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. New Tame Impala was out this week on the What Podcast? A podcast for Bonnaroovians, by Bonnaroovians. And A, Brad Steiner, Bonnaroovian B, Barry Courter. How are you? I'm good. You're Bonnaroovian B and C, Barry Courter. I like that. I know, B and B. Alright, so have you listened to Spending Time with the Tame Impala? I have not. I was listening to a whole lot of other things. Like what? Oh god, here we go. It's the same Bahamas track over and over and it's going to be Bass Nectar. Move on. But there is other big news this week too. I want to know what you were listening to. What was it? Lizard. Mr. Oyster Head. Okay. I can't stop listening. I can't decide if I love it or hate it. Burning one down this morning, huh? Apparently. Apparently got up early and got going. Yeah, okay. What is early for you? Five thirty. Wow. God. Jesus. I know. It's coming to you, man. No it's not. Embrace it. No it is not. Embrace it. No. So Tame Impala came out this week, one of your Bonnaroovian Headliners. And what other news did you say? Big news from AC. Big news. Oh yeah. Do you really consider that news though? It's official. You and I have known for months. I've known for months. I think that the writing was on the wall for a long time. Yeah. I mean it's... Everything that I'm hearing out of Knoxville and I have no reason to doubt those folks is that nothing changes. Yeah. Alright. So let's walk through it. For a while, AC Entertainment was acquired by Live Nation. What was it? A 4951? Yeah, they acquired... In 2016 they got controlling interest and we all... Hair was on fire. Remember, we all were convinced it was the end of the world. And they spent that money... By the way, they used the Live Nation to basically rejuvenate and rebuild the site. Pumped a bunch of money into the site with the bathrooms and the roads and the electricity and all of that. And arguably we all sort of thought, God, maybe if you remember that was the year the lineup wasn't so great. And we wanted to blame them. I don't know. We weren't in that room. But we had been hearing that Ashley Capps is going to retire and that Ted Heinegg was going to take his place and that became official this week. They all say, and again, I have no reason to doubt anything they're saying, that nothing changes. Okay, well, let's go through a couple of things. They said that the first time when Live Nation came in and sort of put their mark on it. I'm going to guess, now I have no information here, but I'm going to guess they allowed a lot of Live Nation people in the room. Live Nation then got C3 involved and the lineup became a little bit out of AC's hands. And one thing leads to another. It doesn't necessarily go very well. And then the rumor was that AC sort of took back the reins of the lineup last year, even with the idea under the guise that nothing really has changed with the Live Nation AC partnership. Somewhere along the lines there, C3 sort of steps away in form capacity. They still get some sort of partnership. Obviously, you heard Bobby and I can't remember her name, by the way. Sophie. Sophie last week. But now that AC is back in the lineup thing, I got to imagine until it starts to fail and until they start to not sell tickets, Live Nation is going to continue to let AC do what AC does. I'll offer you proof. They let you and me in the room with now president Ted Heining, Brian and Steve, the two guys who booked the lineup. Yeah. I mean, you don't think Live Nation lets us in? I don't know. I'm just saying what more do we need? You know, those are the guys that made it happen. Look, I think that we've been through this once and it made us all crazy and we're still alive. Yeah. I think the Republic will stand. I think we're going to be OK. What is the lesson? Is it that we get our hair on fire because rumors or just sort of trust or I don't know? I don't know. I think it's a bigger cultural thing. I don't think it's just Bonnaroo. I think that when people hear big giant corporation coming in, they really freak out about anything. You know, and there are certain people that absolutely despise Live Nation and everything it stands for. You know, they're not the easiest on our side. They're not the easiest. When I say our side, I mean radio. They're not the easiest to deal with in some ways. And then there are other people in Live Nation that are phenomenal and I love. But you know, that's every major industry, every major industry that is as big as Live Nation has these horror stories, but they also have major, major success stories. And you know, Live Nation is no different. It's a simple fact. As long as things are going well, leave it alone and things are going well. Yeah, I don't know if Mitt Romney is coming in to run the festival. You know, I know it seems like big corporation, lots of money coming in. I mean, it's only helped the festival since it's been around and I just don't. I know Live Nation, there's some festivals that Live Nation puts on that just, you know, seem void of a spirit and a soul. But you know, there's a lot of music festivals Live Nation doesn't run that's void of a soul and a spirit. You know, it's not just them. Exactly. And you know, the other news that we've gotten this week according to what festival is that the tickets are that it's going to be a sellout soon, probably one of the earliest, one of the top two earliest in its history, 19 year history. Okay, now does aside from like the general public that that buys tickets and then we go to buy a ticket, it's not there. Does anyone care? Like, I love that. I care because I want room. I know. But we talk about like the amount of people there every year. And then 2016, you know, the crowds not being there. But does anyone really care about about crowd size? Well, it's a good question because how many tickets are we're going to talk to Drew Holcomb here in a minute about Moon River. And to your point, they they might have hurt themselves. Once they left Memphis and moved to Chattanooga, they sold out in eight hours the first year sold out within 24 hours the second year. I don't know if they've sold out yet or not. And for some reason, it feels like, oh, what's wrong? You know what I mean? Yeah, we're we're recording this what three days after. So you know, there are three days after festivals don't sell out in three days. No kidding. You know what I mean? Three days after what we're talking about is Moon River. Moon River is a boutique festival. If you've listened to any of the seasons past, we've talked the difference between the levels of festivals. Moon River is a boutique festival on the on the bank there of the Tennessee River in Chattanooga in Coolidge Park. And it's sort of become our our baby in Chattanooga and also run by AC Entertainment. Yeah. It all started by Drew Holcomb. And Drew was nice enough last season to come on and sort of give us a behind the scenes sort of tour of like how you build a boutique festival. The differences between, you know, a major operation and the Moon River is then another layer under that, which is just some guys wanting to start their own festival. So today we're going to talk to Drew. We got a chance to catch up with him at Songbirds, which is this amazing guitar museum in Chattanooga. I mean, I don't know what the official number is, but it's like, I don't know, 50 million dollars in guitars or something. 200 million. Oh, that's all. 200 million dollars. 