After a few weeks off, the What Podcast is back. A grab bag of topics today. We say goodbye to some of our festival favorites. We dive into Lord Taco's Twitch account. And I make demands for Bonnaroo 2022. Did we miss anything? Follow along anytime to What Underscore Podcasts on your socials. It's Brad, Barry, Lord Taco. The What Podcast returns right now. And we're back. Like we never left. So What Podcasts, welcome back. And Barry, Lord Taco, I'm Brad. Hi guys. I did not get the memo to wear a Bonnaroo t-shirt. I'm very sorry about that. I know, right? I've been missing you guys. I noticed tacos. I like them. Do you have a Bonnaroo t-shirt? I do not. Oh wait, that's not true. I've got two that Barry gave me as a gift, volunteer shirts. Oh, volunteer shirts. Yeah, they're wonderful, but I'll just never wear them. They're too heavy. That heavy, itchy Gildan shirt. And I just can't get to it, man. Well, the real reason you don't is because there's a really good chance that Ryan's not wearing his. He wears it every day. He does. Look, we have so much to talk about. We're going to have, we're probably going to miss a lot. So if we miss a topic that we should be talking about, please drop us a comment to whatpodcasts.com or the What Underscore Podcasts on the socials. There is so much that has happened in the last two months. I have no idea how we're going to get to all of it, but the top story, the lead is that I spent a weekend with Brian Stone and he thrived. Like I've never seen him thrive in the world before. Like outside of Bonnaroo, I've never seen him this happy. Guys, he was on cloud nine. I've never in the 15 years of knowing this kid have ever seen him this happy. I've in the 15 years, I've never heard the word happy. Even at Bonnaroo, he's miserable, but he's so not only he catches himself if he's happy, I've got to sabotage my life somehow. How can I make this now? I will say the first day, I mean the first second that he walked in the door, he goes, where's the closest liquor store? And so he walks directly to the corner liquor store, buys cheap gin and some Tanga, what is it called? Tonic water. Yeah. All right. So he buys that and he wakes up the next morning and the second that we get on the train, he looks around and he's like, I got to buy more gin before we get home. You just bought a bottle. Have you already gone through a bottle? And he said, well, I will buy tonight. I got to be prepared for the morning. And so literally we took another bottle home within the next morning. He's like, I got to buy more tonic water. It was like this endless parade of needing to buy more gin and tonic water. Like after three days, the wife looked at me and she goes, I'm worried. Well, as long as you knew there was no need to worry. Yeah. So, so, so he has a wonderful weekend. He walks and I swear to God, the man walked, cause I tracked it 70,000 steps in four days. We walked 45 miles. He practically did everything that the city could have thrown at him. He loved every second of it. Even the things that I thought that he was going to hate, like, you know, weirdos on the train, you know, or this place is a dump. Why does it smell like pee? I didn't get anything. I swear to God, I didn't get one complaint. I was stunned. Wow. I know bad, bad wrong. Compare it with, I mean, compare it to what a year ago. Everything was a complaint. Literally everything that happened. I mean, you had yet you had the neighbor said, I don't ever want to see that guy again. So okay. So then the best part is we go to, we go to the Mets game. I'm a huge Mets fan. He's a big Braves fan. So I took him to, to city field and it was the fifth of a five game series. The Mets have just dominated them for three games. They lose one game because a pitcher kind of, you know, takes a dump in the first inning. But other than that, the Braves really get swamped in this series. So we get there on Sunday, we get there early, we traverse the ballpark. Oh my God. His eyes are like kid on Christmas. They're wide and big and he's got this creeping smile on his face. It's getting a little bit wider every minute. And we get into the ballpark, the game starts and he is just in awe. And by the end of the game, after watching three, no, four straight games with him, after taking him to a Mets bar and watching one game with the double header, I looked at him and I said, you love this team, don't you? And he goes, no. Oh my God, guys. He loves the Mets. He loves the Mets. He loves Citi Field. He loves the players. He loves Buck Showalter. I mean, at the end of it, he's like, you know what? I think I could root for the Mets if they made it to the World Series. How did this happen? They're very, very good. Who showed up at my house? Wow. Okay. Okay. So for people who don't know and Brad, you're going to laugh, but Brian has his own podcast called Stone On Air. People might want to check that out this week because I'm going to guess his story. That's because he won't tell the truth. He won't. He will not. He will not be able to tell you exactly what happened. You know, I'll tell you, I tell you, he's so bad about this because I was on his podcast one time and I told him the truth about a story that he had constantly gotten wrong. And what happened casually to that story? It got deleted from the podcast. Yeah. Well, it's good to be the king. It's so funny because he's, he has, it's funny. I was talking to somebody about him just yesterday. Brian has that classic 90s era kid growing up where if it didn't happen, it didn't exist. Yeah. And it wasn't the greatest ever. But Barry, after you, after you said this to me, I've never been able to look at him the same. We watched that 99 Woodstock documentary, right? The first one, not this latest