It's just crazy to think, like I was talking to my husband last night and I was sending him pictures of everyone here.

He's like, I've never met a single one of these people.

Like these are just random people you found in the dust at Bonnaroo and you're having the time of your life at a festival in Alabama.

Like that's we got to get him down here.

But it's just crazy to think that, like, I would not have known any of these people had I not gone to Bonnaroo or like been involved with the community on like Twitter and Instagram.

Like, it's so special and like we'll travel for each other.

Like, how cool is that to just be together and like make memories and see music?

It's just, it's so cool.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome back to the What Podcast.

This is sort of an unplanned podcast.

I'm going to call it.

I'm Barry.

That's Russ, Lord Taco.

We knew we were going to do interviews.

We knew we were going to talk about South Star and Huntsville, Alabama this past weekend.

But I don't think we expected it to go the way that it went.

And I don't think we expected really to have a show this quickly.

But so many things happened.

Yeah, unplanned show.

It was really an unplanned weekend.

And it started out as a planned weekend.

We had plans, lots of plans, and none of them went the way we thought they were going to go.

No.

Still ended up being a pretty great weekend, despite everything that got messed up.

But we'll get into that.

Yeah, I think that's partly why I wanted to do this show so quickly, because it just sort of

emphasizes what we love about these things so much.

You know, part of me wants to think, why does Mother Nature hate music festivals?

Because this is two that have been interrupted, we'll say, by hurricanes.

And we've been involved in one or one and a half in here in Chattanooga that were, you know,

shortened because of heavy weather.

It wasn't necessarily a hurricane.

But I just wanted to quickly introduce this.

We ended up doing a, well, we'll get into it.

But you talked about plans.

So your plan as of Wednesday, was that the latest when everything changed?

As of Wednesday, I was not planning on being at Southstar or in Huntsville at all.

I was I had a wedding scheduled in Florida that same weekend.

So I was going to be down there.

You and Brian were going to be in Huntsville and having to cover it without me.

Yep. Wednesday, everything changed because my flight got canceled to Florida, obviously,

because of the hurricane.

So couldn't fly out there.

So my next thought was, I guess I'm going to Huntsville and I'll see you guys there.

Well, then I end up getting there.

And yeah, you all end up not making it.

Brian gets close, but doesn't quite make it.

I don't know how far he actually got.

I know he made the parking lot.

I don't know if he made it into the grounds or not.

We'll just want to say the reason he's not here is, again, this is sort of a impromptu thing.

And we're definitely going to talk to Brian later this week, as well as a couple of other people

that I know that went because I want to get their impressions as well.

But yeah, you ended up down there Friday and stayed till Sunday.

My intention, my daughter was going to fly up Friday for my mother's 93rd birthday,

which was why I wasn't going on Friday, which was a big event down there in Huntsville

that I really, really wanted to be.

But obviously, like your wedding, my birthday party was a priority.

Well, that got kiboshed.

And then I got up Saturday morning and started loading the truck, got my tent and my sleeping bag

and my cot and everything and got an email or a text that both of the interviews that we had lined up

were canceled.

And I started reaching out to you and Brian.

I was like, you know, is this going to happen?

It felt like Moon River.

And so anyway, had family.

So I thought, I'm going to stay here with the grandkids today and I'll drive down Sunday

and spend all day with you guys doing Huntsville brunch and all that and then go hear some music.

And was it 10 o'clock our time Sunday?

I'm literally, we're all, my family's walking out the door to go do something else.

And I've got my bag, camera.

I was at the front door and you texted and said they've canceled.

And I really thought you were kidding.

I thought you were putting, you know, screw it.

Oh, I wish.

Yeah.

And then immediately I got the email.

So anyway, what a weird, but the point of all that is you were down there with a bunch of

people that we know that we have become friendly with because of music festivals.

Daniel and Sharla from the Real Roubaix hosted a gathering at their house.

Yeah.

Shout out to them.

Thank you for having so many people at your house and kind of having them overstay because

the plan was we were going to spend most of the time at the festival.

Well, Sunday we just, we called it Couch Star instead of South Star because we were just

there sitting on the couch.

But, you know, we still made it work.

We had a great time and we'd go out and get some food and hang out with everybody.

And that's funny.

We did this interview too.

It's not to pick on them, but I did think it was kind of funny.

I saw a couple of people calling it Swamp Star.

You're going to post a picture that you took of the grounds.

And again, for people who've never been on a farm after a rain and 20, 25,000 people

walking around, it can do some damage.

And that's what ultimately was the decision.

They went back to the grounds and it just wasn't safe according to the email.

Well, I can attest to that because Sunday I rode over with Daniel and Sharla because

we had to go in that, you know, they had two booths there that they helped out with.

One was Totem, which is their nonprofit, and we'll hear more about that.

And they also helped out NASA had a booth.

NASA had a big presence here, obviously, with it being Huntsville, but they had a booth.

So Daniel also being a NASA employee and then also founding this nonprofit,

he was kind of double duty.

So he had to go back in and pick up some of the stuff that was left

because we thought we were going to come back.

So I went in there to help them carry stuff out and I can attest that it was very muddy,

very dangerous.

I mean, it was just us walking there and it was so slippery.

I mean, you had to be careful where you stepped.

So obviously getting that many people back in there,

somebody's going to fall, somebody's going to get hurt.

Right.

So it was the right call to cancel Sunday.

