Who's Headlining Bonnaroo 2025? We Make Our Guesses

If you take Bonnaroo out of my life,

the, you know, my culture meter drops, like, to the floor.

Like, I haven't seen anything.

Like, I could give you a list of a wish list of music

that would never end if Bonnaroo didn't exist,

because every year they package at least five or so acts

that I just have to see, and that's been going for 20 years.

Without Bonnaroo, I would be, who the hell knows

what I would be.

In genres that you would never walk across the street.

Chapel Row, my God, I have a record!

I paid $60 for this!

What the hell's the matter with me, right?

Welcome back to the What Podcast.

I'm Barry, that's Brian, that's Russ.

We're coming up on the middle of November.

We're getting close to, what are we?

What are we getting close to?

Pre-sale dates, I guess.

Pre-sale dates, yeah.

Rumor season for everybody is basically

every minute of their lives.

That's right, who's coming, who's not.

We're not gonna get into that one this time.

We're gonna go on some, talk about some news,

and then we're gonna rehash a little bit

last week's episode, as promised,

with Brad and Cory from C3,

because it was such a big episode,

and we didn't want to go too long.

We wanted to take a minute and digest it ourselves,

and we're gonna get into that.

But before we do that, we've got a little bit of news,

a little bit of catching up to do.

Russ, you just spent the weekend,

one of the coolest events.

Yeah, back at where the little tiny planes

might crash into your bus.

That's what it looks like to me.

Yeah, well.

You said there were no planes this weekend.

No planes this time.

What's up with that?

Is it too windy, or just?

Probably, I mean, it's just a private airstrip.

So they just get together all the time,

whether they're doing any landings or not.

Look at him, he just blows it off.

He's just a private airstrip.

I mean, it's not like there's planes coming in all the time.

It's not like this is, you know.

Not this weekend.

It's not like this is ATL or something.

The mystery man that is Russ, I love it.

All right, what's going on, guys?

What's the news out there that we wanna talk about?

Well, not a ton, but a little bit.

And this is, we've been so distracted by so many things

that we won't get into.

Some we know exactly what I'm referring to, some we don't.

And what I am gonna have to struggle with

for the next couple of weeks is, or months, or years,

is trying to stay on top of things because I'm gonna,

hibernation mode is starting to hit for me either way,

just with the changing of the season.

But social media is a place I don't really wanna spend

a lot of time at all.

And we were just kind of in the pre-show meeting

before we got in here.

When are you gonna join the Discord?

I don't know, if I could get rid of all of the social

medias right now, I might, so I'm not gonna add

to that list, I don't think.

So I'm gonna-

Well, this is Discord, this isn't social media.

Well, okay, that's fine.

But my point is-

It's a pretty safe space.

It is, it is, it totally is.

I'm joking on that.

But I'm gonna try to stay on top of things,

but it's hard when you cut, you know,

we're so reliant on social media and so many things,

and I'm just on there the last five days, I'm like,

I can't take it!

And so I don't-

I gotta be honest, I'm proud of mine.

Mine has not been bad.

So your algorithm is doing well for you.

Yeah, yeah, I was afraid I was gonna have to cut it off,

and apparently I'm not alone,

cause I've got nothing, you know, so.

My main point is that is I promise to try to stay up

to date on things as much as possible,

but it's hard when you-

I ended up wandering into a record store here locally,

and I've been wanting to add, I like to collect,

I collect vinyl in a very, very specific fashion,

and generally these days it has to be a colored vinyl.

And so I've been wanting Chappell's

Now Grammy Award nominated countless,

Good Luck Babe is the track that got most of the attention,

and then the album, The Rise and Fall

of the Midwest Princess,

but I finally got the record,

and what makes this one special, it is the,

it's a super mass produced version,

so it's not like it has any rarity at this point,

but it is the-

Oh, nice.

Ooh, I like that.

I'm gonna go ahead and say that I'm a fan of Chappell's,

and I've been wanting to add,

I like to collect vinyl in a very, very specific fashion,

and generally these days it has to be a colored vinyl.