one. And Barry came on this podcast. I don't know if Taco remembers, but he said, Brian Stone is every kid that went to Woodstock 99 because he went to Woodstock 99. Angry, but they don't know what they're angry about. And that, and that is quintessential Brian Stone. Yep. That's exactly right. They don't know why they're mad. They just know that they're mad about something. They just want to be mad because that, and I've said to you too, he's, he, he, he is so mad that he's not 14 years old perpetually and discovering pro-jam for the first time every day. That's all he wants in life. He wants to be 14 and discovering pro-jam. He's going to be blown away when he finds out that I might be going to see them at the Apollo theater. Oh, I know. I know. I know. But guys, it was, oh, don't tell him that. Well you've already, you've already stunned me by, um, he said he cracked smiles. He was very happy. He used the word happy. I mean, it might've been the greatest trip of his life. I can't, I cannot wait then to hear this podcast cause it's not good. I mean, I think that he's going to, to acknowledge how much he liked it, but I think that he's going to have trouble not wedging in the things that he hates. He's going to have to invent some things that he hated so that he can wedge them in just to balance out his, his inability to be happy. Okay. Yeah, that's man. It was a good trip. So I can't believe that's where we're starting because the place I w I'm sorry, Barry, I feel like I have more questions. Well, I was going to, I don't know if, well, I do cause only because, and I don't know if you were going to bring it up, but not only did you guys go to the Braves, you went to the Braves. Oh God. Yeah. Oh my God guys. So I'm going to bring this up later when I start making some Bonnaroo demands, but this was one of the great shows and you know, I don't, I'm with Brian on this one. I don't like the hyperbolic greatest show ever guy, but this was one of the great shows I've ever seen in my life. And partly it's because I've never seen rage before, partly because a lot of things I'll get into it later, but this, this thing was a masterclass and absolute banger. I mean, I forgot how many hits they had just one of the great shows I've ever seen. I'll talk about that here in a second, but yeah, I mean that we did that. We saw a whole bunch of Seinfeld things to come up to Tom's diner, which was a monks and Seinfeld watch baseball like crazy. There's a, there's a Mets bar in the Lower East side called standings that may be guys, you know how much I love dive bars and you know how much I love pals in New Orleans. Oh guys, it is way up there. It might be one of the great dive bars in the world. Wow. I, I, even for a non-sports guy like taco, you could walk in there and be like, this is bad ass. I mean, they've got banners from the seventies still hanging in the rafters. They've got all the sports, weird memorabilia everywhere. You know, light beer on tap. I mean it is tailor made tailor made for us. I was going to say, I, yeah, I want to be there. They make a good G and T. They make, yeah, they make a good G and T. Brian was all in on light draft beer that day. All in. I'm telling you, he didn't have a complaint. He didn't have a single complaint the entire weekend. That's, that's going to be the podcast. That's what's going to be wrong. Because I didn't have anything to bitch about. I didn't have anything to complain about. It was too nice. Yeah. Every, I love things too much. I hate it. Yeah, it's burning. Bring it down. Yeah. When I needed a drink, somebody was right there to bring it to me. I hate that. I mean, there's just no, no complaints. I mean, the man, the man slept in every day. He, he got everything he ever wanted. You know, I still am sitting on some major Brian Stone news that I've never shared with anyone. And I'm waiting for the day to, to bring this up because I just don't feel comfortable bringing it up without him right there. So you could see the look on his face that somebody's figured out a secret. I have discovered something about Brian Stone that I don't think he's ever told anybody. And it's like, it's like I've cracked the code. Okay. And he's going to be very, I don't know, you're going to see it all over his face. You'll see it all over his face in that. No, no, bro. No, bro. And then it's going to be like, oh no. Oh, no, bro. Yeah. Well, there you go. That's, that's what you get. I have to spend 15 years with somebody. So what else was I going to tell you? Oh, I wanted to start the show off on something that I have been obsessed with for the last now two months since we last were together. And that's this, this new show called Lord tacos Twitch. Now I have no idea what I'm watching, but I love every second of it. Please explain to me what this is. Cause I'm so confused. It's just me playing video games and drinking PBR on stream. And yeah, ever since we've kind of taken a break from the podcast, I jumped back into it. Is that more time now? So I'm doing it three nights a week, just about. I understand that the, I understand the top line, right? I understand that you playing video games and people just watching it, but I'm okay. I'll start with a very easy question. What video games are these? I've never heard of any of these games that you play. They're super Nintendo games and Nintendo games, Earthbound, Final Fantasy. Oh, Final Fantasy. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Old school RPG games. But it's mostly what I play. It's people walking around, you know, a field. That sounds like baseball. Okay. Okay. From Lord Daco, baseball expert. So what are you, what are you doing? People walking around on the field. What are you doing at this game? What is the purpose of this game that you play? Well, sometimes you do speed runs, which you try to beat it as fast as possible. And then, you know. Well, what does beating it mean? There's a leaderboard. Beating the game. Yeah. What does that mean? It means you beat the game. Well, I know, but how do you beat the game? Oh, collecting coins, points. Oh, I mean, it's a long game. Yeah. What are you killing? Yeah, there's like a story and you progress through the story. I mean, do you want me to? Are you saving a princess? What are you doing? Does she have blue hair? Is there a blue haired princess at the end of this field? We'll find out. I'm looking for the motivation here, Taco. This is just so Taco. So how do you beat the game? And Taco's answer is, you beat it. It just so perfectly runs. I mean, are you wanting the specific win? Are you wanting specific win conditions of the game? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, you have to go through the whole story. Okay, so it's a story, but what is the story? I don't know if I have... You want me to go get the book and read it to you? What are you... What's the setting? Is it future? Is it medieval? If somebody's watching the Twitch show for the first time, I have no context of what this game is and what the purpose is other than I'm just trying to beat it. You see what I'm saying? I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Just watch it and find out. Okay, well... Again, are you trying to save a princess? That's Mario. Are you trying to build a moat? I know. Okay. I mean... That's my point of reference. I have nothing. You're either killing people or saving a princess or trying to launch a rocket or something. I don't know. I can tell you neither of you have ever played a video game ever. Not this one, which I've never heard of. Mario. This is just why I'm coming to you, the guy who plays it every day. What is the purpose of this game? To have fun. To beat it, yeah, I know. All right. Okay. All right, let's go to the next topic here that's very confusing to me. Yeah. Good talk. Good talk, Russ. A lot of details there. You're really grilling me hard on this. Okay. All right, next thing that I don't understand about this game. Where are these random sound effects coming from? Every now and then just... You're playing the effects? Well, people in chat can play them, yeah. Okay, now I'm starting to really get confused. There are people watching in the chat room. Okay, that screen that I'm watching, did you put all that together or is that a Twitch thing? I put it all together. Normally somebody who plays video games on Twitch doesn't have the three screen thing like you do? Well, I mean, it's however you want to lay it out. If you want to put your camera up here and move the game over here, I mean, it's however you want to set it up. Twitch allows you to do that, right? Yeah, you can put whatever you design it however you want. Okay, all right. So you didn't have to come up with the whole mainframe and create a code to make this thing work? Mainframe and code? I don't even know what you're... Well, when you sign into Twitch, you get options of a layout. Is that what I'm guessing here? No, I do all that. All Twitch does is just receive the video stream that I send. Okay, so you did have to create the layout of the screen. Okay, so how did you do that? I've done... How did you do that? I use OBS and create the scene and then put all of my elements in there with the overlays and stuff like that. Now see, there you go. That's what I'm asking when I'm asking what is the purpose of the game? That kind of detail. All right, so now after I figure that part out, you now have three cameras. So you have a feed going into your TV that's coming through your OBS, then you have a camera just on PBR, and then you have a camera on you. So you have a three camera setup that you all put together that then is now going out live while you're playing. Okay, so now I've got this figured out. So then there's a chat room. Now is that a Twitch thing or did you create that too? That's a Twitch thing. When people watch it on Twitch, they can chat. And they can execute commands to make sound effects play, to do different video effects. There you go. It's a lot. It's very interactive. Okay, so am I right to assume there was one game that you've played in the past where they can take over the game or interject themselves? Yes. How does that happen? It's through a system called crowd control where the game that I'm playing, you can create effects in the game. You could make an enemy spawn and attack instantly. Okay, but not in Earthbound? No. Okay. So yeah, you can do... And based on this conversation, I was going to say based on this conversation, I'm hoping you're also commenting that you're doing a lot of talking while this is going on. A lot of talking in like, you know, Russ context. I mean, he's not Chatty Cathy with this, but you know, for him, it's a lot of words. Yes, it is a lot of words for Russ. Okay. All right. So the people that are throwing things at you, you know, like the sound effects and stuff, you don't know what's coming. So somebody can just hit a sound effect of a fart noise and it'll show up. Yeah. Okay. All right. Now, how distracting does that become? It's not that distracting. Okay. I'm kind of used to it by now. Do they do it to disturb you? Do they do it to get on your nerves? All of the above. Okay. But do they do it because you like it? Mm-hmm. Okay. And how many people are usually watching at one time? 10 to 15. Wow. Okay. See, Barry, like this is what's so interesting about this. And what I think Taku doesn't understand is like somebody like me who sees, oh, Lord Taku is now live. I just hit play and watch it