I'm surprised they did it Saturday.

And I, you know, we say this during the show and we've said it before.

The last thing in the world they want to do is cancel, you know.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And I know Huntsville and we'll hear from Daniel, you know, he and Charlotte lived there, obviously.

This was a big deal.

It's the first one, the entire city.

I know from the mayor on down really wanted this thing to happen.

So I'm guessing they did everything they could to make it happen.

Oh, yeah.

And we kind of stuck around most of the day, Sunday, looking at social media and the internet,

seeing if maybe there was going to be a late, a last minute announcement of a concert pop-up,

like what Moon River did with Chattanooga.

And of course, as we know, that takes a lot of, I mean, it's like lightning striking to get

everything to fall into place to get that to run smoothly.

Yeah.

We'll send a link to that if you haven't heard it.

Obviously it brags on our hometown, Chattanooga, but it's a pretty amazing story of

how you can transition and move thousands of people and several bands and equipment

and from one site to another.

So yeah, there's lots of news.

I mean, there's the Chappell-Rone story, which again, I want to wait for Brian.

Brian, if you've listened to the show, has become a huge Chappell-Rone fan.

So I know he's our resident fan.

He'll have the comments.

He'll also have, again, his take on going down there.

And then, like I said, I've talked to some other people who had a blast.

I mean, and that's kind of, you know, what I'm taking away.

What I've heard is it was a cool event.

It was just a shame that it got rained out.

It's a shame.

I think everybody that I know of that went really did have a good time.

And we're all pretty much thankful that we got one day and we made the most of it.

We had some great music, some great times.

And I did run into Corey, I don't know if I told you that, a little bit briefly Saturday,

right before everything started.

And he was very excited about this year.

He said he was looking forward to next year.

And, you know, they thought it was going to work out great.

And I guess for the most part it did.

Corey Smith, marketing director with C3, who helped put this thing on.

So we'll have him on again soon, as well as some other people, too.

Talk about sort of state of the industry type of thing.

And obviously what happened at South Star will be part of it.

But anyway, we wanted to do this event.

Yeah, let me shout out Mia, too.

Mia worked for the festival.

She was helping Daniel and Charlotte coordinate entry and set up for their booths.

But met her on Sunday and she's a fan of the show.

So shout out.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening.

Speaking of fans of the show or characters, it's probably better.

I won't presume they're fans.

But a bunch of the people that we're about to interview,

and Rush, you're right there in the middle of them,

are should be names if you've listened to this show or the real Roobuffs or any of the others.

Should be names that you recognize.

And that's part of why we wanted to do this.

It's that and to me, again, we keep saying it, but it's this community thing.

It's pretty amazing to me that because of these festivals,

we've gotten to see a lot of great music,

but we've also gotten to meet a lot of great people.

And it's no small thing.

So all right, anything else?

Are you ready to get into this?

Let's get into this.

I'm excited to revisit this.

This was fun.

All right, here's what do you call it?

Couch Star?

Okay, here's a little Couch Star.

You guys, everybody that's in this picture,

we all share a love for music festivals.

We share a love for Bonnaroo.

I think everybody in this picture would say Bonnaroo

and music festivals in general changed our lives.

Am I wrong?

You're just not.

You're not wrong.

I mean, I'm serious about that when I say it,

but man, what a screwed up weekend.

I'm Barry.

The guy in the hat with the microphone is Russ.

You know us from the What Podcast.

Front and center is Daniel.

Right next to Russ is Sharla from the Real Roobust.

If you don't know him, you should.

Who else is in the room?

We have Evan Bonnaroo here with us.

We have Chloe and we have Shayna.

All serious, serious Bonnaroo people.

The reason we're talking is because South Star was this weekend in Huntsville.

I don't even know where to start, but I'll try.

I was supposed to be there, planned to be there, wanted to be there.

Literally had my car packed three times

and was at the front door with keys and events changed.

Russ, as is typical, left on August of 1999

and moved in and has been there since.

I mean, all right, let's do this.

Well, I wasn't even supposed to be here.

Remember?

Yeah, that's right.

My flight to Florida got canceled, so I wasn't, you know,

that's the only reason I made it to Huntsville.

You were supposed to come, but you're in Chattanooga.

I was supposed to come and then my family decided

we were going to have my mother's 93rd birthday on Friday.

That changed.

Saturday, my daughter said, hey, we don't have power.

We're coming up.

We're bringing two grandbabies, three and seven months.

So that changed Saturday.

And then this morning I was, they were going down to Chattanooga market.

I was walking out the door and got a text saying, hey, Sunday's canceled.

That's the long and short, quick version.

It's not about me. That's not why we're doing this.

You guys are in Huntsville.

I want to know about South Star.

Gosh, this is what can happen, right?

It got rained out.

There's just no other way to say it.

Yeah, we're getting rain right now.

Yeah.

Well, technically half of it was rained out.

We did have a full day Saturday.

They had to cut the opening entrance time a little short just because of weather.

But Saturday, albeit muddy, was a success.

I think everyone would agree.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

I want to do this.

Daniel, I want to, if Russell hand you the microphone, because Daniel, you and

Charlotte live in Huntsville.

This has been a big thing.

This has been on your radar.

You guys were so kind to host so many, half a dozen people who were listening to this

podcast.

We all know that.

We're half a dozen people who are listening to this podcast.

We all know each other, whether we do or don't, right?

