Keeping up with which festivals are happening and which are being canceled or postponed can be difficult enough, but Brad, Barry and Lord Taco have a little fun on The What Podcast playing Fake or Festival, a game that asks which is real and which is made up.
The What Podcast, which bands this year that matter. Welcome in. It's Lord Taco. It's Barry Courter, Brad Steiner on a action packed festival weekend. Barry Courter, I'm very excited this week because I get to go through my Bonnaroo picks. I get to share the bands I want to see at Bonnaroo. I'm very, very excited. Yeah, we put those on hold, didn't we? Yeah. Long time no chatty chat. Guys, how's everything? How's everyone? Been a couple of weeks. Been good. I've been good. Yeah. I want to recap. I had the good fortune to talk to Sylvanasso. Well, that's what I wanted to talk about. Tell me all about it. I am heartbroken, crestfallen that I did not get to be a part of that because I love them so much. Yeah, it was great. They were very cool. I thought it was really great. We got both of them. Sometimes we just get one member of a band. You got Sylvanasso. We got Sylvanasso. Thankfully, I didn't ask which was which. No, we had Amelia and Nick. They were great. Yeah. Barry will never, never live down his interview with Tony, Tony, Tony. He was trying to figure out which one is Tony and with an I and an E and all hell broke loose. What were the big takeaways from a chat with Sylvanasso, the headliner for the super jam? Anything new? Anything that came up from note? Just what how they were going to do it. They were going to kind of she wanted to have the acts do sort of their favorite wedding songs, which I thought was kind of funny. Favorite wedding songs. Huh? Yeah. Maybe not wedding song, but the song you would sing at karaoke at a wedding reception. Yeah. OK. Oh, man, because who doesn't love a wedding receptions? Yeah. Be karaoke. Yeah, it was good. What a theme. I know. Well, what was what was her pick if she had, you know, the quintessential wedding song? I don't think we ever got that. I don't think she revealed what hers was. We also didn't. And it's my fault. I didn't think of it till after we didn't really ask who who all the players were going to be. I'm not sure they were going to tell us there were some things they were going to keep kind of to themselves in case it happens again. Well, that would have been another question. Will they be back for twenty twenty two? Don't know. They were a little ambivalent about it. They said, yeah, I mean, we'll pick up the phone if they call. But they weren't like, we'll pick up the phone if they call. Yeah, they'll answer. They'll take the call. But they'd been planning this for a couple of years. That was also interesting. Well, I got to imagine if I went back through some of their sets with the bandwidth that their project they've been doing, you could probably, you know, garner some sort of set list out of them. And then I wonder how much of that would have carried through to the super jam. Well, they did do a show that weekend, right? Didn't they, Russ and had some of the band members saying it was kind of a little bit of they had a little bit of a prompt to super jam. Mm hmm. Yeah. And what they were going to do. So, OK. I also the other one that I miss was Krungman. I was very upset about that because if I'm not mistaken, I have to go back and check. But I mean, shows are getting canceled left and right in New Orleans, but Krungman's coming to town. So I I was really upset about that because, you know, I wanted to, you know, become best friends before they got to town so I could take them to Snake and Jake, which, by the way, I went to Snake and Jake's for the first time ever, guys. This place. Oh my God. Absolutely magic. I am in love with Snake and Jake's. Maybe one of my favorite dive bars in the city. Nice. Why? Tell us about it. Well, there's OK. First, you know, I am on a tour of dive bars in the city. The city is is crawling with them. You can't go two blocks without finding a great neighborhood dive. And you know, Taco knows me. I love dive bars. It's my favorite thing in the world. We've got maybe the greatest bar I've ever been to in my neighborhood. So me and my buddy, Howie, who runs the Howling Wolf, every Saturday we go on a dive bar tour. We do three, four a day. And we popped into Snake and Jake's. Now Snake and Jake's lives in Lohr because if you sit naked at the bar, you can get a free beer. Oh, hang on. That's yeah. Hang on a second. Lord knows Taco needs to save two dollars for a beer. But we we walk in. Nobody is naked, but we walked in because it was so early. Also the other thing is you're supposed to get there at three o'clock in the morning. It's one of those places