and I have no context whatsoever as what's going on. Right? So it is the most batshit crazy thing that I'm watching. Like there's people screaming. There's an emoji that pops up. There's a dancing baby all of a sudden. And then Russ opens a PBR. It's the strangest. Like old... You got it. Sounds like a good Tuesday night. I mean, it feels like every great cable access show from our childhood that plays like midnight. You ask, why is this on television? All right. Yeah. There's people making good money. Now has PBR reached out to you at all about this? No. No, not once. I've reached out to them. Okay. And they never said anything? No. All right. Well, that was topic two on the list of topics that I wanted to get to this week. Barry, have you not watched the Twitch show? Wow. Okay. No. Okay. I'm going to have to. You'll be thrilled now that you know exactly what we're playing. Now what's on deck for this week? I can't wait. Yeah. Now that I know what the goal is. What are we playing this week, Taka? I don't know yet. Probably just more of the same. Okay. Okay. Any workout, any mood, any time. That's what the Peloton Tread is all about. From interval runs that motivate you to go the extra mile, power walks that work up a sweat, rolling hill hikes for you to enjoy, and full body boot camps to hit your goals. Plus thousands of workouts that go beyond the Tread. Strength programs, core classes, yoga, Pilates, and even boxing. Everything you need on and off the Peloton Tread. Experience it all for yourself with a 30 day home trial. Learn more at OnePeloton.com. All right. So do we want to get into some of this news? Do you guys have anything you want to get to before we dive in here on some of the less important things? No, let's jump in. So a few months ago I was told by, yeah, I was told by somebody that, you know, matters. But anyway, it doesn't matter. And he predicted that you will see probably a dozen music festivals say goodbye this year. And the death of the music festival industry is upon us. And since then, how many have we seen do exactly that? Not only Buku, but you see things like that. But then you see the music midtowns completely pull out because of the gun law in Georgia. So I throw it to you. It feels like there is a shifting tide. The earth is shifting under our feet. Is it death of or culling of? Because that's what we talked about that. I know I mentioned it, that it felt like we were going to see a culling, that there were just too many of them. And we were going to see a thinning of the numbers. I didn't predict the gun thing. But it sure felt like there were just too many festivals and not enough people and not enough money. Pretty much what you're saying. Yep. The economic things are not sustainable. Yeah. Same thing. You could just feel it last year with so many of them not selling out and numbers being down. There were just too many of them. Too many choices. All the reasons we talked about. The economy, gas. The fact that we sort of lost the mojo two and a half years that people kind of lost. Didn't feel like the FOMO thing wasn't quite as strong as it was before. It's like, okay, I've missed them for two years. I can maybe miss another whatever. But I will say I reached out this morning to a couple of people and Bonnaroo. They just put out that we'll be back in 2023. I know. But if you remember, we talked about there was some internal saber rattling that was going on with the city and the county and some of the businesses. I think they figured it out. Did the city get what they wanted? I thought they would. I don't know the details. I didn't get into that level. I just asked. Well, real quick. Real quick, back up because we actually never we wanted to talk about this in detail months ago, but we never got to it. So back up. The city was demanding more money from Bonnaroo because they lost revenue in 2021. Okay. Well, that was the county. Actually, the city and the city annexed the farm, which meant the county was losing that revenue. And as part of the contract, the county was supposed to get a percentage of sales based on the two previous years, which was zero. So they were obviously in a fix. But then there were some local businesses that were basically trying to make all their money at once and raising rates and that sort of thing. And it was going to cost Bonnaroo a lot more money. And so there was, you know, there was some going back and forth. I think I said then I thought it would be resolved because, you know, you don't look that golden cow or golden goose. Don't kill the golden goose. Manchester doesn't have a lot of other options. Certainly nothing like that. So you kind of figure they would work it out. Like I said, I only got a short answer, but it sounds like something was worked out. So yeah. You know, because remind everybody, I mean, what we decided, what, 40,000 people? You know, I've been meaning to get the final count. I haven't I guess I could I could ask. I didn't know never actually did that. Yeah. I mean, there was a lot of people talking after it was all over. I mean, there were a lot of things, Russ, you and I noticed, you know, security was not nearly as vibrant, shall we say, as it had been in the past and fewer people. And I mean, one thing that I think, you know, I didn't even think about, but like this, they didn't even give you talk about those T-shirts, Brad, they didn't even get those out to the staff this year. I mean, that was another one. What were the volunteers wearing T-shirts? Stop it. I never identified. I never. They had vests. Wow. I don't even remember, Russ. So so so basically so basically neon vest that, you know, county inmates wear when they're cleaning up the yard. Got it. Yeah. OK. But, you know, I mean, a