It's all, again, it's that Bonnaroo connection.

What's this week?

I mean, I know what it's been like for me.

What's it been like for you guys?

Because you have been planning this for a long, long time.

So I'll let you both please describe this weekend.

Well, I'll start with this morning.

So I hadn't even got out of bed and I saw the text and the social media update that

hey, we're going to have to call off today.

It's just too muddy.

And I didn't feel bad about it.

Like from our perspective, we had a great day yesterday.

I got to see a couple of acts I had never seen before.

And we have about a dozen of our friends over.

We've done this before.

This isn't our first rodeo.

I'm thinking about back in twenty one, at least we got half of a festival with this

one as opposed to no festival like it was in twenty one.

So I was kind of indifferent about it.

I felt just fine.

There was even a small part of me that was a little relieved because I was really looking

forward to seeing like the goo goo dolls because 1999 Daniel really wanted to see them.

But I was not looking forward to being stuck in the mud.

Last night when we were leaving Gwen Stefani, I realized how bad it was getting because me

and Taco were walking out and it felt like we were walking through six inches of mud

no matter where we went.

And it was kind of at that moment I was like, yep, tomorrow is probably not happening.

But at the same time, I've got to brag on all of the safety crew and everybody who did

manage to pull off a good event for that one day in spite of the challenges that they had.

They knew it was going to be soggy.

They knew we were all going to be walking on a sponge, but they worked with the city

of Huntsville and made it manageable for that one day.

And it was tough.

I'm not going to lie.

But that was completely outside of their control.

And I think when you throw an event in September, as we all unfortunately know,

this is a possibility.

So they kind of factor that into their plan.

So I don't think anybody should come away from this and think South Star wasn't successful.

I think it was actually very impressive that they did what they did given the challenges

that they had thrown in front of them.

Here, I'll give it to my better half so she can tell you what she thought.

Oh, absolutely.

I agree with Daniel.

I mean, when they very first announced it immediately, we had people messaging us and

saying, oh my goodness, can I stay with you?

We're coming to town.

We're flying from New York.

We're flying from Salt Lake.

Iowa, Chloe over here, Chicago, Shana.

Can we stay with you?

Absolutely.

Our house is always open.

That's why we have a full bus that sleeps five or six people.

Come down.

It's fine.

We built a whole shower in the backyard and I don't think anyone has got to use it.

I think one person used it maybe.

Look over at Ross.

He's got that possum grin.

Well, I was going to say, I mean,

I just agree with everything that Daniel said.

I mean, we had a great time yesterday.

I do wish that I had got out more and explored the festival a little bit more yesterday

because I kept thinking, oh, I'll do it tomorrow.

I'll do it tomorrow.

So I do wish that I did more yesterday with the time that we did have,

but it was great from everything I saw yesterday.

It was absolutely fantastic.

So I do think they did a great job with the one day that they had.

I'm a little bit disappointed to see some of the locals commenting online

about the cancellation, but I mean, we've all been there, done that.

I mean, it's not our first rodeo.

So we know what it is and we'll get through it.

Well, and thank you both.

And that's, and Russ knows for me, I was, I mean, again, I don't want to make it about me,

but I was coming down for the hug and the howdy.

I was coming down because you guys were hosting this.

I mean, I was coming down to see the music.

I wanted to see it.

We've all talked about it.

It's what we do on our show.

It's what you guys do, but it's the community thing.

And the fact that you guys have, you know, what, a half a dozen, some people, I guess,

have left by now or been in and out.

I hated missing Friday because you had a big dinner, right?

I mean, I hated missing that.

Yeah, there was about 30 people here.

It was, it was huge.

See, that's what I'm talking about.

And we're going to have a couple of people, our cohost, Bryan Stone,

you'll notice I should have said is not on here.

He went yesterday.

Didn't stay very long.

I believe he packed his car, drove to Huntsville two hours,

paid for parking $40, stood in line to get his wristband,

and then decided, no, this is too much.

He got in his car and went back home.

Didn't go anywhere else.

Didn't even like stop in a bar or, you know, restaurant or anything.

He just went straight back home.

And so for you people who were picking on me, cause I can hear it,

cause I didn't even do that.

That was my nightmare.

That's what I was not wanting to do yesterday or today, though I would not.

I mean, I literally was out the door and got the text.

So, but this is what can happen.

And this is not to pick on anybody.

You can't plan for this kind of rain.

Russ, you sent a couple of pictures, I assume we'll post a bunch of them.

Oh yeah.

I got lots of pictures and stuff from the site.

And yes, having been there today, we went up there to pick up some stuff just to bring it home,

but it is awful.

It's a mud pit.

It's actually not as bad in every area.

We saw some spots that still had grass and we thought, well, that doesn't look so bad.

But the main areas like the entrance and the main stage is completely muddy.

So this was the right thing for them to just.

We heard that.

If you guys remember Bonnaroo, was it 21?

21.

Hurricane that came through and everybody's like, I can see grass.

Yeah, but you can't see the truck that stuck up to its axle wheels.

Yeah.

That didn't make it through the, anyway, I'm not here.

I don't want to pick on, I'm honestly surprised that they did yesterday.

And that's really, I think what I want to sort of ask you guys about,

because yesterday sounded like a lot of fun.

I mean, it sure was.

What's that?

I was going to say pass the mic to them.

Let's hear it.

Oh yeah.