17 hundred guitars worth insured for 200 million dollars. Yeah. It's the largest rare, unique collection in the world. It's a place that if you if you like music or if you are an artist yourself or any band that's ever come through, they walk in and it's like, what is happening here? It's a very unique spot. So the people at Songbirds were nice enough to let us come by and talk to Drew back in their little like private area. And then we also got to talk to a Patreon today. Yeah, we were sitting on stage of Songbirds like we were a show. No, people walking by to the museum. These two idiots on stage. We need to really sometimes step back and realize how lucky we are. Oh, I thought you were going to say how stupid we look. It's amazing when we when we say this. Yeah, we got to walk in there like we own the place. Yeah, because we kind of do. Oh, yeah. Just pick up any guitar you want to. I haven't done that because I'm afraid I would break it. It's one of these places that's got like the original Fender Stratocaster in a case that is, I mean, there's like 19 or they've got one of 19. It's unbelievable. Yeah, that's it. They've got a series that is 001, 002 and 004. That's the kind of that's the level that it's not the stuff that, you know, Elvis used to play. That's not what they collected. They collected the historic stuff. So to be able to sit in there with Drew is unbelievable. But I guess trying to put a bow on all this, it all fits. And that's why we did it. You know, talking about you asked the question, does it matter if it sells out or not? To some people, I guess. Oh, yeah, the people that build the thing. It matters a lot to Drew for his festival. It matters a lot to you and I. It's fodder to talk about. Yeah, I know. It's panic, it's panic thinking that if it doesn't sell out, Live Nation takes over again. That's what everybody's. Exactly. That's the fear. So we've got first off, we'll talk to Drew here in a second. Drew and Brad, by the way, Brad's a guy from AC Entertainment from Knoxville. So we'll talk to him as well about the Moon River lineup and festivals in general. But first, we got a chance to catch up with one of our major patrons, Aaron, and talk about his modern experiences on the podcast live from Songbirds in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Aaron, where are you calling from today? Where are you? I'm sunny Orlando, Florida. No kidding. Orlando, Florida. I guess you drive in. Do you drive into the festival? In the past I have. This year I'm actually flying into Nashville and then driving in from there. Who has your gear? You travel with the gear? In the past I have, I've come up with a tent in the past. Last year I actually ended up renting out a cargo van and just turned that into my little like, four man RV. I've always thought like, why hasn't somebody just rented a U-Haul for the weekend and driven a U-Haul in? I saw some guys do that for a football game. They put couches in it, keg of beer, all their food. It's a great idea. I've never actually asked the Bonnaroo people if you can do this, but I don't see a reason why you can't just drive a U-Haul in. I actually think it says now on the site you can't do that. Oh stop it. I think so. I saw it somewhere. It might have been a football game. You can't drive, it can't be like a box truck. You can bring in like, you could have like a rental cargo van from U-Haul or. So that's okay. That's okay, but a box truck, not okay. There's a certain length it can't be. As long as it's under the, okay with it. But this year I'm actually, I'm renting one of those tents that's just waiting for you when you show up. Yeah. Oh, that's a good deal. That's a good deal. See, this is what I love. We're getting all the different ways to do this. Right. This is great. But here's why I find this U-Haul thing to be so funny is that if they've had to put it into the rules and regulations, that means someone has done it. Somebody's abused it. Somebody has actually tried it and we missed it. Somebody has abused it too. They've, no telling what they brought in. That's funny. How many years, you probably have said it already. This year will be number seven. Wow. There you go. 2012 through 2015 and then 2018, 19 and this year will be number seven. Why'd you take the years off? It was 2016. I did like some of the line up. It wasn't necessarily as deep as I would have liked it to have been. But there were still, especially towards the top, there were some acts that I really liked. But just made the call not to come. And then 2017, there wasn't enough there for me. 2018, I actually came because I had my girlfriend who I'm going, this will be our third year in a row together. She really wanted to go and she had never been. I was like, yeah, absolutely. I'll go back. It's fun seeing it through someone else's eyes for their first time. We both loved it. You guys share musical tastes? Do you guys listen to some things? Yes and no. We're both pretty wide in our interests. She leads a little bit more towards the country side, whereas I lead more towards the indie or alternative rock and the rock side. But she's introduced me to a lot of stuff and I've done the same for her. The reason I ask is I always think it's very interesting if you take a newbie, if you take a Bonnaroo Virgin, because they're going to be tied at your hip. And so you guys better share some common interests or else you're going to be miserable. That's why I said to somebody else, I think that it's really imperative that you go without a mate. Don't go with somebody you're dating. Unless you're in total agreement and you really, really want to be around this person every second of the day. Or go your separate ways and be fine with that. Yeah. And that's something we've always said to each other. It's just the two of us that go. If there's an act I really want to see, I'm going to go see it. If there's an act she really wants to see, she'll go see it. And we've always been pretty fine with that. It's okay being apart for an hour or two. It's all right. Teach me your ways, Aaron. Teach me your ways. But yeah, for the most part, the first year she was pretty much just relying on me to kind of show her around, to show her all the acts. I do a lot more research on the lineup than she necessarily does. So I dig into a lot more of the acts that I'm not familiar with, where she relies on me to kind of do the homework for her. So she's my friend somewhat. You're the first person I think we've had in a long, long time that said the lineup was a big, big part of your decision making, right? Especially for a vet, sure. Yeah. Most people, they like the environment or whatever and the lineup is secondary. Yeah. The lineup, it is a big part of it. I will say I do a fair amount of festivals each year. I'll do usually like three or four festivals a year that we go to. And for any other festival, the lineup, it has to be good enough for us to go. Whereas Bonnaroo, we knew we were going to go this year before the lineup came out. So to your point, the lineup in general, it is important for me for most festivals. But for Bonnaroo, we know that we're going to have a good time even if we're not seeing all of the acts. It's definitely maybe like a location thing. For us, it doesn't matter what the lineup is. I mean, we're, it feels like 20 minutes away. But for somebody like Aaron, who's got to come from Orlando or Elisle that we talked to the other day, who hasn't come from Seattle, yeah, the lineup probably really, really matters. What are the other festivals that you go to every year? So I've done the last four years, I've gone to Coachella out in California. So that's even further for me. So like that one, I love it there, the grounds, but there the lineup is a little bit more important for me. I've done ACL in Austin, Texas. And then last year, I did a couple of the smaller Las Vegas festivals, Life is Beautiful, and then a new one that Amazon put out called Intersect Festival. What do you think the main differences between Coachella and Bonnaroo are since you've been to both? I always say, you know, because they get compared to each other a lot. And you know, I say they're both great, but they're two very different experiences. Coachella is, boy, it's so hard to compare the two because they're similar yet so different from each other. I'll say, you know, Bonnaroo is, it's very much an experience. You know, you're going for just the whole thing, you know, from the plazas to the music. And then, you know, a big part of it, you know, and it's cliche, you hear people talk about it, but just like the overall community and the vibe of it, you know, like that truly is a thing with Bonnaroo. With Coachella, there's still like a community to it, but it's a little bit, it's more, I don't know how to word it, you know, the way that does not make it sound like Coachella is not a good time, but it's just, it's like there. You definitely can feel the difference though. Oh yeah, absolutely. The atmosphere is a lot different. I don't want to say people don't go there for the music because a lot of people do go to Coachella for the music. But you know, I get the feeling there that there are people that are there just to say that they're there. I think we've heard that a couple of times. What you're wearing and all that, you know, Bonnaroo, you're wearing comfort. There's going to be a difference in your experience if at the end of the day you get to get into