little thing like that is a perk. You know, you go home with a T-shirt. Oh, my God. I didn't know that T-shirt. So I mean, that saved him a lot of money. Right. So T-shirts are expensive. Yeah. We know we've got plenty. Barry, you want to give some wages? Go quick. Let's plug the whatpodcast.com. T-shirts are available. Yeah, go to. Yeah, that's right. You can get all kinds of merch. Have some stickers left. Maybe an orange vest. Yeah. But anyway, it's they seem to have resolved it. So we'll see. And I will be curious as part of this conversation to see if events like Bonnaroo benefit from some of these. Well, maybe. But but the big three, you know, the of the big three, only one had a bad year. You know, the city festivals are doing really well right now because, you know, you have other things to do in Lollapalooza did just fine. Lollapalooza sold out. ACL selling out. Coachella did just fine. So you know, Bonnaroo is the only one that really struggled. And there's four years why well, look, let's put it this way for years. They were the standout because they were a camping festival and that what's made them unique. That was also the reason why they probably struggled this year more so than any other festival. So it's a given a take. Right. Right. Yeah, I'm really, really curious to see. I think I think we sort of Russ and I, I know that Friday night maybe was it Saturday? I guess it was Saturday night because you were you asleep on Friday night. But you and I wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Why did Russ fall asleep early on Friday night? I forget because you went hard on Thursday. Yeah, yeah, I know. He put his dinosaur costume on. He went into hibernation. Yeah, he went, he went extinct. But I do remember you and I on that Saturday night, you know, I think we talked about it on our last episode is, you know, do we want to stay in media or we want to go out to GA and, you know, what might we do different next year? And I don't know. Well, you have plenty of time to think about it, Barry. You have plenty of time. But it was I'm glad I went, but I'm not in a hurry to go experience. Well, I mean, look, oh, sorry. No, I think I think what I would start wondering is with the comment from a higher up in the industry saying that, you know, the music festival business is in a really tough spot. You know, you get Music Midtown gone. You start wondering and looking around and saying, well, who might be next? You know, is a forecastle in trouble? Are you going to get a shaky knees in trouble? These seem like no brainers that they come back because they've been so successful. I mean, shaking is very successful this year. But you know, the economics of this is they're really tricky at the second at the second that you have to jack up prices 25 percent. It's going to really change the way that you ask yourself, can we can we sustain this? And I don't know the answer. Right. I mean, it's just from a local level, we've got Moon River in what, three weeks, three or four weeks, four weeks. Yeah. Three and a half. Our sales for that, by the way, it's not sold out. It's not sold out. Well, what I was going to say. So Moon River, wait a second, they're not doing OK. They haven't sold out. And that's a festival. It's only I mean, they're only selling 10,000 tickets. Right. Yeah. Between 10 and 12, depending on how they how they configure it each year. But right about that. Yeah. I think they're close from what I understand, but not sold out. And then I understand to your point just a second ago that our the River Bend Festival, which is local, almost 40 years old, totally redid it this year, went from an unlimited number of admission to a 15,000 cap, which they hit. But it basically basic, it just about broke even from what I understand. And part of that was because of a two million dollar. Was it a grant that the government gave to? I think so. Entertainment. Yeah, I don't know if it's a grant or whatever you call it, but basically a grant. And so, you know, that that's a big a big bunch of money to get that you can't count on next year. So like you said, they're probably looking at I mean, raising I haven't I haven't tracked the money, follow the dollar, but I wonder how many of these music festivals got bailed out during covid with with these kinds of programs. And you just made a really, really great point in that can survive them this year. But how does it bring back next year? Hence, you're seeing a lot of these cancel. You know, look, I think that we all universally think that Firefly did a nice job. I mean, our buddy Sean is now booking that Firefly festival. And I think that he did a great job booking it, but it's not sold out. And Firefly always does well. These second tier festivals, I think, are in real, real trouble. Now I know that there's conspiracy theories going around about Music Midtown because, you know, they're trying to hide behind the gun law and maybe they weren't selling as many tickets. Well, you know, look, I don't think they were selling as many tickets as they thought, but I was absolutely one million percent reiterated to that it was the gun law. And even if they are doing a really good job messaging that and getting everybody on the same page and making that the point. I believe them. I believe them. But it is it is good timing. If you want to get out of the business, it's a it's a good time to. Start reallocating dollars somewhere else. Not just. Not just that, but as we've said, and, you know, I hate to again be doom and gloomy, but not having an event for two years. Well, I actually don't think it's doom and gloom, Barry. I think it makes the ones that survive better. I think the reason why we are so bummed out and some of the boner and some