See you.

Oh, about yesterday.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I want to hear about yesterday.

It was great, right?

I mean, what you saw.

It was so much fun.

And I mean, you know, like we've said, this isn't our first rodeo.

We've been to festivals where it's been canceled.

We didn't even get a go in and we've been to shows where it's been raining.

And so, you know, we had a blast in the rain.

Like I think during Luda, it stopped raining for a little bit and I started sweating.

And I was like, what is happening right now?

Oh my goodness.

But, you know, I had a blast and like walking out.

I'm not that tall.

If you don't know, I'm pretty short, but like it was walking through the trenches to get out in that mud.

And so if you think about it from like the whole city's perspective of canceling it today,

doing one day alone, that's awesome.

Like there's going to have to be a lot of funds to go in and fix those grounds.

And the fact that they even did it one day alone was amazing.

The staff that was there was doing the best that they could with what was provided.

And, you know, shout out to all of them.

We rocked our booth.

I'm going to say it.

I'll toot the horn for all of us.

We rocked our booth.

Had a lot of people that came by and, you know, dancing in the rain is fun.

If you don't like to dance in the rain, you should really reconsider it.

Because I had some of the best time in my life yesterday, just dancing around,

like completely forgot that it was raining for a while.

And then when it stopped, I'm like, wait, wow, it stopped raining.

Whoa.

But yeah, I don't know.

I had a blast.

I loved it.

I wouldn't have changed it for what we had.

I'm so glad for what we did get.

Well, talk about talk about your booth for a minute.

Because this was a big event for Totem, right?

Absolutely.

Yes.

So this was our technically first festival.

Yes.

Correct.

Of having a booth.

And so we were able to have, yeah, for sure.

We had individuals that we were able to come by, meet with us,

network, and learn more about Totem, as well as we had a lot of people that came by,

was making keychains, wanted to learn more about what we're doing.

And being able to share that and then connect.

And as we're out in the crowd, a lot of us were wearing our Totem t-shirts.

And I had people stop.

And they're like, wait, you have a booth here.

Can you tell us some more about it?

Like, we haven't made it to the booth.

Yeah, they're like, we haven't made it to the booth.

And I'm like, well, here's my 30-second elevator pitch for you.

And then follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to learn more information.

So just being able to keep it out.

Well, go ahead and give it.

What is it?

Give the 30-second because we know.

Oh, do the 30-second pitch?

Yeah.

What is Totem?

Oh, absolutely.

So if you're not familiar with what Totem is,

Totem is the opportunity to experience music.

And we are working with mentor mentee ship programs.

And so if you're new to the festival community or you've been going to festivals,

you can get paired with individuals that can help kind of show you the ropes.

Give you some tips and tricks of how to survive a camping festival or if it's a city festival,

as well as working on our international program that we're rolling out in a few years.

And my brain just totally drew a blank on the third one scholarship.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

The rain's getting to me, I swear.

But we also have a scholarship program.

So, you know, there's underserved individuals that would like to get into the community,

whether it's through festival production behind the scenes or just working in that environment,

helping open that doorway to them, because really Totem is passing that baton on to the

future generations that's coming into the community because what we are is a community.

And, you know, all of us sitting here, I've met through Bonnaroo and that's a community.

A music festival is a festival, yes, but there's so much more than just the music.

And that's really what it's all about.

And so if you would like to know more, please follow us on our socials.

Can you, can you?

So good.

And that was my pitch.

So come see us next year at all of the festivals.

We'll be announcing more.

Can you hand the microphone over to Evan?

Yeah, let's hear from Evan Bonnaroo.

I think in general, if you put things in perspective, we were lucky to have anything

at all this weekend.

There are places in Georgia and the Carolinas that are under water.

So I'm so glad you brought that up.

We have to kind of ask.

Well, Asheville is just crushed.

It is a miracle and a half that we were allowed to have, you know, 20 shows yesterday.

So, and we were all kind of reacting to kind of PTSD from 2021.

And we saw the hurricane map earlier this week and we were like, you got me freaking kidding me.

I mean, my original flight was canceled on Friday.

So if I didn't move my flight, we weren't even going to be able to be here.

So we were a little luckily proactive to do that.

On another note, we, everyone brought it for the performances.

If we could start talking about that.

First of all, James Addiction dropped out.

Bummer.

They threw in Tom Morello.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

That'll work.

I would say we might have gotten an improvement on that edition.

He brought it.

TLC, Ludacris.

What a party.

What a party.

Who else did we have?

Gwen Stefani, Headliner, Juvenile.

Jim Blossom.

Jim Blossom.

Yeah.

Oh, and Shinedown.

Hell of a show.

Hell of a show.

A lot of pyro fireworks.

I did not expect that.

So for, I don't know, Huntsville is like the top of the list for a lot of performances or like artists like that.

So I was really impressed that they, everyone really, really showed up for the festival.

I think the performances were really top notch.

I wanted her to hand you the mic and I'm going to ask Chloe to take it here in a little bit.

Or remember, did you just hand it to Chloe?

So we'll go there.

This is what I mean.

So Russ and I live in the Chattanooga area.

Daniel and Charlotte and Huntsville.

Shayna, I don't know where you, where is home?

I just moved to Chicago.

So originally Southern Indiana, but I just relocated to Chicago.

But nowhere near Huntsville.

No.

No, and Evan, you're in New York, right?