And so I've been wanting Chappell's

Now Grammy Award nominated countless,

Good Luck Babe is the track that got most of the attention,

and then the album, The Rise and Fall

of the Midwest Princess,

but I finally got the record.

Nice, nice.

And I finally got the record,

and what makes this one special, it is the,

it's a super mass produced version,

so it's not like it has any rarity at this point,

but it is the-

Oh, nice.

Ooh, I like that.

Pink.

I ended up wandering into a record store here locally,

and I've been wanting to add, I like to collect,

I collect vinyl in a very, very specific fashion,

and generally these days it has to be a colored vinyl.

And so I've been wanting Chappell's

Now Grammy Award nominated countless,

Good Luck Babe is the track that got most of the attention,

and then the album, The Rise and Fall

of the Midwest Princess,

but I finally got the record,

and what makes this one special, it is the,

it's a super mass produced version,

so it's not like it has any rarity at this point,

but it is the-

Oh, nice.

Ooh, I like that.

Pink.

I ended up wandering into a record store here locally,

and I've been wanting to add, I like to collect,

I collect vinyl in a very, very specific fashion,

and generally these days it has to be a colored vinyl.

And so I've been wanting Chappell's

Now Grammy Award nominated countless,

Good Luck Babe is the track that got most of the attention,

and then the album, The Rise and Fall

of the Midwest Princess,

but I finally got the record,

and what makes this one special, it is the,

it's a super mass produced version,

so it's not like it has any rarity at this point,

but it is the-

Oh, nice.

Ooh, I like that.

Pink.

She's gotten a lot of flack online

for a lot of the pre piped in music and vocals

in some of her massive festival shows,

and like Pop Axe do, all of them do that.

So does she, and I was a little annoyed by that too.

It's almost like they heard that and said,

oh yeah, well watch this.

They had five backup singers, piano, the full band,

drums, the whole deal.

There wasn't a thing pre-packaged on this,

and it sounded amazing.

Good.

Then, then, but, the second song, the brand new one,

guys, this is pop country album on still 26 year old,

very, very, very young person.

Exactly, and you can't blame her.

I mean, I don't, I mean, that would be hard.

I don't care who you are.

All of a sudden people are in your face, in your business.

Right, and there's that sophomore album curse.

It happens to a lot of artists that make a big splash

with their debut album, and then they follow up

with a second record, and it doesn't hit as high.

Well, I told you my favorite story, right?

I can't do that, it's hum-cant.

One of my favorite quotes, and I cannot remember

who it was, but I was interviewing some band, somebody,

and I mentioned the sophomore Jinx, and he's, you know,

basically, yeah, you have your whole life

to write your first record.

He's in, she's gotten a lot of flack online

for a lot of the pre-piped-in music and vocals

in some of her massive festival shows,

and like Pop-Ax do, all of them do that.

Right, yeah. So does she,

and I was a little annoyed by that, too.

It's almost like they heard that and said,

oh yeah, well, watch this.

They had five backup singers, piano, the full band,

drums, the whole deal.

There wasn't a thing pre-packaged on this,

and it sounded amazing.

Good.

Then, then, but, the second song, the brand new one,

guys, this is from, which he didn't like,

What's the Story of Morning Glory, Noel didn't like it.

I loved it, but I was 15 when it came out,

so just different perspectives,

and he was like, the next album sucks.

It was so overproduced, and it was so rushed,

and I mean, he wasn't saying, he hated his life,

but he was just talking about the music.

He was happy to be a rich guy.

Like, he was like, then I was the richest guy in the room,

and I was excited, except for it was harder to write music,

so yeah, that's it.

We got a bunch of suits in the room saying,

we need to do this.

You need to do, remember this?

I don't know how much you are into Aerosmith,

but their career was falling off a cliff

after the Dream On days and a little bit of that 70s stuff,

and then into the 80s, those songs

from that Midwest Princess album are five to 10 years old.