of the other festival lineups is because we've seen it happen. It happened last week and it happened before that and have the week before that. Like how many more times do we have to carbon copy the same music festival lineup over and over? And so it goes back to a conversation that we had with Quayar and other professionals is these these more curated experiences, these experiences, these places that have really special identities and brands. They're the ones that are going to probably survive more than others and you know, your regular music festival that's in your, you know, in your hometown or in your region, they're probably the ones that are going to pack up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it has to have that that special reason. I mean, you can see band XYZ almost anywhere. It's what I mean. Look, Gumball was a was a mess this year. Absolute mess. Does that something like that survive next year? Why would it need to? It was in it was in the city field parking lot, for Christ sakes. What kind of brand experience do you think you're going to get on asphalt? Yeah, right. This is not a music festival. That's a fair. I know we're going to I know we're going to talk about Woodstock ninety nine too, but it all a lot of this is. I mean, I just watched it this week and it was stunning to me to see the progression from nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and two when Bonnaroo started. Well, don't don't get too much into it. I haven't seen it yet. It's all about. No, I haven't. I saw the first one, but I have not seen the latest one. Oh, my. It's it's more somebody told me that and you tell me if I'm right, right or wrong, but somebody told me that it was more not putting the onus on the musicians and putting it more on the promoters that the first one was way to blaming, you know, the bands for everything. Yeah. Fred Durst. Yeah, there was a lot of that. It was a lot more emphasis on how women were treated in this one, even though it was mentioned in the first one. That was a big, big issue. And we, you know, now I want to wait because I want us all to watch it first and then seen it because I. OK. All right. So my point in bringing it up really is kind of what we were just saying is, as we've learned and the reason you and I and Taka were doing this podcast is we've just appreciated that level of customer service and branding that Bonnaroo has had, you know, thanks to guys like Jeff Cuellar. I mean, just guys who wake up and think, what would I want, you know, as a fan, what do I want? I want water. I want shade. I want comfort. Well, you know, I will say, bring it back home. If there's anything that Bonnaroo has been really, really good at the last 16, 17 years very, they're fantastic listeners. And there's very rarely a time there's something happens on that farm where they don't hear it and reacts in some positive way to it. So I have no inside track on this, but I can promise you whatever was said this year, they heard it, which brings me to my demand. I have some demands. I do. I have some demands. I've spent two months, three months now in New York, four months. I'm sorry. Four months in New York. And I have come away with a few things that I am absolutely demanding Bonnaroo consider and do. And this is not because it's not self-serving, although it's self-serving. All right. So I am starting demand number one. I cannot believe after 16 years, 17 years, however long this festival has been around, I cannot believe that not one time they have booked Rage Against the Machine. It is almost derelict of duty that one of the greatest rock bands on the planet has played Coachella how many times, have done how many tours now, few and far between, but never once come to Bonnaroo. I am out of my mind in love with this Rage show that I saw on Monday. Now you're seeing somebody who is, I'm a casual Rage Against the Machine fan. I like them. I know their songs. I know it was going to be good. Barry, I didn't know it was going to be incredibly great. I had no idea that first off, you forget that there's only three guys putting out that sound. Look at Zach, there's only three guys making that thing feel so big. Not only that, you forget how great of a guitar player Tom Morello is. You say it in your head, oh yeah, Tom Morello, great guitar player. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's not great. He's the greatest guitar player alive. And it is incredible how he keeps that whole operation sounding pitch fucking perfect. Every note is perfect. It's insane. Third, Zach had a broken leg, which I think made the show better. He had to sit on a gearbox. He had to sit on a, well, it didn't feel like he, he, he only had to do vocals, right? So he didn't have to like bounce around the stage and make it. No, no, no. He had to make the vocals right. So he had to sit on a box and he had so much energy on this box. It almost felt like sometimes when he was spinning around, spinning around, putting his leg in the air, it felt like he was levitating. He had so much energy coming off of that box. Is that why they say break a leg when you go out on stage? Literally, yeah, you'll be a better performer. Fourth, I have never seen a show at Madison Square Garden before, but the only thing that's ever come close to the almost perfection of sound that is on the wet stage is what I just heard of Madison Square Garden. Oh my God, Barry, this venue, I've never, I've never heard a venue better. Aside from Bonnaroo's wet stage, it may have been the best sounding venue I've ever been into in my life. Every seat is padded and comfortable. I can't tell you how much I loved this entire experience. Fifth, the knock on rage is too negative for Bonnaroo. Not the right kind