Chloe, you're way out west somewhere.

I'm in Iowa.

But that's good.

Midwest.

Say hi to Kaitlyn Clark next time you see her.

Say less.

I love her.

I just want to butt in real quick.

I also had, they're not here, but a couple of friends of mine from Vancouver, Canada,

they saw the lineup when I sent it to them and they said,

well, we never thought we'd say it, but we're going to Alabama.

Said no one ever.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So yeah, they had a great time.

So, you know, Vancouver, that's pretty far to come to a music festival, but,

you know, despite the rain and the cancellation, they had a great time too.

All right.

And so to tie it all together, Evan, Shina, Chloe, your friends from Vancouver,

these festivals are not just local.

That's number one.

Number two, this community thing.

And that's really, that's what's killing me that I missed this weekend the most is,

you know, I told my wife, I was like, I'm going because I want to see these people.

It's the hug and howdy thing again.

And I know it sounds trite, but that's so meaningful to me.

The music is great, but this community thing has become unbelievable.

And Chloe, you do this a bunch.

Talk about that.

I mean, it's real, right?

It's so real.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's just crazy to think like I've started going to Bonnaroo in 2013.

And like, just as you go, not only are you going to the festival and having a great time,

but like you're meeting people, you're like collecting people, like infinity stones,

like, like festival Thanos, you know, and over Pokemon trainers, I don't know.

But it's just crazy to think like I was talking to my husband last night and I was sending

him pictures of everyone here.

He's like, I've never met a single one of these people.

Like these are just random people you found in the dust at Bonnaroo and you're having

the time of your life at a festival in Alabama.

Like that's, we got to get him down here, but it's just crazy to think that like, I

would not have known any of these people had I not gone to Bonnaroo or like been involved

with the community on like Twitter and Instagram.

Like it's so special and like we'll travel for each other.

Like how cool is that to just be together and like make memories and see music.

It's just, it's so cool.

And at an event that got basically, you know, tip one could argue destroyed, but it didn't.

And that's the point.

Everybody makes it makes it work.

Right.

It was, it was really interesting seeing people like wake up this morning.

Cause there's probably like a dozen of us here and just this like rolling knowledge

of like people finding out that it was canceled.

Like Shana crawled out of her tent and I like witnessed her learning this information.

And it was like a quick, Oh man, that stinks. But then it was like, we have a free day together.

I think someone said like, we're playing with house money today.

Like we were, yeah, we're already having a great day.

Cause we're together.

There it is.

It just changed our plans.

It didn't make them.

Yeah, there it is.

Daniel called the Daniel.

What you called me.

What we, we ended up down at the Chattanooga market where I got this great shirt.

So I'm happy.

I got a cool shirt.

I know.

And I'm, and you calling it like, I'm not even mad about it.

And I got it.

I understood completely.

You know, you know, like Chloe pretty much just said it all.

We, we learned how to do this in 21.

Unfortunately, uh, we taught with Lindsay a while back about how we put that whole

thing together on his property.

You've been there.

You know, the deal over there.

Apparently there's still legends of your night over there.

I'm trying to remember that joke, man.

I'm trying.

Nobody knows.

I am so trying.

I have two ideas, but we'll talk about that.

I mean, uh, beyond what Chloe was talking about, there's a lot of people that weren't

even staying here that came for our party here at our house on Friday that we were

hanging out like Mitchell.

Everybody knows Mitchell from Atlanta.

He was here with King of Pops.

And of course we're having fun with him as always.

There's a lot of stories.

Maybe we can't share while we're recording about Mitchell, but that one other thing I

want to say though is I said this already, but I'm very impressed with what a lot of

the same crew from Rue did with this.

Like Evan said, they still threw half of the festival together.

Um, I want to give a shout out to Mia, who was our contact on the Totem side, who got

us very set.

We had done this kind of quasi officially out in the campgrounds with Totem last year,

but this was our first real, you know, big boy, big girl thing.

Like Chloe was talking about where we're like on the screen featured and everything,

and they were so nice to us.

It was great to make that happen.

And I really hope that they continue this with the city of Huntsville.

Some of us have talked already about this and in prior episodes of y'all and us about

Huntsville is growing with this kind of thing with the Orion and now this and many other

things.

I hope that the powers that be aren't discouraged by just some bad luck and bad timing this

weekend, because what we saw was very, very good.

They took about a fourth of center route and plopped it into the middle of Huntsville and

it worked fantastic.

Everything was just out of their control.

So I hope that they're not discouraged and they hope I hope they're not discouraged.

I hope that they continue doing this because they really have something here.

Huntsville is kind of in the early stages of becoming a great music town.

And I want to see this thing continue because in spite of the bad luck, I do consider it

a really big success.

I, I, we're, we're going to have some guests.

I hope on the What Podcast coming up about that.

I don't want to, like I said, this was today was not about throwing anybody.

I mean, they did what they had to do.

I don't want it to be negative.

So we'll talk about the logistics of it and what went right and what went wrong and all

that.

So, um, basic from all of you guys, and it's hard to answer because of what just happened.

It felt like a good event.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everyone.

Yeah.

Everyone agrees.

Yeah.

All right.

Uh, uh, I had a question for you, Sean.

And I think you were going to say something, Sean.

You had, you raised your hand like, okay.

And then I'll toss it back to you.

I would say, I think we had a great time because we were prepared.