that's so dimly lit that you walk out and all of a sudden it's eight o'clock in the morning and you had no idea. So we get there really early at seven o'clock and there's nobody there, which is incredible. There's two dogs that join and say hello to us. They're so cute. We talked to the guy to run in the place named Juan and we get to basically just own the place. So there's nobody else there. We would take a little stroll through the backyard. The backyard is incredible. I mean, there's beautiful banana leaves. It doesn't it looks like the most manicured backyard that you could ever find for a dive bar inside. It's totally pitch black and very. You can say goodbye to your love of hams because I've got a beer for you, my friend. Tell Lord Taco. But Schlitz is good. Let's is damn good. They got slips for two dollars and it was tasty. I didn't really I've never had a Schlitz before in my life and I liked it. I don't I don't know who you are or what you've done with Brad. It takes two weeks off and all the hell. I've had slits. It's my dad was a slits drinker. My dad was a beer drinker. If you like slits, you'll love PBR. Yeah, I've heard everyone's talking about it. Yeah. Next next you're going to tell me you're a blatz guy. You know what? If they had blatz, I'll give it a try. I'll give blatz a try. But I thought this let's had a really nice, you know, there is a pepper on the nose and really some some really hot characteristics when you first hit the palate. I just really like I enjoyed it the hell out of it. And we were out of there and eight bucks. It's a good hot afternoon after mowing grass or around a golf beer. I'll give you that also not available in Tennessee. I've never seen a Schlitz there. I used to get it. I haven't looked. It's not something I go looking for to be with you anyway. For those who don't know, and honestly, a lot of people in New Orleans don't even know this, but Snake and Jake's live in lives in lore for the Bonnaroo community because, you know, since day one, there's been a giant barn in the middle of Bonnaroo called the Snake and Jake's Christmas Barn. And it's just so bizarre that Superfly, who started in New Orleans and AC Entertainment in Knoxville, came together to create Bonnaroo in Manchester. And they brought along this bizarrely tiny. I mean, it must be twelve hundred square feet inside of the place. They brought this insanely tiny dive bar from New Orleans and gave them a giant Christmas barn in the middle of center that acts as the late night rave dance party of silent disco ish thing for Bonnaroo. That's just a bizarre thing that only happens at Bonnaroo. Makes sense to me. Yeah, there's a lot of New Orleans, you know, they've got Calliope. There's a lot of influences. Calliope. They have that. No, they didn't bring Calliope. They have Calliope. The name of the street is Calliope. They left that in New Orleans. But it's just a bizarre and specific Bonnaroo thing that I thought that you would enjoy. The other thing that happened since I've been gone. Thank you, Kelly Clarkson, Moon River. You guys had your own little boutique festival in Chattanooga. I guess the weather was fine for that. There was no sort of sense of flooding or anything. No, the weather was gorgeous. If anything, it was too sunny, too, too bakingly hot. But no, it was great. Was that a little steamy? Was that a little hot? It did, boy. It's a Coolidge Park, which has a lot of shade if you go looking for it or none. You know, if you're in the field, you're baking. But there was plenty of shade and breeze to find if you wanted to. I thought it was great. The crowd was huge. Who'd you like? I know who Lord Taco is going to like. Who'd you like? Amethyst. I really liked Amethyst. I went both days. I messed up. My anniversary was that weekend. I went Saturday, not Sunday. I wish I had a flip flop that, but I needed to work, get a story written. And I wanted to see Amethyst, Kia. She was terrific. Was it Overcoats? Amethyst? Were also very good. The Overcoats, yeah. The Overcoats were good. What a name. What a great name for a band. All girl band. They were great. Shovels and Rope. They're good. Who else would? I will refrain from saying my opinion on Shovels and Rope on the off chance it might be on the show one day. I don't want that coming back to bite me in the ass. The Alice in Russell. She was interesting. Yeah. I don't think I saw her set. Old Corp Medicine Show was fun. Now, Taco, did you see the Good Doctor? I saw Dr. Dog. The Good Doctor is in? How good was that show? How good was that show? That was so good. We were right up front. That was the one show I got right up at the front of it for and it was amazing. It was great. There's just a couple of shows that I will not miss no matter