a pool. Yeah, that's right. At the end of the day, when you go back to your house in Santa Barbara and get to, you know, swim in a pool for the main to the night, I think things are a little different on how you experience a festival. The lineup thing for you, is it the full breadth that matters or if there are a couple of people that are your favorites or is it the whole, the whole. Oh, I'm sorry. You say like, is it like one specific act? Yeah, is it two or three, the tap headliners or is it the bottom card or is it the full lineup thing? Specifically this year's Bonnaroo lineup? No, when you decided not to go. I'm just curious about that. In 2016, the headliners are really like, you know, LCD sound system. You know, I was thrilled. I ended up seeing them a couple times that year at other festivals and, you know, Pearl Jam I've never seen, but I would have liked to have seen them to death. You know, I would have liked to see them. It just, there were acts that I would have liked to have seen, but it just, you know, didn't pull me in as much as I wanted. And 2017, I just, yeah, I'm trying to remember. Yeah. That one just, it was more lineup driven, but 2018 really what brought me back was just like my girlfriend really wanted to go. If I can, 2017 was a year we that close to not going right because of the lineup. And that's when we started this, but we were weak of, and again, we're, you know, just down the road to the decision. But, but yeah, we were whining and complaining. It took a little convincing for us to go that that year. It's been a great year. Yeah. It was my favorite year. We were literally the week before, you know, so and so is not going so and so. I don't know if I want to go that kind of thing because of the lineup. What did the, what was the girlfriend's first impressions of Bonnaroo when she first went? What did you like? What did you not like? You know, you, you try to prepare them, but you can't really prepare them for something like, like, you know, to the scale of Bonnaroo. And we had tried to think that was her first like major festival, you know, we have, we've done some, you know, the other festivals we want to do that. So that was her first, like the legit festival. And you know, it's overwhelming at first for her because it's just, you know, what is it? 800 acres or something like that. It's just massive. And but she, you know, she ended up loving it. You know, she, she really appreciated just, you know, for her, she has a music background and she went to school in Nashville. So she really appreciated it from just the operations standpoint and how it's all put together and you know, just the overall, you know, community, she loved the whole vibe of it. I don't think I've ever told the story of it. I took my brother to Bonnaroo. He'd never been to Bonnaroo before. He's a musician. So, I mean, he, he doesn't get wowed by a lot, but I don't know if he's ever done a major major festival outside of like, you know, music Midtown, cause he lives in Atlanta. So he comes to a Bonnaroo for the first time and it was the second Kanye year. Right. So, um, he gets in late cause the kid can't do anything right. So he gets in way, way late. It takes him seven hours to get here from Atlanta. I finally get him in. So where we camp is right behind the witch stage. And so we, we bring him in, I, I shuttle them in and then we immediately have to run to the media area to get into the line, to get escorted into the pit. Right. And in the media area, certain shows they'll, they'll escort you in as, as a group and drop you right in the pit, no matter if it's closed or not. So we go from backstage at the witch. We walk from backstage, which to literally through the artist compound behind the what stage where all of the trailers and everything is we, this is his first step into Bonnaroo and he gets wheeled to the front row of a Kanye West show and then three, two, one, Kanye. That was his introduction to Bonnaroo. That's how it is for everybody. That was his first step into Bonnaroo into a major music festival. He's like, what in the world am I doing? How did this happen? I didn't, I, it makes me think my wife's first and only time she came up just for the Springsteen night and came late and had to wait for the van to bring her in. Cause they don't bring no, only artists can be in the van. So even if it's one person, she couldn't ride with them. So she had to wait for that. And then she comes trudging all this stuff and walks to the camping, which was on the other side of the road at that time. And the first thing she sees is a naked woman come running out of her car and squat down to pee in the middle of the lane. Welcome to Bonnaroo. Welcome to Bonnaroo. She got, she got a lady peeing. My brother got Kanye. You'll see it. You'll see it all one way or the other. That's right. It's all a part of the story. It's a part of the people watching at Bonnaroo. That's for sure. So about this lineup, obviously you're going to, which means you're excited about it. So what are the ones you're looking forward to? Boy, there's, you know, looking at the lineup, there's a lot that, you know, you, you initially look at it and there's a lot that jumps out that you're interested in. And then it's just, you know, there's so many, um, you know, personally, Tame Impala, I'm really looking forward to them, especially with, you know, that stage production on, on the what stage is going to look and sound just incredible. You know, with the singles that, you know, they've been releasing, it's, you know, looking like the album, you know, I'm really looking forward to the new album and hearing those songs live. Um, let's see, Vampire Weekend, um, very much enjoy them. I said this the other day. It's almost like you forgot Vampire Weekend was on the lineup. You said that about me. There's so many you forgot. I said that about Lana Del Rey. I see that. I constantly, no matter how many times I look at the lineup, I misrun the jewels. I mean, if I've totally forgotten until you just said Vampire Weekend was on the lineup, this is how deep this thing is. Yeah, I'm really, oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Barry. I was just going to say, I can't wait to get into camp and see how they, how they discussions and the who's going where and where we're going and the angst and the, oh my God. So I'm stressed out about Friday. I'm totally stressed out about Friday. I mean, we're how many months away and I still can't wrap my head around what in the world my Friday looks like and how beat to death I will be come Saturday morning. I know it's going to be the decision is going to be go to one and stay or do a bunch of walk-bys. I just don't do walk-bys. We've talked about this on the show. I'm a, I'm a first song to last song guy. I like the whole show and I like to go through the whole ebb and flow of it. I just don't do walk-bys very often and I'm not good at them. But by the way, once I get there, I'm ready to get the hell out. You know, that's not a walk-by. That is clearly just a walk. That's me. Oh, I can't stand. I can't stand here or I'm missing something. I'm missing something. Yeah. It's the FOMO part of me. I'd rather just not be there than didn't walk up and stand there for five minutes. I feel like I've missed the whole thing. I know. And you're convinced something better is going on over there. Yeah. That's the hard part. You were going to say Aaron? Oh, I'm trying to remember. Oh, I think I'm really looking forward to the, you know, it was mentioned a couple of weeks ago on here. I forget who you're talking with, but King Gizzard and the Lizard, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard late night. Very curious to see what kind of show that ends up being because I've seen them twice before at festivals early in the afternoon. I think I saw them in 2015. Really? The other was still the tent. And I think that's going to be a very energetic and fun late night set. What did you think about it? When I saw them in the past? Yeah. I loved it. I saw them, you know, like I said, 2015. And then I saw them in like 2018 at Coachella, but both times they played early in the afternoon. So some act. See, that's fascinating. King Gizzard is one of these that you're, I mean, look, it's gone right past me and I don't know if it does it any justice listening to it on Spotify because I don't get it on Spotify. It's going to be one. It's got to be one of these live shows that you just have to see to appreciate. I'm guessing, I'm guessing. You're talking about it's months away and I wanted to mention the RooHamm cast guys. I don't know if you listen to their podcast, but I was listening to this morning and they did one on the whole Thursday lineup. This kind of went through and it really kind of got me all fired up. You know, I'm ready to go and that's just Thursday. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I shout out to those guys too. They got a pretty good little podcast. Yeah. What do they say about Thursday? I haven't spent much time on Thursday. They are in total agreement with us that it's becoming one of their favorite days. Yeah. I know. I mean, I don't even care who's on the lineup. I really don't even, I know Larkin Poe and the Grand Ole Opry and I think there's one others that. Regrets. Oh yeah, regrets. Yeah. But other than that, I don't really know anybody on Thursday and frankly, it's fine. I mean, I've got 17 artists I want to see on Friday. I don't really give a damn what happens on Thursday. Be honest with you. Yeah. It was just that excitement of getting there, getting there, getting there and then hurry up and wait. Yeah. What day? After that it's. What day are you getting in, Aaron? So I'm not able to come in until Thursday morning. We do the VIPs. Yeah. I'm not allowed to come until Thursday, which I honestly, if we could come in Wednesday, we would. Yeah. But unfortunately we can't come in. My first Bonnaroo, I did general admission and that first Wednesday night, you come in and you get your tent set up. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. And here's the thing, here's the thing that I love about, and we just started doing Wednesday, by the way. And the reason I like Wednesday so much is because of that very reason. The campground feels like it's just yours, you know? And you can settle down and you can relax and you don't have to worry about anything. It's gotten so like, I love Wednesday so much that now we want it to be Tuesday. We legitimately last year like, you know what? We could probably figure out a way to get in on Tuesday night. Don't you think? You're right. And it makes Tuesday and Wednesday great, but it makes Monday awful. The following Monday. Yeah, Monday. It's a long stretch. Monday is just the saddest day of the month. I went two years, second year we did that, I guess. I got home on Monday, hung my tent to dry, put all my stuff away, opened a beer and I do not remember anything until Thursday. And it wasn't because, you know, I was on drugs or whatever. I was putting milk in the cabinets and cereal in the fridge. I was fried. But I wanted to ask, because you've done it so many different ways, can you compare, sort of compare and contrast general admission versus all the others? Because you're one of the few, I think, that we've talked to that Liesl has done some of the tent camping, but that's always interesting to me that somebody who's actually experienced the different levels. Yeah. So with this being the seventh year, I've done general admission into tent once, I guess four years in a tent in VIP and then the one year in a van. This year will be in one of the tents that's like waiting for you when you show up. General admission was, you know, I lucked out because I think I waited about an hour in line and traffic because I've heard some of the horror stories about people waiting in line and fortunately avoided that and had a campsite, you know, pretty close to the entrance to center room. VIP, you know, I've done it every year since and that, you know, for me the perks are just fantastic. You know, it's the only festival that I do the VIP for because I feel the perks are great, you know, between the quicker access into the grounds to the lounges, the a little bit bigger site, which is your campsite, which is nice. Well, now they moved the hill, the VIP hill. I mean, things are so much better out there. Just being that 20 feet closer to the stage. They moved the damn hill. That's how committed they are to this thing. They moved the hill. I know for a fact, I'm just convinced at this point, they either moved the hill or they moved the stage in closer. I don't know. We have, I'm sure we have people who have not listened to every podcast, so I'm going to bring everybody up to speed real quick. So two times I've introduced Brad to Ashley Caps. One was in Four Castle in the bourbon tent and you thanked him for saving music. And then the other were standing in front of the what stage on Wednesday during the media thing. So there's 10 people around. Brad looks over and he says, why'd you move the hill? And Ashley looks at him like, what? Ken Weinstein walks up and you say it again. Why'd you move the hill? They look at each other. Then they look at me like, have you brought somebody who's not quite all right indoor? And I'm looking at him like, no, please, no. Not in front of these guys. I'm all saying. Okay. Okay. First off, it was totally empty, right? So you got to see the grounds, totally empty. And when you stand at the stage, turned around and looked back at the, at the, the grounds, the hill looks damn near a hundred feet closer than I remember it. Now I've been on the VIP Hill. I've seen a show on the VIP Hill. It was miles away. It was miles away that year. Like I can't even express to you how much of a gap there was between the VIP Hill and the stage standing there in front of the stage. You look back on it. You, I could have thrown a baseball at it. It was that close. Ashley caps and Ken Weinstein. I was mortified. I'm telling you, I'm starting a movement. They move the hill. We're underestimating the powers of Ashley caps. Yeah. Or, um, self medication. Not that hard to create a hill. Okay. You just dig up some dirt and place it there, put some grass. You're done. I wish I could have taken a picture of Ashley's face. Probably matched mine. Okay. Um, so your girlfriend's going this year? Yeah. Is she, is she bought in now? Is she doing the spreadsheets and sheets? Is she a psycho? Is the three of us are about it? Nah, she, she pretty much relies on me to do a lot of the work. Um, she's very excited. I mean, this is her favorite lineup of the, the three Bonnaroo's that we'll have gone to. Um, she's really excited about a lot of the acts. More so than last year being a country fan. Yeah. You know, she, I mean, she was very excited about, you know, like Casey Musgraves and, um, I'm trying to remember Brandy Carlisle. Um, and then try to remember the one that's in the high women, um, that's about to have a baby. Yeah. Mary Morris. Mary Morris. Yeah. This year, um, yeah, I thought she would prefer last year's over this year's, but you know, she's right when the lineup came out, she said, I like, you know, this is a lot more. So, well, if she hasn't already Yola, I'm screaming about Yola talk to me. She likes, she likes country and soul and a little bit of RMB. It's all in one package of Yola. I am absolutely in love with it. How about this now? Cause we were talking about it last time and I think Brad, I'd like to explore it maybe a little bit longer in another podcast, but the idea of how Bonnaroo in particular has sort of changed all of our psyches into wanting to be discoverers. You know what I mean? That's what we talked about. Well, yeah, I think that there's, there's also a part of it. Like I don't want, and I think that I got this maybe for a little bit from the Reddit people, but, but mostly from Brian and Steve when they said, this is what they do for a living. We need to know everyone. And so it almost makes me feel like if they put somebody on the bonder line of it, I don't know. I feel like I've failed. So now I need to know all of them too. So I want to know anybody they put on the lineup so that I don't feel out of the loop. I think I felt that way before several years ago and now it's, oh, I get to, I get to discover. I mean, it's like discovering a new restaurant to me. You know, I want to discover. I think that's where I was originally, but now I'm starting to rethink it. Like I see all these names on Thursday or whatever day and I'm like, why did I not know them? Why am I having to be introduced to things? I know, I know. I'm starting, it's changing. How about your girlfriend, Erin? Is she, is she caught in, you said she likes country. Is she now into that mode yet? Cause I really do think that's a phenomenon from this festival and I'm sure