of energy. And man, if that's the argument, I want to point you to the screen that they have behind them. Because during some of the songs, they were posting names and stories of social justice. People who have been abused by police, social justice warriors, celebration of people who have helped, putting people's stories up that haven't been told before, that have been forgotten. People who have been completely used by the system or abused by the police. They throw these stories on and there's nothing to me more Bonnaroo than Rage Against the Machine and how they are social justice warriors and trying to affect change in all of the right spaces. That's exactly what Bonnaroo is. How have they not booked Rage Against the Machine? Who's saying they were too negative? I'm sitting here thinking that tool show wasn't exactly a big warm fuzzy hug, was it Taco? I mean, talk about the video. I demand... They're definitely not too negative. Well, look, killing in the name of... You can find people who would say that's just not the right sound. In fact, I got a few. I got a few messages saying it's just not the sound that Bonnaroo is known for. I just don't buy it. I don't agree with it. Nobody in our generation has been able to write songs and put a message out in lyrics this profound and this impactful in what? In a generation? What is keeping you from... I understand the rationales that we've heard before. Not everything works, the Tory... There should be no debate here. Get rage or nobody. This is the one last band that you haven't gotten. You can make an argument about the Stones, but give me a break. This is a real band that you could absolutely go get. Why are you not throwing money at them? That would be the single biggest thing they could do to get back into who we know Bonnaroo is. Second demand. Second demand. Why demand Bonnaroo bring CeeLo Green to be the host of the next Super Jam? CeeLo Green did an album with Dan Arbok. Now Dan Arbok made him do this beautiful Pentecostal Church Teddy Pendergrass album. It didn't get heard for a long time because CeeLo was in a bit of a Me Too mess. Not of a bit. It was of his own creation and he just kept making it worse. He damn near ruined his career with his Me Too moment. Well the album gets put out and now he's doing shows. He did one at Jazz Fest. All tribute and a dedication to James Brown where they're all wearing a jumpsuit where it says Brown Automotive on the back of it. So they're going effortlessly through James Brown's catalog, through his catalog, through Meat Loaf, to Celine Dion. They are weaving so many hits through the James Brown catalog and it's done with absolute stunner of a band behind him. Absolute stunner. Now CeeLo can hear and are there, but imagine CeeLo hosting the Super Jam with Dan Arbok half an hour away in Nashville. And you see the drama that's around the Black Keys right now and Patrick Carney's, you know, whatever is going on with him and Michelle Branch. But I don't think the Black Keys are going to be touring much longer considering the drama that's happening between them. So you're going to get Dan sitting on his hands in Nashville already produced an album with CeeLo. Bring it down. Let him curate a James Brown Super Jam. What do we, this is a slam dunk. Why not? Wasn't he, wasn't CeeLo banned from Chattanooga? He was, he said some curse words and he mooned the white people. They were very upset. He was never officially banned, but he's not on anybody's short list to invite back anytime soon. So, so the big, so the big, but whatever. Alright, so I want to hear the other demands. So the knock on CeeLo, the reason why you would say he can't do it is because of his Me Too movement. And to that, I would say, I hear you. I'm not discounting it, but they had no problem putting All Time Low on the bill and they had no problem putting Machine Gun Kelly on the bill. Now they might've been missteps and they might've regretted it, but there is precedent for them to bypass, you know, certain indiscretions or problems and an artist's past. The rest of my demands are not so much demands, although they are gentle pushes. It is time for us to look around and celebrate the friend of the shows, Duran Jones and the indications and Aaron Frazier. One of the great shows I have seen now twice this past year and two years, Aaron Frazier at ACL and now Aaron Frazier at a small Brooklyn club right around from our house. Duran Jones is going to have a new album. Aaron Frazier is slowly going to be a solo superstar. I am betting. I don't know why we're not putting Duran Jones and booking them almost immediately. And then finally, it is time to bring Julian Baker and Angel Olsen and Sharon Von Etten back to Bonnaroo and let them curate an entire female empowerment experience. I think that the best female artists that we have on the planet right now, Brandi Carlisle, Sharon Von Etten, Phoebe Bridgers, Maggie Rogers, Julian Baker. This group is a knockout. We are in a almost a golden age of female performers and they're getting zero love on the radio. They're selling out everywhere. They're streaming everywhere. I don't know why we're not. I don't know why we're not putting all of them with Bonnaroo's problem with women and their first headliner being Lizzo and then Stevie Nicks. Man, now's the time. Now's the time to just bring them all. Do whatever you can. I mean, those girls are in Nashville. Bring them all. Make an entire day, an entire stage dedicated to just female liberation. Fuck the patriarchy. You know, put them all on one stage and let them run. Do something completely different, completely out of the box. Give them an entire plaza, too. This is, there's, I don't see why not. At this point, it's time. There you go. That's what I got. I hope they're listening. That's what I got. You done? Oh, oh, there, you know, I'm glad. Good, I'm glad. I was just taking notes. So, Taco, do you want to reach out to Steven and Brian up there in Knoxville and tell them, tell them guys it's done. You know, your work is done. Brad's done it all for you. Do you want me to? Because I'm happy to share with you. Believe me. I'm sending this recording to the C3 people right now. Wow. They're going to be thrilled. Solved all your problems, guys. Solved all your problems. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. They love getting these kind of notes. I know who they're going to get. It's not so much about who you can get. It's that this, we're in a time now where it calls for sort of a different approach to things. The standard operating playbook and all of these things are just not going to work as well as they did in the past. It's time to do something different. And yeah. Well, I mean, I think that we've been saying that for the last three or four episodes that this whole year felt like a do-over. It's a reset. And I mean, I still think so. We didn't have the suggestions in the demands. I'll tell you why. I've had a lot of time to think about it. And I don't say this as some sort of uppity all of a sudden walking into New York New Yorker. But when you're here, I don't want it to sound like that. No, I don't want it to sound like that. The reason I say this is because I've seen more shows in the last four months than I probably did in four years, even including Bonnaroo. And so I've been so jumped into this pool and swimming around it. And I start looking around. First off, it's the reason why I didn't need to break my neck to get to Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza this year is because every week is a music festival here. The challenge is to stop yourself and to not do something. But I've seen enough of these shows now to say to myself, you know, doing the same old thing and finding the same old artists are just not going to they're not going to cut it anymore. I don't think that that's being a uppity New Yorker. Oh, come on, Barry. Maybe. Well, I mean, you know, not everybody got to see. I know. That's why I want them to I demand them to bring them to Bonnaroo. I demand it. I will be I will be your fighter, Bonnaroo vians. I will be your warrior because I will not rest. You will hear me say it every episode on this podcast from now until Bonnaroo twenty twenty two. Bring rage, bring rage. I would love to have that is it. I just can't. If it was that good at Madison Square Garden. Oh, imagine how good it would be on Friday night on the what? I wish probably our next episode. Maybe Russ and I can come up. I'd love that. I'd love that as a little strong for me. Yeah. What what? I don't know that I have a little blue hairs. Got it. Taco based on more based on last year. I mean, you know, what changes need to be made? I know, you know, we we talked about, you know, they moved us from the trees. You just beat me up about it. Make everything about me. And then Barry's like, I just didn't like being out. But there were the issues with the jam tracks and some of the gates and some of those sorts of things. You know, maybe we ought to think and come up with our own list of changes. See, I don't I'm not asking for a lot of changes. I'm asking I'm asking for that. I'm asking for them to rethink how they are approaching putting this lineup together. Well what I was going to say was interesting is now we're talking about lineup being, you know, we've we've all the last couple of years we've sort of been lineup is important, but it's not all encompassing. And does it feel like this year? Oh, yeah. Is going to be very. Oh, yeah. And look, look, I just if we go down this path of, you know, come October. And November, when we're doing lineup hunting and we are, you know, throwing out our mock lineups and saying, you know, my wish list is this, this and this man, I tell you, if we come to January, February, when the lineup gets announced and it's the same old load of crap, we're all going to be like, we don't care anymore. I'm telling you, you're just not going to care anymore. I know the experience is wonderful. And we're going to all talk about how great we love that. Yes, we do. But at some point we got to you got to do something different. Yeah, I don't disagree. I mean, this last year was a, you know, I've talked about it. It was a lot. It was a work year for me, which I knew. And it was also a different kind of thing for a variety of reasons. But there was nobody on that lineup that was a must must see for me. There were a lot of people that I wanted to see, you know, but there was no bucket list or can't believe I saw act. And it certainly as an entirety, it wasn't like that. I hear you. I hear you. Still had a good time. But yeah, I think you're right. I think this lineup better come strong. I can't miss it. I can't miss it. That's right. That's right. That's what they need. All right. That's that's all I got for this week. I know there's a lot still left on the table, but that's about it. Yeah, I watched it. You watched it. I watched the new one. No, I'll watch it. So that's our homework. We'll do that. We'll try to reconvene next week. What do you say, guys? Watch it with this thought in mind because when it was the way after it was over, it really stuck with me. It was in 1999, obviously, and then Vonrhym was ten years later. The transition, not just from festivals, but social society and just all kinds of watching with that in mind. All right, we'll do. You're the best. All right. Talk to you guys soon. All right. Love you, bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Done.