where they are, who they are. Parquet Courts and Dr. Dog. There's just some sort of energy around that that is unlike any other show. The thing about that lineup at Moon River is Dr. Dog sticks out like a sore thumb. Yeah. All the artists that they had. It was a little out of left field, but that was probably my favorite show. Well, it was my favorite show from the whole weekend. Yeah, so much fun. The other thing about Dr. Dog that is just like Parquet Courts, hard to sit down and have a session with the albums. I so rarely find myself sitting down at Spotify and listening to a Parquet Courts album or Dr. Dog all the way through, but that show I'm going to see every time. The other thing for me was I got there early Saturday, early afternoon, and it was already full and nobody left. I think that was true of both days in talking to people. How was the vaccine and the negative test? It was not a problem. It was just as easy as showing your ID on the way in. I mean, it didn't delay anything. You felt safe? You felt okay about it all? Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know about you, Russ. I did. There's plenty of space in that area. It's more of a when you get home and you start thinking about it type of thing. You want to go back out into that crowd. People were happily spending money. Our friend Lindsay from the Mini-Roo's was there selling beer. Lindsay from Roo Fitness, host of the Mini-Roo. He was working the VIP tent. She crashed at my house that night. Wow. Another Berry-Roo. Yeah. We talked, but he said people were spending money like crazy and seemed to be happy about it. The thing, though, about Chattanooga is that nobody gives a damn about COVID to begin with. That city just is not necessarily taking much of this seriously. Surprising that somebody walks in with a festival and says, no, you guys are going to be doing this. You're going to be getting back from the public. Well, again, you got to remember more than half of the audience is from out of town. I don't consider it a Chattanooga event the way you do. Yeah, this was not Riverbend. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Lindsay said he saw IDs from literally all over the country. Yeah. I mean, you know, typically I'm going to know a lot of people at an event that size and I recognize very few people other than what podcast listeners and Bonnaroovians. We ran into people all day long. It was kind of funny. Well, the other festival that happened over the weekend, which is ironic because if I'm not mistaken, there was a festival in Atlanta that got canceled and yet Music Midtown continued. Music Midtown, a lot of rain that came through and hurt them. I just have such a problem with Music Midtown overall. You know, we've said this before, Barry, every festival goes for a different target. Everybody's doing their own lane or everybody's in their own lane rather doing their own thing. And I understand Music Midtown has turned into a pop top 40 festival. I mean, I just don't see myself rushing to see the Jonas Brothers headline on a Friday night. They're just not doing it for me, but they had a ton of rain. And the other thing, the other thing, too, I noticed, and this was just on my own. I hate to care too much about my own feed, but man, I saw a lot of fights. Boy, that crowd likes to throw hands. I must have saw three different fights from three different people on social media. That's absurd. That's bizarre. Who's going to music festivals and throwing punches? I don't know. I don't know. That's really strange. So there are a couple of things I want to do today, one of which is a old round or a new round of an old game called Festival or Fake. Oh, yeah. I don't remember what we called it, but I've got a festival, Baker festivals. Yeah. Festival Frank. And then I want to do I want to do a ask the experts a round of questions that I've gotten and you guys have gotten through the last couple of weeks. We will do that on the podcast next. Barry Courter. Lord Taco, I have a game for you. Is it a real festival or a fake festival? These are either a big time music festival in the world or something that came out of Brad guys brain. Are you guys ready to play a stirring and amazing round and with big prizes to to the world? Now, how well researched are you on this? Very well researched. Okay. Better than last time. Because last time last time you denied Barry a point because you said it was a fake festival and it turned out to be a real festival. Well, you know, I did. I just made up words, so I don't know. Well, that's why it's how well research to this. Yeah. You make up the words. I got to go. Did you go? No, man, if I got to go search my own festival words, it's going to be really weird in my search history. The