Sometimes I forget that like when we go to Bonnaroo, we know what to expect and we like

to plan not for the worst, but for a lot of different outcomes.

So most of us had like boots.

We had our ponchos, like we were, we took the weather very seriously.

And I forget in city festivals, sometimes people are not as used to that or like don't

take it as seriously.

So I think maybe if there were any like detractors that didn't have a great time, like maybe

they didn't, they weren't ready.

Well this is what we're trying to put a dent in with totem.

So we can better prepare people that are new to this.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It's funny you say that.

And I want to get into it later for another show, but yeah, the whole city thing, I literally

was out the door three times.

And that's what I'm saying.

When it's a, you know, it's a Bonnaroo, you're there.

I'm either walking or I'm not.

It's a city festival.

Like, man, am I going to go get in the car and make the trip or where am I going to park

and all that?

So it's a whole nother thing, but we'll, we'll deal with that later.

Yes ma'am.

Oh, what are we answering?

Oh, I thought you had, you were, I thought you had raised your hand.

Oh, I just raised the mic.

I'll ask you a question.

I'll see you up.

Okay.

You did travel a long way.

Even if you take the coming to hang with friends part out of the equation, you did

travel a long way.

What is your impression of Huntsville and the happiness that we got to see?

So you know, if you take that away, I've never been to Huntsville before, transparently.

This was my first time here and I was a bit geeked out because like there's so much here

that even in the short window of time that I'm here, I will be back because there's so

much that I want to see.

And with the festival having one day as Chloe said, you know, we come prepared and I think,

you know, not just at Bonnaroo, but when you're there, I always think, cause I over prepare

on everything and I'm like, man, if I forget something, somebody will have it.

And that's how it was with us yesterday.

Like I had my camel back full of like medicine, chapstick, eye drops, like towels, flow stars,

all these random toys.

And it's like, I just prepared for it.

And bringing that down, also factoring in all that drive time, it's still well worth

it.

Well worth it for me.

Yeah.

So transparently I was driving through the hurricane and I would have never thought that

the more south I went, the better the weather was getting.

It was transparently Kentucky was the worst state I drove through for rain.

And I was like, what is happening right now?

But it was well worth it.

I would do it again in a heartbeat.

You know, and I always say this phrase from when I was younger, I had some friends that

weren't the best friends, you know?

I would cross oceans for people that would not cross a puddle for me.

I would cross through a hurricane to come hang out with these individuals because I

was driving through it.

I would gladly come back and do it again.

Yeah, I think that's it.

I think that's the point that I wanted to emphasize today.

I didn't think of it that way.

And Russ, I'll bring it back to you.

I don't know of anybody who can be happy doing whatever than Russ.

You're looking at quite a few here, I think.

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

As soon as the news came down that my flight was canceled, I think my next text was to

Daniel to be like, hey, is there room in your driveway?

Because I've got the bus packed and I'll just drive on down.

Yeah, Charlotte, whatever you do, don't give him a key.

Just don't.

This is the first time a hurricane has ever enabled someone to go to a music festival.

Yeah, there was no one happier than Russ on Thursday.

Yeah.

You know, oh, I can't make the wedding.

I'm so sorry.

Hopefully his niece is not listening, but he was happy.

He was like, this works out well for me.

It actually did.

It's been hilarious because for like two weeks, Ewan Stone talked about how you're coming

down here and he's stuck.

Yeah, yeah.

And flipped the script.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was having major FOMO, especially like, okay, they announced Tom Morello.

I was like, oh damn, I really want to go see Tom Morello.

Yeah.

I can't believe you guys get to go and I don't.

And then so the tables are turned.

Yeah.

How the turntables.

How the turntables.

Yeah.

So along those lines, there's still much to talk about.

I know we got the, we all got the email tennis, right?

That it was canceled.

Yep.

And then shortly followed by they're going to refund a Sunday ticket, one day tickets

and half day.

Again, we've talked about that back during the moon river days.

That's C3 doing the right thing.

You know, it leaves a good taste.

I hope for, for people.

It's still not right.

You know, every we've talked about it, everybody looks and they think, Oh, there's green grass.

We can make it.

I've got boots.

No big deal.

They don't want to cancel.

The last thing they want to do is cancel.

Oh, absolutely.

And I promise they looked at every option they could to like keep this thing going.

But having been there, it, no, it needed to be canceled.

The last thing you want is somebody to slip in the mud, get hurt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Me, the three of us, we went to go pick up some stuff from the booth.

And yeah, we just carefully had to trek in through the mud, which was worse today.

And it's even raining more today.

So if they had gone along with it today, you know, we would get even more money.

So that's the thing.

And, and, and Daniel and Charlotte special, you guys are, you know, not only live in Huntsville,

but you're connected.

I think, uh, you know, people, they wanted this thing to happen.

I, I have to believe every, uh, every stone was, they wanted it to happen.

Right?

Well, yeah.

I mean, absolutely.

You guys talked about this a while back, like how this was kind of a collaboration between,

you know, the people that do Rue in the city.

Um, yeah, they badly, badly, badly wanted this to happen.

And it's a damn shame.

It's just a lot of bad luck.

I like I said before, I'm just beating a dead horse at this point.

I really hope they can just consider this bad luck and continue to make it happen.

We need more stuff like this in this town, just like you guys have had a lot of things

in Chattanooga.

It had been well over 15 years, right?