others, but I, and Spotify, you're not, you're not going to hang out festival to discover artists. Maybe not. I mean, forecast might be cool and I like forecast, but I'm not going there to, to discover, you know, things that, that are outside of my comfort zone. That's the, and that definitely is a lineup driven one for me. So, but how about her? She bought into the, yeah. Well, I, I mean, I, I feel like I listen to a lot of music, but you know, we are saying every year the lineup comes out and I'm thinking, I didn't listen to a lot of music because there's always so many acts that I'm like, well, let's do some homework, which I mean, I love lineup. The lineup release date is it's like, all right, here's a bunch of bands I'm about to learn about. And so for me, I kind of, what I end up doing is I'll, as I listen to acts, I'll like create little like Spotify playlists that I send her just to kind of give her like a little bit of a, kind of a best stuff. Cause I'm listening to the whole lineup and I'm trying to like, you know, pinpoint certain things for her. And I feel like it ends up, you know, working out well that, you know, once we get to the level. I love this. I love this thing that, that you say, and we've heard other people that we've talked to say the same thing. They're curate that lineup has been curated for you by Bonnaroo. You're creating a lineup for your friends and family and girlfriends and significant others to, for you to enjoy. That's kind of fun. Yeah. Like if I could, if I could curate a lineup for Barry, I mean, his back would give out. I'm going to take him to some things. Anyway, I'm actually, uh, yeah, the training has started. I said this last year. I was like, man, I'm really gonna have to get in shape for Bonnaroo. And everyone laughed at me, but I feel like you gotta work out. You gotta do some, you gotta do some exercises for the months leading up for it so that you don't, you know, literally not broken by Saturday morning. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard a lot of people on other podcasts and Reddit and all that, you know, what do I need to do? I need to start exercising, start hydrating, all of that stuff. Get in about 35,000 steps a day. Yeah. We joke about it, but we live here. But people coming from the North, I can't imagine what coming into the Tennessee humidity in June is like to the unwares. Yeah. It's totally miserable. It's totally miserable. But luckily we've gotten really, really, really lucky the last few years with weather. And that's the weirdest thing I've heard people talking about, be prepared for the cold at night. I mean, there's 10 years I went. I don't remember it being cold. It was never cold. I never remember. It's been freezing the last few years. I don't know what's going on. I wore three pair of pants last year. I know. On Thursday night. It was freezing. I wore my pajama pants out into center roof, you remember? You're wearing them now. I can't, that's just what happened. You made fun of me. I didn't care. Like really? People in rabbit costumes over there. Make fun of my pajamas. I just don't see how pajama pants are warm. They were Dr. Denton's, you know, with the back. No, they weren't. Anyway, lovely image. Yeah. Man, Aaron, thanks so much for listening and chatting with us today. We can't, we can't thank you enough for, for supporting the podcast, liking it, listening. We never anticipated having, you know, a friend group expand like this via Bonnaroo. We didn't ask you anything. You know, you were hoping to say that we didn't ask about, we didn't ask. No, I mean, I very much appreciate listening guys every week. Did you want to say anything about my hair? Yeah. What's your favorite part about me? I always ask people. How does it look on Monday morning after a weekend of Bonnaroo? Does it still look like that or? It is on fleek all the time. Nothing else does, but that. Yeah. Nothing else works on me, but this thing is very consistent. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Talk to you soon. See you on the farm. All right. Aaron from, where was he? Dallas? Where was he from? Oh, that was Timothy. Yeah. Aaron from Orlando on the What Podcast, a major patron. By the way, some other patrons we like to thank. Jason Hazelbaker, Chloe Howe, Lucy Young, Phil Hanley, Dan Sweeney, Dustin Garrague, Chelsea Davis, Frank Swanson, Linda Doles, David Grimes, Liesl Condor, Bill and Ella, part of our Patreon group available at the whatpodcast.com. I actually really enjoyed the Patreon chats and just chats in general because it sort of like reminds us why we do this. And it reminds us that, you know, we actually might have friends. And we're not alone. Yeah. We're not total losers. It's not just us and TACO that love this festival. It's people from all over the country. That just blows my mind. That's the part that really gets me. We've had now, we've talked to a few Patreons. We've hit the whole corner. Yeah. You haven't heard it yet, but we've talked to Seattle. We've talked to a Dallas. We've talked to now an Orlando. It's a very strange thing because I get so locked in the idea that this is just, you know, within 150 mile radius as Bonnaroo is, but no, it's all over the place. And hearing somebody have to like travel from Seattle or Orlando and fly in and then just hope everything goes well is beyond my abilities. I couldn't, I could never live that way. And the different ways they do it. I mean, yeah, one sends her stuff ahead, flies in. One packs his stuff in an RV with his buddies who then drive and then he flies, which is a pretty good way to do it. And then Aaron has done tent. He's done VIP. He's going to do VIP tent this year. He's running one or getting one of those VIP tents. And it hit me while we were talking to Aaron, like I would never thought about this sitting, you know, in our campsite at Camp Nut Butter, but boy, the, the AC and the Bonnaroo people figure that out. Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh yeah, we've got to get more people here. How do we do it? Let's make their life a lot easier if they just want to ship things in, if they want a group camp, if they want a tent only, how can we make this as easy as possible for them? We made that point a little bit, but maybe now's a good time to really put a finer point on it. When talking to Sophie with C3, the growth of the experiences out in the plaza, remember she said it took a long time, took longer than it should have. This is why they spent all their time and energy and money getting everything else. The VIP, I've said it, I remember walking through that first time that the VIP area was over by the old comedy tent area. Oh yeah. I didn't like it. Yeah. I was like, this is not what this festival is about. You know, what, who, it felt weird. It felt wrong. Now you kind of understand that the whole plan was to make this festival comfortable for all kinds of people. Not just me, not just you. I'm glad you brought up that Sophie conversation because it really didn't hit me that this was already happening overseas. The blueprint's already been laid down for them. They just need to actually have the money and the funds to do some of these things that make things a lot easier. I sort of forgot that part of it. Thank goodness Sophie reminded me about it because they don't have to reinvent the wheel. We can speak to this because it's 70 miles away. Manchester is in middle Tennessee. It's not like you just walk in and plug and play. It literally was a 700 acre working farm. There's no electricity, there's no plumbing, there was no roads. It's taken them all of these years to develop that stuff and work with the city and work with Coffee County. When they put in sewer, this is inside baseball, sausage making stuff. So they put in the sewer, they put in water. The city itself is not equipped to handle it. You can fix your plumbing in your house, but if the lines coming in aren't equipped, that's... This is why you come over to my house and fix things. This is literally inside baseball, but think about that. I would never have thought of it. Yeah, so you got 80,000 people now flushing a toilet and it's going into Manchester and it's not ready to handle it. That's the kind of thing that has taken so much time. Yeah, this is what you wanted to spend your time with, talking of toilets with Barry Corner. You only get that here, folks. More Patreons to thank, Ryan Matheson, Sean McCarthy, William Wilhoit, Parker