penis penis penis fest. Twenty twenty one. That's how you get on the list. Yeah. Is cock a poo poo in there? All right, let's go with I'm ready. Festival. One festival number one. Astropolis Astropolis. Is that a real festival or a fake festival? Astropolis. Now, we're taking turns. Do we just chime in? I'm going around the room. I want both of you guys to guess Astropolis. I'm going to say no. One answer to one. S1. S I just like putting the punctuation on the ass. I'm going to say yes. OK, yes. The actual answer is a real festival September 18th and 19th in France with headliners Blutch, Coffton and Mad Bin. Very excited about that Mad Bin set. Number two, wonder prism, wonder prism, real festival or fake festival. Say yes again. That sounds like a real festival. OK, that is a fake festival. Fake festival. Yes, very clever. I did not search it. So take your take it away. It's a good name. Somebody is going to come in and be like, that's a real festival. How dare you? I was there. I was on the rail, man. Number three, beat lust, beat lust, beat lust. Is that B E A T or B E E T? It's not a festival. I know we love I know we love our gardens and our vegetables. You didn't say it had to be a music festival. That's a good point. Beat lust. I say no. I say yes. OK, another point for Barry Courter. Barry Courter now has two points. That is a fake festival. I don't. Taco, are you even on the board yet? You still got a big fat zero. I got a big old nothing. Melt Fest, Melt Fest. M E L T Fest, Melt Fest. So I know. Yeah, I'm going to say no. OK, that is a actual festival. It's in an open air museum in Germany. The headliners this year is Disclosure Churches. Not a bad lineup. I like this one. I'm really excited about this one. Riot Grill, Riot Grill. Is it a real fest or fake fest? Riot Grill? No, I think you're trying to trick us. I think because we just had Riot Fest. I'm going to say Riot Grill is not a festival. OK, right. A real festival founded and hosted by Bitchin Kitchen host and celebrity chef Nadia takes three things very seriously. Music, food and grills. I'm sorry, girls. I'm sorry, girls. I don't think we know it's right. Grill, not right. Riot Grill, music, food and grills dubbing itself as an all-femme fest that brings together punk music, comedy and delectable grub in celebration of LGBT rights. I've got a couple of others here just in passing. Cloud Nocturnal, Rockadora, both fake festivals. And then the final one that I didn't get to is Love Saves the Day. Love Saves the Day with The Blast, P-Money and actually a band that I actually like a lot, Slow Tie. That's our real and fake festival for this week on the What Podcast. I got to give that to Barry Courter. Lord Tacho. Congratulations, Barry. Big donut, man. I'll expect my prize package in the mail soon. You know what? You win my friend. You get a What T-shirt, What Podcast T-shirt and sticker. All you got to do is get with Barry Courter and he can get your prize to you. Can I get a Fousey as well? Yeah. Good news is it's already in your garage. Yeah, lucky you. You won't have problems with this prize delivery. So did you guys see this thing on Reddit? I guess I haven't really. I've seen pictures of the overall farm before, but there's a drone footage of somebody flying a drone over the entire farm at Manchester. I thought it was brilliant. And I know that I've seen pictures of the farm in total and I've seen it before, but I've never seen drone fly over it before. Did you guys see this? I think I have not this maybe not the same one you saw, but I've seen one before and I've seen aerial photos. Yeah, because I remember back after first going thinking how big it was and then trying to compare it to our festival, which allegedly had a hundred thousand people every year. I quickly figured out that's not possible. Yeah. Well, that's that's sort of like where I was, I was the first thing that I thought just the vast span of it and how big this this space is. And then I remember like Music Midtown cuts cut their their size in half. They took away the entire hill that was their third stage. But are you saying they moved the hill? They moved the hill in Music Midtown. Barry, do you think that there is a possibility if they if something were to happen this past year and they were to do a smaller footprint? I don't know how Bonnaroo could have done a smaller footprint. I looked at the vast openness of this of this of this space. I just like an exit 111 when you guys went. It's hard to just wall that thing off and turn it into a smaller entity. It's not that hard. They literally close it in and made it smaller. They I mean, they did, but it felt smaller. It felt like now and maybe they didn't do like, you know, as well as they could have as like if they've done it Bonnaroo, like when it shrank to forty eight thousand people that one year, it didn't feel like it to anybody that was there. Now you talk about just center or just the whole farm. Yes, sir. And just specifically center. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They they moved some fencing in and made it smaller for exit 111. Hmm. I mean, OK, it doesn't it felt different, I guess, is what I'm saying. It felt much, much, much smaller. So I mean, feel like Bonnaroo. Yeah, I just I just it would be odd for me to walk into that space and just see sort of like police tape keeping me away from half of the festival. You know, that's what it felt like. You could look, you know, on the other side of it and see what stage and, you know, the other camping area. So again, that's from somebody who's been to both. So maybe, you know, to a new person, it doesn't feel like that at all. The people who did go to the shows like the Avid brothers. I mean, I heard nothing but good things. You know, that was a much smaller one stage. OK, well, see, wasn't wasn't the exit 111, but exit 111, did they just they didn't just use the main stage. They use the other side stages, too, or they just use the one stage as well. Like they did. They had, I want to say, three stages for exit 111. Ah, OK. Wow. Yeah, but the tents. Yeah, right. Just the tents, just the tents. Yeah. They didn't use the two big ones for sure. I love that. They used the what stage they did. Yeah, because that's where. Yeah, that was where the major that's that's where you had ZZ Top Guns and Roses. So they use the what? And I know they. They call it the what, but they used it right. Actually, that's a great point because I had assumed that they just use which and it's a lot easier to use the which stage and that side of the festival than the what's the side stage or the what stage side? Yeah, I don't remember if they don't think they use the which. What a weird setup. Anyway, I found that to be interesting. Go back and watch that video if you can. I don't know who got that, but it makes me wonder like, boy, I would love, love for them to incorporate more drone footage because it's fun to watch that place. I would have loved to watch that thing grow and come alive in that drone footage, right? You see it empty. And then as the drone footage, like they keep going and day after day after day through the night, that would have been really, really incredible to watch. I hope they do that more often because we saw it a little bit two years ago when we went up that Wednesday for the media thing. It was empty. Got to drive around and then I know that night and the next morning it was. I don't get much perspective when I'm just on my on foot, right? Walking around the place or in a cart. It's just the vast openness of insane. So I got a couple of questions for you guys. I want to go through predictions, questions that we've gotten over the past couple of weeks. Let's ask the experts and our experts being Lord Taco and Barry Courter. All right. Question number one. I couldn't even get a festival right. True or false? Miley will headline in 2022. True or false? False. False. Really? Why? I just don't think I think I think this is her year. This I think, you know, with her being signed up for so many other ones, that's just me. Should be. I mean, we don't know factually any of this stuff. You're just. Yeah, I mean, it's still opinion. I know just to make sure that clear is I think I think they'll just scrap everything from the last two years and start fresh. Well that goes into the second question. Tame will be back in 2022. True or false? Probably false. That's going to. Yeah. OK, well that leads to the third question. Give me the one band from 2021 that will be there in 2022. I don't think you'll have any. If not, I mean, Barry, definitely not a headliner. I could see. Yeah, I could see it being more of the middle, the under cards. Sure. The Silver Nassos, the Krung Bins, some of those bands that also do these things more regularly than a than a tame that seem like, as we've said before, wrap them around new new work, new product. That's not to say those bands don't have new product. They just seem to do more festivals more regularly. My answer to that question. And this is going to be a surprise. The one band artist that I can see coming back for 2022 is Lizzo. I know that the going the the the smart money is probably on Foo Fighters because, you know, it's the Foo Fighters and they can, you know, plop down and play a show pretty much anywhere. Look at the rumors about where in the woods they can show up and play anyway. Aren't they already booked, though, for those dates next year? Are they? That's a good point. I don't know. I