Since we had big spring jam here in town.

I think the last big spring jam was around, I would say there 2009 or 2011 ish somewhere

in that timeframe.

Yeah.

And that was great.

Give it back.

Give it back.

I have a question.

Please.

Not only because Charlotte, I think you and I, I feel connected to you because you feel

such a connection to this community.

What is it?

I mean, you got to have all these people in your house.

Are you ready for him to leave?

Or how do we get taco out of your house?

No, I'm not ready for him to leave.

They can move in.

I don't like, no.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I'm sad.

Like four, I guess four people already left and I was sad.

I was teary eyed.

Yeah.

That's real.

Right?

I mean, that's the thing.

I mean, I go to music festivals to see my friends, to connect with my friends and I

only get to do that once a year.

So this is a reunion.

This is a family reunion, literally a reunion.

Yeah.

It is.

All right.

Because like last night I took Evan to this grateful dead theme bar.

Why don't you tell him what happened?

We got to see his future.

So we walk into the bar and campus 805, right?

Well first we stopped at straight to L Brooklyn had her own beer.

Beer made specifically for South star, which was, it was such a good sour.

I forgot what the flavor was, but it was awesome.

And then first, this is the first time I've ever like been in a compound like this.

I was like, so it's kind of like a choose your own adventure of, of a couple of different

bars as a brewery.

There was like a karaoke bar and then Dan was like, Hey man, let's sneak over here.

I want to show you this place.

And it was, um, it's called St. Stephen, which is a grateful dead song.

And the owner of the bar, I walk in and I see a guy in a big green shirt and on the

back of his shirt, it just says Evan on it.

This cool acoustic band playing and they kept saying, uh, Hey, thanks to Evan for having

us out.

And by the end of the night, I was doing shots with Evan.

So Skyler, uh, turns me and goes, you know, this is what your life is going to be in about

30 years.

So yeah, it was a really cool time.

They had, uh, like cool, grateful dead merge, dead and company, Jack white stuff.

So, um, totally up my alley.

So shout out to St. Stephen, Evan and Dan for, uh, showing me a cool, cool night.

Very cool.

All right.

What am I not asking?

Uh, by the way, it just occurred to me, Charlotte, the key is to tell it, uh, tell Russ that

there's no more PBR that'll get him out of there.

I brought my own.

I'm good.

Yeah.

All right.

What else?

Uh, guys, I mean, thank you for doing this.

I'm so sorry.

I missed.

I can't even tell you Friday night sounded like a blast.

We were supposed to have my mother's birthday party.

When, when, when it's all kinds of, you know, excuses, but I'm so sorry.

I missed the weekend.

Sounds like you guys had a blast and I hope we do it again next year.

Absolutely.

If you guys want, I've been shooting it while I'm here.

Come to Hulu.

We next month with me.

Granted that Swanee is okay from the hurricane.

I I'll be there.

Maddie's going to be there.

I'm really pushing reunion.

Number three.

Come on guys.

You want to do it?

I know you do.

Love it.

Love it.

Yeah.

Honestly.

I mean, let me have a totem booth.

I'll do it for free.

Just let me be a vendor.

We are looking into totem over there next year.

I'll be there.

All right.

What else?

Anything?

Anybody?

Anybody?

Anybody have any last thoughts?

They want to say happy.

Happy.

We're anyways.

I will.

I will share this because if you do listen, you went to electric forest.

Ludacris is set at South Star was so phenomenal.

He was great at forest, but that set yesterday, I told everyone in the car, I said that was

the best Luda set I've ever seen in my life.

Oh yeah.

Oh, we need to shout out that TLC show.

That was amazing.

Okay.

So Barry, I'm going to make you very jealous for a moment.

So last night at TLC, I don't know why I expected.

So these days I'm getting in the habit of not looking up a YouTube clips of people's

sets because I want to be surprised.

I don't want to be spoiled.

So I had no idea what was going with TLC.

I thought, oh, it's going to be those two ladies in a DJ.

No, they had a full band.

They had backup dancers.

It was amazing.

I think that may have been my favorite set all day yesterday.

Honestly, I was blown away.

Anybody else had favorites?

Yeah, real quick.

Yeah.

Go around the table.

What was your favorite set?

Mine personally was Tom Aurello.

But all day, I was like, that's going to be a tough set to beat.

And then set after set, I was like, damn, everyone is bringing it.

So I was super happy with every performance.

I'm beating dead horse here.

We were spoiled by what we did.

Yeah.

And we'll cut some of that out at the end there to make it fit better.

But the word I heard was nostalgia.

That was the word I heard going in.

And then I heard last night from a couple of people that were there, they were like,

this is a lot of fun.

Didn't expect so much nostalgia.

Does that fit?

Or are you guys all too young?

You're probably too young.

No, no.

It fits.

I was shocked at how many Jen Blossom songs I knew.

And it was like that for just about every artist.

It was like, oh, wow, this song.

So yeah, there was a lot of nostalgia.

There was a lot of the anthems, which is what Cory was talking about trying to bring to

this festival.

For me, Tom Morello was probably the highlight.

But yeah, every act, they really brought it strong performances.

We opened up a pitch for a looter trip.

Oh, that got a little wild.

I thought I was going to drop during that.

I was yelling so hard.

Sorry, I was just ready to talk about TLC because me and Taco were in the back watching

TLC and I was literally crying and dancing and it was the greatest experience.