Reed, Meredith Rittman. It's Clay. All right, go ahead. Hi, Clay. Clay Wilhoit. Ross McNamara, William Richards, Evan Brown, Aaron Carlson, Timothy Proctor, Catherine Riccio. Riccio. I always miss that. I'm Catherine Riccio, whatever. Gordon Silver and Tyrone Basket. So this was another return guest. We haven't had many, but a return guest, Drew Holcomb, sort of started the Moon River Festival in Memphis and then it got a little out of its control and it got a little bit too big. I love hearing him talk about that. He's acknowledging some failures and some mistakes and they're like, I got to bring in some people who actually know what they're doing. Big for a skill set. I mean, imagine, you say, I'm going to throw a party, you know, and then all of a sudden there's 3,500 people and now you can have 11,000. I've got a similar problem. I had this idea, let's do a podcast about Bonnaroo and I'm just doing it until the real host shows up. Yeah. So I get somebody more qualified to do it. Yeah, well, we're going to sell it to AC. Sure. They'll want to write a check. Although I don't know if the funding is going to be there anymore for AC now that the news broke. So Drew Holcomb spent some time with us at Songbirds earlier in the week to talk festivals, to talk even forecast on his festival, Moon River. And Brad. Yeah, Brad from AC. Brad is the guy that, so basically what happened is Drew and his partner, his business manager, came up with the idea. It outgrew Memphis. They said, we got to get somebody who knows what they're doing. So they partnered with AC. Brad is the guy at AC. They said, Hey, go down to go find us a space. And it was fascinating to hear him talk about, you know, why put it in a, in a park on the river, the Tennessee river in our city where they've never had a closed gated ticket event before. And by the way, they don't talk about this, but there's a walking bridge open to pedestrians that walks right on top of it. So you can basically just stand on the bridge and stare down and be totally okay, which I'm sure does not make them very happy. No, that's an awkward thing for them, but it adds to it. It's, I mean, golly, last year looking up from Brandi, golly, I know you're going to catch that. Golly gee. You look up Brandi Carlisle's on stage and you look up and that entire bridge is, is full of people. The crowd is full. The river, the Hunter museum across, it's a gorgeous setting. It's a really nice setting. So we talk about all of that with Drew and Brad from AC Drew Holcomb and the neighbors and Brad from AC now on the what? Podcast. You know, it's a pretty impressive. We've only had one guest returned to the podcast before. We've only had one returning guests. Now Drew's our second. Yeah, yeah, you're, yeah, you're tight. We're here with Brad from AC Drew from moon river. Thank you guys so much for doing this. We're going to talk moon river specifically, but festival sort of in general, which is why we wanted you to join us, Brad, because you, you sort of helped set this up, right? You took his vision and then you, you make it work or is that overstating? That's definitely, that's it. Yeah. We, we sort of had this, this, you know, dream that had been sort of a shoe strong in Memphis and AC sort of took it to a whole nother level. So yeah, I don't have to worry about any more details, which is really nice. Yeah. So we set the stage, I guess. That's why one of the fun things you were a guest last year, we should talk about it. And we, you talked about how to, to, to put a point on what you said earlier, you realized it was bigger than what you were, your skillset was, right? I don't want to put words in your mouth, but yeah, I was bigger than my skillset and it was, it got to the point where it was bigger than just my fan base. So the last time we did it in Memphis, you know, I was headlining and we had a bunch of other bands play. And you kind of got this point where we realized that relative to the work that we were putting into it, it was either needed to grow or we needed to like actually make it smaller. And so we had a lot of sort of parallel conversations and we've been friends with and done a lot of shows with AC over the, over the years. And we just sort of started this conversation with them about what it would look like to partner together and sort of started talking about, well, does it have to be in Memphis or should we look elsewhere? And I said, well, it doesn't necessarily have to be Memphis, but I wanted it to be in the state of Tennessee. And, you know, we sort of kind of got a lead on Coolidge Park and went and looked at it and just thought, man, this would be, if we could pull this off, it'd be perfect. But at that point I knew that, you know, the logistics of the festival, both from sort of a capital point of view of like, I was basically putting my house and life at risk every year. And, you know, I started having kids and that felt more and more foolish. Seriously, it was rock and roll for a minute. So you know, because you've got like so many considerations, staging, lights, crowd control, food and beverage, sponsors, you know, water, port of bodies, weather, insurance. Yeah, I mean, there's literally like a list a mile long and we were out of, you know, my manager and I were spending three or four months a year on something that's not our sort of primary skill set or sort of, and obviously AC like has that in spades. And so it made sense to partner together and thankfully for them I think it's worked out. The festival definitely has its own identity and you know, you guys definitely, I mean, you know this, every festival sort of has their own identity from Hangout and they're the pop centric thing to you guys on the completely opposite end. The idea of Moon River and what it ended up being, was it born out of necessity? Was it because the market was forcing you into an Americana type of festival or is it just what you naturally are inclined to do? I don't want to speak for Brad, but I know for me it started out as sort of picking bands that I knew personally. And so that tended to be sort of more in the Americana space because, you know, if I'm playing, you know, festivals or going on tour with people, it's typically, there's some sort of musical association with that. And so, you know, I'd done a co-bill, let's say that's how I met St. Paul, I met them through doing a co-bill at an event in Memphis, you know, met, you know, Will Hoag and the Dirty Gov's who played the first year of Moon River in Memphis. I met them just from both being sort of Tennessee songwriter bands, you know. And then I think too, as we sort of started having the conversation with AC, we realized that like sort of this idea of an artist curated experience that sort of is a little bit more genre narrow is a good thing for a smaller festival. I mean, obviously Bonnaroo is like the hippest, coolest, most unique ideas and it's, but they're also trying to sell, I don't know how many tickets Bonnaroo sells, but it's a whole lot. 80,000 tickets, sure. 80,000 tickets. You know, we're trying to sell a lot less than that. And we also, it was geography related, like what kind of music, you know, does like the sort of average music fan in Chattanooga like? And we'd heard that like sort of the Americana stuff was bluegrass, especially as sort of, you know, well received here. And so it's obviously grown out of just being fans that I know, but it's definitely a conversation we have every year. Let's come back to that. I want to bring Brad in because and sort of set the stage for people who are not from Chattanooga. You put this in a park that had never had a closed off ticketed place before. So what was that first conversation and what made you think we can do that? Well, I think that one of the biggest compliments we got after the first year here was that, you know, we, people came and said, you know, we never could see Coolidge Park in the light that Moon River was able to put it in. And I think a lot of that comes from not that we have, as AC Entertainment figured out some sort of formula, but we, you know, the festivals that we're doing that are these artists curated festivals like we have with Drew here and Moon River, we're doing them all across the southeast and we have them in Charleston and we have them in Cincinnati. And we just have a thing for, honestly, we have a thing for parks and rivers. I couldn't tell you of all the places in town. We want to be