have no idea. For June. Yeah, look that up. Give that a go. But I would say, I would say Lizzo based on everything that we've talked to from booking agents, from managers, from tour people. Lizzo is about to have a new album. She's got new product. And if it goes as well as the last product, she is going to be on cycle and in the mode to do big shows. And I can almost assure you that she's going to be a major Coachella headliner. So if she's a major Coachella headliner, why would she not continue for Bonnaroo? And then you're going to get the floodgates opening and people screaming about Lizzo's not a headliner still. You're still going to get those people screaming about the first female headliners, Lizzo, and she's going to be the first female headliner three years in a row. I am willing to bet that she is three festivals in three Bonnaroo's deep of bond. First female headliner. Foo Fighters are booked June 10, 12, 14 and 16. Where? 22. What is that? The Nova Rock Festival? Milan? Oh, in Milan. And Tame Impala is playing a festival in Barcelona. There you go. So yeah, my guess will be, I think my guess is going to be right here. I think Lizzo is going to be the one. There will be some return just because of the numbers, I think is probably pretty good. But like the headliners, I don't know. It feels like they'll start over. The other one I could probably see is my morning jacket coming back to. I can see that. Question number three, four rather. Coachella will have a better lineup, true or false? Better than Bonnaroo or better than? Better than Bonnaroo. Yes. Coachella will have a better lineup than Bonnaroo. You know me, the lineups are so subjective. If my morning jackets on the Bonnaroo lineup, it's better. I know, but we have gone two years in a row now, not two physical years, 2019 and 2020, looking around and saying Bonnaroo has absolutely the best festival lineup in the country. Yeah, true, true, true. Does that continue next year? Maybe not. That seems like just a one in a million thing. Three years in a row? To get that good of a lineup. Yeah, three years in a row to nail it. That's asking a lot. I guess the other part of my hesitation is, I don't think we, I know I don't, maybe Brad, your guys that you know that do this would say differently. I guess what I'm, are there so many questions still that are unanswered that are becoming even more hard to answer? Are we coming out of the fog or are we going deeper into the fog? I guess is a better way to, you know, like you said, two years. But I would say we're coming out of it. I think that if you listen to any of the, turns out guys, I'm not a doctor. I'm also not a scientist, but all of them, if you listen to them, think that spring 2022, I mean, I can't believe that when this all started March of last year, I was listening to somebody, I don't know who it was. And it was, I don't know, Sanjay Gupta, name a scientist, name it. I don't know who it was. And they're like, it's probably going to be March or spring of 2022 before all of this starts to get normal. I'm like, Oh, what a, what a fool. Listen to that guy. What a silly, silly man he is. And it, that's looks like exactly going to be 2022. And if that's the case, you know, Coachella and Bonnaroo and all of these things and Hangout are absolutely going to happen. That last question that I have for you though, Barry, it leads into the final question that I have. And I think that I have an answer for it. The biggest surprise on festival lineups in 2022, the biggest surprise. At this point, it'll be a surprise if we have a festival in 2022. I know. But I got, I got, I got a thought here and I, and I think, I think I'm going to be right about it. Well, biggest surprise. Would it be Dolly? No, I am not going to, maybe it could be, could be. Mine is my vote is going to be the reason why the Coachella lineup will be better in theory by the general public is going to be because the surprise headliner, the big one, the big get for 2022 at Coachella will be Britney Spears. First big show that she has out of the conservatorship and that fits what Coachella does. I have, I'm putting, I'm calling Vegas and I'm putting money on Britney at Coachella and that will be the most talked about music festival set in years. That would be correct if it, if it would have happened. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I just don't see, I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. I just don't see anybody talking about it. I think we need to get in this mode of start to reeval. Coachella is like two months away from having a lineup by a normal calendar. If we go back into the years past, we are getting a Coachella lineup by Black Friday. And if the regular calendar holds, we are going to be getting a Coachella lineup in the next six to eight weeks. And I think we need to start putting our wrapping our head around what the world looks like if a Coachella happens. And does anybody fit better than Britney? Probably not. Maybe not. Let me ask it this way. Do you, if you were booking Bonnaroo or Coachella or anything for 2022, do you feel like it has to be a super home run or do you feel like it just needs to be solid and stick with what you've been doing? I feel like it needs to be cheap. Yeah. I think it needs to be in budget. Be in budget. I bet my budget. It just needs to happen. Yeah. I think my budget is going to be lower and I need to get the most bang for the buck. Even if it means I'm light in a lot of areas. If I'm 10 bands short, try to make that up somewhere else, especially for like a Bonnaroo. Find some bizarre Plaza stuff to do that can be done relatively cheap. Now that would be for them and for a hangout. But if I'm Coachella, they got all the money in the world. They can do whatever they want to. They don't care. I'd love to get Ali and John back on the guests that we had that booked these acts and just to talk about what the conversations are like going on right now. You know, I wonder. Yeah, it's a good question. It's a good point because I want my question would be, are you guys taking a discount? Yeah. Is it, you know, are your artists coming to you and say, book, book me up. I work every day instead of four days a week or whatever. Or are they saying I only want to work two or three? I don't know. I'd like to ask that question. Well, yeah. And well, I think that you're going to be surprised. The artist is not going to be, I'm so dying to get out there. I'll do anything. But that's what I had heard six, four or five, six months ago was likely to happen that the artists, instead of doing 35 shows are going to be looking at doing 45, 48, you know, to get out in some of the smaller markets like Chattanooga. I even mentioned it on the show, you know, could benefit from that. Obviously, with the variant, everything's have slowed down. In fact, I've talked to a couple of local promoters with venues and that's exactly what's happening there. Like, we don't know what's happening. So pump the brakes and let's wait till after Christmas. Man, I mean, I can't tell you how many of my shows have been canceled. I've lost. I've lost bleachers. We lost dashboard confessional. Some of that was hurricane related, but, you know, a lot of it, I lost offspring because of the boy. I've got an offspring story to tell you guys. I lost the offspring for covid reasons. But boy, oh boy, do I have a I'll tell you the story if you ever find me in public. And it is a good one. But you know, I've lost so many shows I'm dying to hold on to one in particular is Modest Mouse. It is a completely sold out show. I am. Oh, I'm so, so nervous. I don't want to lose this show because it's I think they're great. And I love Modest Mouse and the new album is terrific. But the but the rate of shows we're losing is just too fast. And they're happy. We lost three last week. Yeah, we've you know, we've got a venue that's supposed to open this weekend. And and that's what I'm hearing. Is there a lot of shows? It's sort of a venue opening. Songbirds is going to reopen as the Songbirds Foundation. Yeah. Oh, this weekend. We've got Eric Gales is I think he's the first show. Do they have Mad Ben? Mad Ben. What about Blutch? They didn't. Blutch. I highly recommend that one. All right. But that's you know, that's what I'm hearing. They're slowing down the kind of pumping the brakes on booking the show. So that's why I'd like to talk to John and Ali to see what's going on. The brakes also because they don't have any money. The venue. Yes. No, they have money. Well they have money. But come on. They're not 99 percent of the venues in this country are not foundations with, you know, underwriters. They are, you know, a guy that just is booking on his own at this point. You know, the exit in Nashville doesn't just have some available funds that they can just go. No, they've got to make sure a show works and they don't know if a show is going to work because they don't know if they can count on people showing up. That's right. For instance, not very many. I saw this happen last night. Not many venues are the metro in Chicago. Did you see what the metro in Chicago did last night? No. After Riot Fest in Chicago, which, by the way, Chicago has been the epicenter of music festivals this year. I mean, everything that they have has worked. Riot Fest over the weekend. And guess who decided to do a shocking pop up show at the metro last minute for twenty dollars cash. Metallica. Oh, yeah. Metallica. Unbelievable. You could walk you showed up at Metro between like seven a.m. and ten a.m. You gave him your Vax card. You gave him twenty dollars. And then, you know, you come back later that night and you're in. You see Metallica. Twenty bucks. Nice. You know, there's just but Joe Shanahan is brilliant. First, he's got, you know, a good bank of money. He's got really good investors and he's got a reputation that can bring a Metallica on the fly. Not everybody's got that. Right. Yeah, that's cool. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm very, very curious to see. And I hear what you're saying about it feels like we're coming out of or will be in the spring. It doesn't feel like it now to me, but we'll see. Yeah. All right. Well, anything else before we before we go? Talk about what was the what was the festival that happened? Banner Weekend, the one that was already pre-planned that did so well. That was Cloud Nocturnal. It was a festival that I called Nocturnal. Oh, you talking about the one at the distillery? Yeah. You remember the name of it? I don't know. I don't know that it had a name. And I'm not even sure if it was pre-planned or if it just happened. I never really got an answer. I think they had planned something and then they adapted and it went so well. They're talking about doing it again. But when we were talking about all the other ones, we didn't mention that because we didn't really know about it. But yeah, it was it was not on our radar. I mean, well, I can't wait to announce in the coming weeks the what fest that's going to be very dog gone dancing and Lord Taco identifying babies and me sharing hair care product tips on my front porch. I think I think that we're going to have the same attendance as we did it for Berry Row. For what? I can't I can't wait. Quality was there, though. Yeah, that's a good point. Anything else before? Oh, the ACL. You mentioned ACL. I'm going to do I got suckered into going. I'm going to second weekend of ACL, which is cool because I get to see our boy Josh from Cautious Clay. He is cautious. Not from cautious, but Josh is going to be there. And I am very excited. I'll be going to see Duran Jones and the indications. I am in love with this new album. And the other thing, too, about ACL is the drummer, Aaron Frazier, who was produced by Dan Arbok. He's doing his own solo show at ACL, too. So I get Duran Jones on Thursday, Duran Jones on Friday, and then I get Aaron Jones on Saturday and then cautious clay before I leave on Sunday. I am a very, very happy, happy man. So hopefully we'll have Duran Jones on the on the show in the upcoming weeks as we prepare for ACL Fest. But Saturday night, Barry, is it Saturday or Friday? No, it's Friday. Friday is George Strait. So for the first for the first time in how many years I will be going to a night show at a festival and foregoing dinner. I was going to ask, are you actually going to show up and hear me Saturday? Saturday is our very expensive sushi dinner. We're doing a very exclusive sushi dinner with 10 people. That's going to be tough, so I will be leaving early on Saturday. But Friday night, I will be there for the duration. I'm very, very nervous. Well, just to remind people, Bonnaroo, Brad likes Bonnaroo because it's the only festival where he actually hears music. Yeah, the rest the rest end up being well, you know, a lot of my work people don't show up for Bonnaroo because, you know, they're bigger divas than I am because they're sweating. Yeah, they hate it. They hate it. And frankly, the hotel accommodations in Manchester are not necessarily up to their level. You know, there's no W in Manchester. Probably the dining options are about on par too. Yeah, you can't go out for an exclusive sushi dinner at the Waffle House on exit 310. It's not necessarily their their cup of tea. Guys, anything else to get to before we leave this week? No, no. I'll be doing Shakenese next month. You know what? Shakenese next month. Shakenese is next month, huh? Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. And that just reminds me that bums me out because next month would have been Jazz Fest, Voodoo Fest, French Quarter Fest. You're going to have to do your dive bar. Yeah, I know. I'll see you guys. I'm so happy to see you guys. I missed you over the last couple of weeks. Yeah, glad you made it back safe. Glad to see you. Barry, keep this patina up. You look great in this low light. Yeah, you look fantastic. Very, very romantic. Yeah, it looks great. On the other hand, Taco looks like a murder is about to happen. One looks like a sexy late night wine. The other looks like death and destruction. I like it. Yeah. All right, guys. What podcasts? See you next week. Love you. Bye.
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