You can see videos on TikTok,

which my algorithm gives me all that I can take,

because I have become as much of a super fan

of a pop act as I ever will, and those are old songs,

but a lot of people don't like her

because of the corporate nature

that she became really, really quick,

because then songwriters got involved,

and Barry, you'll remember, I mean, for that whole album,

that one I like so much, you'll probably remember this.

I don't know how much you are into Aerosmith,

but their career was falling off a cliff

after the Dream On days and a little bit

of that 70s stuff, and then into the 80s,

those songs from that Midwest Princess album

are five to 10 years old.

You can see videos on TikTok,

which my algorithm gives me all that I can take,

because I have become as much of a super fan

of a pop act as I ever will, and those are old songs,

but a lot of people don't like her

because of the corporate nature

that she became really, really quick,

because then songwriters got involved,

and Barry, you'll remember, I mean, for that whole album,

that one I like so much, you'll probably remember this.

I don't know how much you are into Aerosmith,

but their career was falling off a cliff

after the Dream On days and a little bit of that 70s stuff,

and then into the 80s, those songs

from that Midwest Princess album are five to 10 years old.

You can see videos on TikTok,

which my algorithm gives me all that I can take,

because I have become as much of a super fan

of a pop act as I ever will, and those are old songs,

but a lot of people don't like her

because of the corporate nature

that she became really, really quick,

because then songwriters got involved,

and Barry, you'll remember, I mean, for that whole album,

that one I like so much, you'll probably remember this.

I don't know how much you are into Aerosmith,

but their career was falling off a cliff

after the Dream On days and a little bit of that 70s stuff,

and then into the 80s, those songs

from that Midwest Princess album are five to 10 years old.

You can see videos on TikTok,

which my algorithm gives me all that I can take,

because I have become as much of a super fan

of a pop act as I ever will, and those are old songs,

but a lot of people don't like her

because of the corporate nature

that she became really, really quick,

because then songwriters got involved,

and Barry, you'll remember, I mean, for that whole album,

that one I like so much, you'll probably remember this.

I don't know how much you are into Aerosmith,

but their career was falling off a cliff

after the Dream On days and a little bit of that 70s stuff,

and then into the 80s, those songs

from that Midwest Princess album are five to 10 years old.

Then into the 80s, is please forgive me

if I say I'm not family and silly and don't talk about any of this,

but Iworld got kind of more pro in the 80s

because women are just thought through.

Without listening too many songs as an adult was different for me.

For me, my best tale listening to Kam Miku

since when I was twenty or something

always got ahead of me.

I watched as the book rolled,

I'd watched the show coming up

because I had audio that was on there.

I kind of became an expert in this.

But their career was falling off a cliff

after the Dream On days and a little bit of that 70s stuff.

And then into the 80s,

about a month after the timeframe of that,

you could be looking at Fox.

There's one band.

Now, this could be somebody playing on the Who stage

at noon on Thursday.

Right. And you know how Brad is.

He likes to be a little toy with his hints.

It could be...

I'm trying to find the most obscure name on here I recognize from the bottom.

And I just... Plain white tees.

Maybe that's who it is.

I can't imagine it would be Blink or Avril or Offspring

or Bad Religion or any of those.

But I've been...

Destroyed boys. I've been surprised before.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, who knows?

Panic at the Disco would be fun.

Let's take a...

Let's take a... Let's do a wish.

Five songs anyway.

But anyway, I just thought that was weird.

I've just never seen a festival pump out...

Pretty quick.

Dates and artists as quickly as that one does.

And then how... We're used to such a slow moving machine.

We know January lineup and then this and this and this.

It's all spaced out.

This is not like Bonnarooo at all.

This is breakneck speed when it comes to setting this up.

And for now, people still love it.

And I guess because Vegas is such a destination city,

that's going to be part of it as well.

But...

Makes sense. Buy your tickets.

Yeah.

Get them right now.

But that's about as much as I got that was catching my interest

of limited social...

Mm-hmm.

Kind of. Five days.

All right. Anything else, Russ, before we sort of re-unpack

or unpack again last week's show?

Any other news?