careful, one, that we weren't doing an event that was already kind of known for hosting another event, because you sometimes have some just brand identity associated with a location or a site. So it was important that we were doing something that was unique and Coolidge Park is a beautiful park. It's positioned in a beautiful part of town. It's easy to access. It's close to, you know, when you talk about infrastructure, that's a very important thing. And you've got a walking bridge there that leads to 85% of the hotel rooms that are in downtown Chattanooga. So as far as, you know, tourism and tourists that are coming into the show, it's just easy access. Parking, not really a huge issue. So there's a lot of, it's a lot of those logistical things that play more into the decision behind a location. And for the size event that we want to do, it made the most sense. It wasn't too large that we would feel empty, but it wasn't so small that we had to cut back on how many tickets we thought we could sell or wanted to sell. Just to brag on you a little bit, I hope I'm not giving away secrets, but I understand that first sort of meeting with all the main people here, there was a couple of folks who were already can't do this, can't do that, can't do that. And you said, let me finish my presentation and then see what you say. Well, I think it's- And my understanding was like, okay, we can do that. Because the level of detail is what I understand. Yeah, I mean, you have to think of everything. And I think it's hard, a lot of the pushback that we got from the beginning, and pushback's a maybe even too strong of a word, but people, you can't, if you've never seen it, how are you supposed to accept it or be able to argue for or against it? So we just had to say, hey, listen, we do this everywhere that we go. So you've got to kind of trust us a little bit. And just to the level, to your point of the toilet paper and water, what are you going to do about grass and the water spigots and how are you going to take care of this and that? I mean, that's the kind of thing that people have to take care of. It's not just turn the lights on, plug in the cam kind of thing. Yeah, I think part of, just back to the first question, I think part of the cool collaboration here is that when you have an artist curating a festival, Drew is, the way I picture it, Drew is this amazing chef that's going to bring this amazing course meal. And AC is, we're making sure that the door to the place where you're going to eat opens. We're making sure the table is set, the silverware is clean. Staff is trained. Yeah, and it's very important. Both of those things have to meet in order for us to be successful. It can't be, he goes 50%, we go 50%. We've both got to be hitting everything. Everything has to be turning from both sides in order for it to be what it is. Well it's allowed me to enjoy the festival more creatively both as a performer at the festival because I wasn't on stage thinking about why is there some sort of kerfuffle happening with security over here on my right because it's not my sort of role anymore. So it's made me enjoy it more. And I think the sort of line up curation part has become a lot more fun just because the festival is largely what we had in Memphis. It's sort of a different palette. We used to just do one stage and it was like eight bands a day. Now we're two stages and there's a whole lot more than that. So I'm not sure it's necessarily changed my creativity as a writer or as a touring artist, but it's definitely changed the experience of the festival for me. It had been a dream that it sort of turned into a little bit of a nightmare. That's the strong word, but it's become a big headache. And now it's just like totally like, it's my belt buckle, if I was a rodeo guy, it's like, that's my thing. I was looking for a metaphor and that's what came to me. I think we had talked before and it was like a child. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's like the child's like off of college. It's just so different than what you're usually doing on a daily basis. Like you're not writing a song, you're not writing a guitar part. You're literally building an entire festival. Does that whole thing make you feel differently or think differently about your career and what else you can do and how you can expand your palette? What it's made, what it's done, at least this was part of my vision, is I have played a million festivals and I'd say that the experience ranges from like wonderful to like really, really terrible. And I wanted to be a music festival that artists really wanted to come be a part of because they took really good care of the artists. I mean, there's little things like, you know, as little competing stages, you know, we don't have that at Moon River at all. Obviously some festivals at their scale can't do that and they're so diverse that it doesn't matter as much. But, you know, little things like that, the backstage is really good for the artists and just really wanted to make it the kind of thing where it felt like a reunion of sorts for both the festival goers, but also for the artists to feel like a community thing and not just some sort of, you know, we've never made enough money on this thing that it's like, oh yeah, we got in this for them. I mean, if we got in this for the money, we were foolish, you know, because it's not, I mean, it's been successful, but it took us, you know, seven years for it to become successful in a way that was sort of relatively, you know, relatively time and sort of love put into it. But I hope that it makes other festivals, you know, other people dream up their own thing, to build community. And I love that we're not just like, I don't, you couldn't pick Moon River up and just put it anywhere. It's sort of tied into the place. You know, I think that's important. That's a great point of that. And it's interesting because we talked about it all the time, the idea that the artist is having a good time with something they want to come to and then from your side that the fans are seeing something. Another one of those detailed things, I'm pretty sure it was you that thought of getting the aquarium lights to be the same as your lighting, right? Yeah. I mean, I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. Yeah. That's just a cool detail that makes everything feel different and special. You know, we talk about it's those kind of things when you walk out and feel like I've just had a unique experience for a couple of places. But the river, that was the thing. You landed on the river and then said, how do we make this work? Right. Yeah. And you all know, I mean, part of the appeal for us as AC, we've done work in Chattanooga for years and we've done a lot of work with the Tivoli and Walker Theater and Soldiers and Sailors. So we've always wanted to do a festival here, but it took this, all of that coming together at once to be like, that's the light bulb on now. This is what we're going to do. Now actually to the actual lineup line, I'm sure you guys are enormously proud of creating what you created this year. I mean, Yola to me is still the shining star of all festival lineups until I see her. I'm just so obsessed with her on every level. I was reading this article from a guy from 1975, the lead singer of 1975 basically said that he will not play a festival unless it is 50-50 male-female split. Is that something that you guys are conscious of when you're making your lineup? Absolutely. That conversation sort of started internally with me through my friendship with Brandy Carlisle who headlined last year. But she had started speaking up about that as sort of an issue inside of music as well. So I mean, yeah, there's like, we are very intentional with making sure that we are a part of the solution to a real problem in the music business. That's been a lot of fun. It would be easy to throw together. There's just so many male singer-songwriter guys that would be easier to just throw a festival. But I don't think it would be very, it wouldn't have the identity that we have. I think that it's been a win for all parties to be as thoughtful as you can about the lineup. We want to have a sort of a lineup that reflects the diversity of what it's like to be a human being, especially in Tennessee. Does that go for the scheduling of it too? You know, have female representation at all levels of the bill. At least that's certainly a goal that we have. Up the lineup, Drew, who's on there that you haven't seen that you're really looking forward to and who's on there that you are very familiar with? Probably, I'm going to go with Drew Holcomb and the neighbors being the... Although I've never seen him live, because I've always been him live. I don't know what it's like to be in the audience when he plays. It's pretty good. It's pretty cool. The person I haven't seen that I'm the most excited about is Billy Strings. He's incredible from what I've seen sort of online and what I've heard. Honestly, I think most everybody else on here, I've seen or heard. I just heard Molly Tuttle and Amethyst Kia last week on this music cruise called Kayamo. They were incredible. I tell you, someone I haven't seen in a long, long time is the Indigo Girls. I think that's going to be incredible. Nicholl Creek sort of semi coming out of retirement. How'd that happen? A lot of phone calls and begging. I actually saw them in Chattanooga when I was in college. What were you doing in Chattanooga in college? What were you doing? You just coming? No kidding. I looked it up. It's 93, right? No, no, no. I'm younger than that. 2002. 