Oh my God.

I had the Unpretty CD single.

So that was the highlight of my night.

Nice.

I think I was with you.

You were with me.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

All right, Chloe.

Chloe, what was your pick for yesterday?

Dead tie between Luda and TLC.

TLC was genuinely insane.

They're like one of those bands where you're like, oh yeah, I know some TLC songs and they'd

play one.

You're like, oh my God, I know that.

It was just constant.

Yeah, that was really good.

All right.

I'm going to have to agree that mine was a tie, but I will say, I think we, during Luda,

he kept saying, who's the number one fan?

I think we scared the people in front of us.

When Baby came on, I looked at Skylar and I go, oh my God, I'm seeing spots.

I'm screaming so hard.

I'm going to drop right now.

Then we just kept yelling.

I was like, open up the mud pits.

I think they got scared.

I was genuinely going to start mashing them.

I was like, oh no, no, no, no.

It was so fun.

TLC was so good.

Gwen Stefani, oh my God.

I forgot she was third.

So good.

Yeah, we do need to talk about Gwen because she closed the festival out.

She was the main headliner.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

And again, you're like, oh, I know this song, I know this song.

And she had a full dancers on stage.

It was really quite a good performance.

A lot more no doubt than I thought there would have been.

Yeah, a lot more no doubt.

I do want to add, the stage quality production was so good.

Looking at the screens and everything, I was standing there genuinely so impressed, especially

for a first fest.

I was like, this quality is so good.

I loved it.

I could hear very well from each stage and just seeing the screen production, I could

clearly see what was going on on the screen.

I've been at some festivals where I'm like, what is on the screen?

What's their background?

But it was so clear.

It was so good.

I don't know if you guys felt the same, but I loved it.

Loved it.

Yeah.

And I just remembered also during that Tom Morello set, we did a tribute to Chris Cornell.

That was really cool.

Yeah, it was beautiful.

Nice.

One more thing.

I ran into Sue, who was running the photo pin and everything.

So I just want to shout her out because I know Barry.

Yeah, thank you.

I met her.

She's a sweetheart.

She's awesome.

And I texted her today.

I tried not to bother her this week and I was like, I'm so sorry.

And she's like, I can't believe we didn't see each other.

But thanks to Sue.

Thanks to everybody.

And we're going to have some of the...

Yeah, yeah.

We're going to have some C3 people on.

I can't wait to talk about this and everything else because it's such a...

This is part of what happens.

So we'll have those conversations later, but I'm glad you brought up Sue and I'm glad you

met her too because she's awesome.

Yeah.

Speaking of mutual C3 friends, I ran into Brad Barker for about five or 10 minutes before

everything got started and he seemed to be interesting.

Very interesting.

Why isn't he pulling me back?

Oh yeah.

Cory, Bonnaroo needs to follow this woman on Twitter.

We've been campaigning for this for a long time, by the way.

Why isn't he calling you back?

Is that what you said?

Yeah.

Brad seemed to be in good spirits.

He was talking a little bit about the good relationship that they had with the city.

That gave me a lot of optimism for this to further be a thing in the future.

Good.

Good, good.

Shout out your Twitter so that you can get followed.

At Shana Bradley, S-H-A-I, not a Y because why are we asking all these questions?

S-H-A-B-R-A-D-L-E-Y.

Brad, we basically have the same name, last name.

Come on.

I emailed Bonnaroo to support and sent you a screenshot.

You have it.

Just love me, Brad.

You're in my bio.

I put the account.

Come on.

Please follow her back then.

Yeah.

All right.

So there you go.

The thing I come away with and I spoke with Daniel yesterday morning.

He was like, you know what?

I'm not even mad about it.

A lot of great things happened.

We made the best of it, which is the lesson that everybody seems to learn from some of

these things.

You can't control the weather.

Correct.

Yeah.

I don't think anyone was really mad or upset because we all knew that this was a possibility

and we planned for it.

Like they said, you could kind of see as the morning progressed, people started to wake

up and walk in the delayed finding out that, okay, it was canceled.

Everybody's reaction was pretty much like, oh, I know.

Yeah.

Oh, well.

Yeah.

What are we going to do now?

Yeah.

What are we going to do now?

So yeah, I think we'll get into again next week and probably even beyond.

We'll talk more about that type of thing and how to, I hate to use pivot, but how to, you

know, something happens, you got to make do.

So the other thing that I heard, not just from that group, but from some other people

was the idea of the nostalgia, how much fun it was to be sitting in a crowd, reliving,

you know, childhood or whatever.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Your nineties vibe.

And I want to talk about that later when we get Brian back on, because I know he had mentioned

sort of the sustainability, you know, festivals and how you book them.

Right.

Plus nothing says nineties vibe like Bryan Stone.

He's still dressing.

As he says, it comes back around.

He just got to hang on.

That's a good point.

All right.

Well, so there you go.

You know, like the festival, like you guys, we sort of made do with what we were given,

right?

Yeah.

We were presenting interviews and talking about what a great weekend it was.

And I was going to be bummed because I missed it and look what happens.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thanks everybody.

Hit that like and subscribe button and all that and check back with us this weekend.

We'll have more about South Star with Brian when he comes back and some other guests.

And we might even start lining up some other bands.

I've got a couple that have reached out and want to come on, so I'm looking forward to

that.

So sounds good.

All right.

Thank you guys so much.