I don't think so. I see you're wearing your beach shirt.

I like that. Yeah.

Yep. I figured you had yours on last week.

Still thinking about that concert.

I'm still, man.

Talk about unpacking.

I'm still.

That was such a great show.

Yeah. That's great.

That was so cool.

All right. So we knew last week.

Thanks again to Brad Parker and Corey Smith.

These are the people that...

Promedia attention.

There's a whole staff, and I don't mean to oversell it,

but those are the... They are the face anyway of Bonnarooo.

And they gave us a good 90 minutes last week.

A lot of information.

We talked a little bit going into it,

and we came out of it sort of hitting some highlights.

But now that we've had a week, what stands out?

What are the highlights from what we heard from those guys?

Well, I've got a handful of things to bounce around.

Russ, if you have anything you want to start with,

let's go there, and then I'll just kind of bounce off wherever we go.

Yeah. I thought the most interesting

or one of the most interesting things they talked about

was limited power stations at some campsite.

Pretty much put...

Yeah. See, it's interesting that you would go with the camping,

because that's, to me, that's the thing.

It's the two different things.

There's the line-up, which is what everybody wants to talk about,

and then there's the reality of what's my week going to be like.

And having power is a big deal.

Yeah.

In the other tent, and I thought the...

I'm jumping ahead of you, Brian, I ask a question,

and then I'm going to answer it.

But the primitive camping for students, I think, is a great idea.

Carpooling in, which is probably something the three of us

need to talk about some more.

I get what they're saying.

It's not like... You can carpool with me,

but you got that on Tuesday.

I know, right? Yeah.

But anyway, those kinds of things.

Not huge.

None of them were massive changes, right?

But they were just that sort of detail to make things better.

No, and there doesn't...

You know, there doesn't have to be massive changes.

Right.

Little incremental, small tweaks and adjustments

are a pretty pragmatic way to do things.

And what I...

I made a list, and it's not necessarily an order of most important,

but the first thing I thought about was,

I really appreciated how much...

We got to get there on Tuesday.

I know, right?

As much as they maybe didn't want to,

we kind of stayed on it maybe a little longer than Brad wanted to.

But the social media interaction,

or not even interaction, because they're more lurkers,

but the paying attention to what...

Reddit, Discord, Twitter, it's all of them.

How much they really do pay attention to that,

and how I think that's very, very important.

And in so many industries,

and I always tend to use the sports industry as a comp,

because those are just two...

This kind of world and then that kind of world

is where I spend a lot of time to analysis.

They kind of leaned into, as much as they maybe didn't want to,

read the papers, as we would talk, you know, say in another lifetime.

Bullshit! You do.

And if you don't, you are a fool.

You should.

Now, if you're soft and you have a problem with any kind of criticism,

and that's, well, then talk to your therapist.

But you need to be paying attention to this.

You're a fool if you don't.

And so I'm really happy to see that they not only said,

yeah, we do, we do it a lot, we do it often,

and we do a very deep dive into it.

Well, let me add on to that, because I'm glad you said it that way,

because I was thinking about it yesterday.

You and...

This, oh, we don't look at that, or we don't hear what other people...

Corey, right? We know them as people.

But so do a lot of people on these social medias.

They know them by name.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, they've been very...

It's not like they're sending it to info at Bonnarooo.

Yeah. They're like, I'm going to tell Brad,

I think he needs to have, you know, this or that or whatever.

They put themselves out there.

Brad does it, but social media wise, for sure.

Corey talks about it.

I mean, he's he's kind of like the moon taxi lead singer.

It's a similar story of like, I used to come to this thing for years,

and now I play it. And then he's... I used to come for years.

And now I'm the marketing manager.

Like, so that's a really unique, fun, fun story.

Three of us know Brad and we know Corey.

They feel like they know the guy.

That's exactly what I'm... That's my point.

Yeah, they... Well, they know who to go to.

You know, I mean, I...

If nothing else, they could just go to his show,

which is another one coming to Knoxville for Thanksgiving, by the way.

Right. It may suck for him.

