well, I made a rookie mistake.
Stayed up way too late on Wednesday. So I was 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? How late were we up on Wednesday?
You keep saying two thirty. It was four.
Hey, Peanut Gallery, how late were you up on Wednesday?
Four. Four?
It was four last night.
You guys keep saying that it was four.
Oh, man, boy, we told you we made this happen to four a.m.
on Wednesday. Yeah, it crushed me.
Killed out at four a.m. This is unbelievable.
There I'm explaining why I was there.
I was on the rail.
I'm explaining why my Thursday went so early.
It's because he was out to four a.m., apparently.
And when we say out, we mean two camps down, two camps down.
That's not might as well been Wednesday.
Wednesday feels like a week ago. Feels like a week ago.
It does. That's a good point.
All right, so Thursday comes and goes.
We did Saba again.
When am I going to criticize an artist on the game?
Except that you are. I'm not saying a word.
All right, and then Friday. Let me just say this.
Also, 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.
Yep. Brian, you're going to let that go?
All right. Good old 25%.
In about three days from now, we'll be like,
I should have said that right then.
All right, 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.
Oh, man. 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.
I don't know what thing it is.
Right. Right.
All right, then you did Parquet Courts.
What did you think when you first did Parquet Courts?
I didn't go.
I think I was...
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...
Actually, 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.
And 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.
Well, that's what happens.
I don't know how, but they just keep getting tighter.
The sets keep getting better.
Oh, it was...
Damn, 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.
That's... Good for them.
Did you...
We passed by AJR yet?
AJR's 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 off from front to back?
They played the running of the Chihuahuas in Chattanooga, Tennessee
in front of 200 people not four years ago.
And it was a terrific show,
and the way they intro'd their hit, I thought, was absolutely genius.
What did you think?
The burning down the house...
They came out and started, burned the house down,
and they came out and said,
we're gonna give you a little sample of how we create a song.
And 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.
And they changed it.
And then he had it, let's add a little guitar.
And then they added, let's try a clarinet, I think.
Stop it.
And that didn't work.
And he's like, no, try a horn.
And then the horn player there started with the...
And the place went absolutely nuts.
It was so clever, so simple.
That's really neat.
Yeah.
But here's the question that we had.
They were basically playing to tracks.
And I didn't know how I felt about that.
Really?
Yeah, the drummer was playing live, and the singer, Adam, was singing.
But I...
There's a lot of noise coming with...
There was a lot coming out of those speakers that wasn't being produced on stage.
And it sounded good, and it was a terrific show, but we were kind of like,
I don't know, wait a second, I don't know why that...
When did that start bothering you?
It's always bothered me.
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.
To my point, Childish Gambino just a few hours later did it all live, and he 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.
And 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.
And Bradley looked over at me, he'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 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.
And 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.
And he is damn near one of the most like 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.
Or, you know, it's just him on stage basically.
These cool props, these giant, what would you say, 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, like not sweatpants, but similar.
No shirt and that was it.
It's like something you wear on the 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, you know, other production around him.
This was simple.
David Byrne a lot like that.
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.
But see, but see, watch 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.
It feels 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're 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.
So simple.
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.
But this is like, it's just a live thing.
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.
I was on the rails.
Bro, I was there.
And I was on the rail.
I saw Solange's sound check.
And guess what?
That was exactly the same show.
Good for you.
So I hope somebody liked it.
Good for you.
Oh, I didn't see it.
Our campmate, Jonathan Sussman, blown away by it.
Yep.
I liked Beach House a lot.
I liked 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 Boarfest.
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 Boarfest.
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 tonight.
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.
Also, there was nobody out there.
Wasn't it?
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...
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, yeah, we'll be there.
Yeah, I'll be there too.
How did you feel about the Super Jam?
Meh.
Yeah.
Meh.
Yeah.
I thought Devi Mahal killed it.
She was great.
I would have 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.
Yep, laid right there on the leg.
I was close.
Right there on the lady's leg.
And then we got up and 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 was 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 said chair.
Old man issues.
About 150 yards away from the stage.
One of our campmate Tara, she disappeared, and I was like, where'd she go?
And she came walking up with a chair.
Dad?
Dad?
Dad?
Dad?
The chair?
I am now officially the old guy.
But I needed it, and I appreciated it.
Are you guys worried about Dad's hip?
Is it okay?
I couldn't bring the walker in.
They wouldn't let me.
All right, so coming up the rest of the weekend, your big thing you're looking forward to the
next two days?
John Prine still today.
Oh yeah, okay.
John Prine, Kacey Musgraves today, right?
Who is tonight?
Who's the...
Post-Malone, the national?
The national, yeah, for sure.
And then somebody I've been meaning to talk to you about and talk on the show, Clero, who
I'm obsessed with Clero.
I love her so much, and she is flying up festival lineup.
So the bottom of the lineup announced in January.
Nice.
Sweet.
They announced it, right?
Man, they brought out the ACL...
I can't remember what festival lineup it 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 that.
We're not going to make it.
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.
Because the Reddaroo guys were so much fun, dude.
That was great.
They were so much fun.
That was great.
We're going 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.
By the Rubian, the Roo Bus.
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.
We'll see you next time.
Bye.