2002, sorry. Jesus, Barry. It's the summer of 67. Man. They were playing up on Lookout Mountain. Free show. Really? No kidding. I went up there and there was a piece of that for me that was related to Chattanooga. But did you get some sort of hint as to this was about to happen or was it something that you pushed for? We share some mutual friends. Yeah, we sort of put official channels out there and then also let the unofficial channels know that. I think one thing that we've got going for us now is most artists, at least that are sort of within the musical world that we're dealing with, are aware of us now. So it's not like a cold pitch. Like, hey, come play this festival we never heard of. Right. Because a lot of ours, especially ones like them that don't do very many shows at all, they want to come out and do a show that needs to be something sort of special. So they were convinced of that. And then also bringing in the Live From Here show for the Friday night piece was a thing that helped make the whole... Yeah. Yeah, we're......parts of the whole... Where did that come from? Explain that because that's a totally new wrinkle, right? Yeah. So Chris from Nickel Creek, Christy Lee, took over what was Prairie Home Companion. Now it's Live From Here. And they film it all over the country. It's probably the preeminent variety radio show in the country, if not the world. And as we got to talking to them, we thought maybe if we could convince them to also do the show here, it might be easier to make the whole package work. And obviously the venue is perfect for that. Soldiers and Sailors and so... Is it Sailors and Soldiers or Soldiers and Sailors? Yeah, it was just sort of a... Honestly, it was kind of a... We threw sort of a knuckleball to see if they would take it and they hit it out of the park. Now who's making that pitch? Is it you or is it AC? It's AC on behalf of the festival. Interesting. Those are conversations that we have pretty much weekly, all the booking. Yeah. Self, Paul, my manager and partner on the original festival. And then Brian... When does that start for next year? Oh, I don't know. It usually starts about a month after the... Yeah, right about now, right? Yeah. Some calls being made on the day of the festival. Yeah. Say, hey, we're looking at next year. Let's do it. Yeah. I want to point out and give them a shout out, I guess, but Arlon's strung like a horse. Yeah. Is on this year and we've sort of quietly been saying, because there was some chatter from people local, one of their local bands, but we always said they should earn it and it feels like these guys have earned it. So I love that they have to earn it and I love that they did. Yeah, they're great. And we're really honored. They said yes. And actually, Amethyst, she lives in Johnson City, but she grew up here in Chattanooga. How about that? No kidding. Yeah, they're really excited about it. So I'm excited. That's great, because they just came back from Americana Fest UK or UK Fest and that's what I mean. It means something when everybody on there has earned it. Yeah. And I hope, I mean, I think AC has this hope too, especially because they book a lot of shows here in Chattanooga outside of the festival. I want Moon River to be the kind of thing that raises both the touring and the local and regional presence of Chattanooga as a market, so that more people come and so that more local bands sort of, I think if people get used to going to see more shows, which starts with maybe a festival or like shows at Walker and Signal and all these other places in town that have sort of sprouted or kind of grown wings in the last half decade or decade that creates better soil for local music to sort of rise up. At least that's our, certainly my hope and I think that would definitely be AC. Now as an artist, you're on the forecast of line up too. I wondered when you go to plan your year out and you say we're going to do a tour, are you specifically targeting certain festivals or do you do it off cycle? How does a festival work into your touring plans in general when you plan your year? It really just depends on the region. I mean obviously because I'm going to be on the Moon River line up as long as it makes sense. I always joke my new sort of career goal is to get back to where I can headline my own festival again now that it's grown so much. I think you know the people that can make that happen. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I got to earn it. That's right. I got to earn it. But yeah, I mean there's certainly, it kind of goes both ways as an artist. There's some festivals that come to you and they say there's others that you kind of have to fight and scrap to get on the line up. I've gotten to play a lot of really, really great ones. There's really only one or two left on my list that are like, man I really want to play at Newport and then Telluride. Those would be the two. But yeah, so it goes both ways and it just depends on the timing and you know, like there's a lot of practical things with it. I'm sure listeners would be interested to know that most of the time when you book a festival, there's what's called a radius clause and it's sort of, you know, if you're going to play X Festival, they draw a mileage circle around it so you please don't play inside of this circle from 90 days before to 120 days after. And so, for instance, Chattanooga is in a pretty tight geographic market where you've got Atlanta and Nashville. Birmingham. Sure. We have to, you know, when we're booking acts that's sometimes a part of the conversation. Like, well we've got this show in Atlanta, you know, in August, you know, how can we work that out? And so it's either work it out or you say maybe we'll do it another year or you adjust budgets. I mean there's all sorts of ways to have these conversations but that's a pretty interesting part of the whole process. Yeah. Both as the artist and as the booking side of it because you're, it's a puzzle. It's always a puzzle. It's a puzzle. Sweet. More Patreons to thank. Mary T. Musical Antlers. We're going to learn more about Musical Antlers. Andrew T. McBride, Justin Negro, Phil Nye, Sean McCain, Skyler, David Henson, David Solano, Brooke Tussie, Joshua Herndon, Laura Eldholm, Nick Eitman, and Haley. Oh and then Melody and Jesse Feldman. Thank you all for being Patreons. Thank Aaron for being a Patreon. More Patreons to talk to next week. We also very excited in the upcoming week's Bonne Roulette. I mistakenly said Bonne Roulette was going to be this week but we sort of stumbled into the Drew Holcomb thing so Bonne Roulette coming up in a two part series in the upcoming weeks. I'm very excited about that. Anything else to add? I love Bonne Roulette. One of my favorite things. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah because we don't have to work. No it's easy. We just play ten seconds of a song and move on. It's easy. And by the way, I should point out that if you're hoping to see that on YouTube you're not because of copyright things so that would be a podcast only audio thing. Look at that guy doing some maintenance work. I know. Trying to think ahead because I'm guessing people just love seeing Brad's hair. I mean guessing is the wrong word. Very cordial. I'm Brad Steiner. See you next time.