Throw tomatoes at him.

Yeah, he went to play music and now he's talking toilets at Bonnarooo,

you know, whatever. But no, I don't think that's a...

I don't think that's a small thing.

I think that's a great point you make is you know who to talk to.

Right. Pay attention to your...

to even the noise, because there's going to be...

there's going to be a lot in there.

But that takes a lot of discipline.

It really does. If you've got a money to tell and people getting out of control,

self-importance, you don't want to dig...

You know, you don't want to mess with that kind of stuff.

I mean, sorry, Brad Steiner, our guy, we all love him to death.

He ain't doing this.

He doesn't care what...

He's the opposite on philosophy on this.

For better or for worse, guys like him are not going to do this.

And that's the difference.

And just approach some people at work. Sometimes it doesn't.

That and the, you know, splitting hairs, the fact that they sort of delineate

between like the five year veterans and the new new people,

not that they don't listen to both, but they understand that they're different people.

I want to re-cut that up, because I don't remember where if I...

I didn't even note it, but I did.

I thought about that as I was listening to portions of the show where

Brad basically said in two different times of the show,

one to use actual numbers that were more specific.

The other was kind of just commentary that reinforced what he was talking about,

is that the next 20 years of Bonnarooo is not going to be defined

by the people who went to the first 20.

Correct. And that's most people haven't gone to all first 20.

But his point being the past isn't going to define the future.

And boy, as much as us old guys would like to say,

but can't just a little bit of it, Sting, can we still...

Glad you brought that up, because I don't remember where if I...

I didn't even note it, but I did.

If you want to have long term viability.

So I thought that was two times in the show,

referenced that and made a very clear point about that.

That and the other one, I think I ask at one point,

how far out can you sort of predict?

You know, can you tell us what five years, what the trend will be?

And Corey was like, no.

Yeah, no, that was a close one.

I kind of leaned into that, too.

And that's pretty not unfair question, but...

I know, but it was worth asking because it's, you know, it's like,

we like to think they can.

It goes back to what you're saying.

As veterans, we...

No, that's not how that's not how this works or not.

It's not how it's...

And it may not be for me.

It may not be for you.

You know, it may not.

It's got to evolve.

And you got to let it come to you, I guess.

And be aware.

I think maybe the direction I was asking at one point was just like,

just what do you guys think?

And I think the end, you know, just from a couple of dudes.

And I think the answer is, I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know.

Neither do I. It's why I asked.

Yeah.

The Thursday night thing is getting a lot of conversation

and the Sunday night thing.

Again, this gets to the rumors.

I really don't have a guess.

I want to be able to think in five years, I'm still going to be...

That Fred again was a clue as to what Sunday night might look like.

Which means to me is just EDM on Sunday night.

EDM, which is fine.

Yeah. Well, he kind of clarified that because he said, you know,

don't take Fred again as literally the clue.

He just meant it to say that they're looking at non-traditional.

Yeah, like that that legacy, you know, that bold move.

Look for more of those bold moves.

Not Tom Pena.

That's what he was getting at.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then I don't know if you dug through some of the comments on last week,

but, you know, a lot of people were, you know, he said,

well, you'll never guess who it is.

Well, a lot of people think they can guess.

And I know. I think Sunday.

I mean, he was...

I don't know what the right word is.

When he said it, I was like, oh, man, come on.

You'll never guess.

I mean, the Rolling Stones.

Yeah, Dolly.

You first thought it's Dolly.

Well, you just said, yeah, never.

Dolly and Marley.

That was my first guess.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So, yeah, I don't know.

That was funny. I just that's why I let that go.

Well, you'll never guess means to me that I ain't going to like it.

I'll never guess. I'm not going to like it.

Yeah, that might be a way to spin, you know.

But they're not booking a show for me to like necessarily.

So my second thought was Alan Jackson,

just because he's such a massive.

Obviously, somebody surprising that reached out.

And I'm like, and to your point, Brian, you know, whatever,

I will go. But that's not my pick.

But well, and to the Thursday night thing,

I Corey gave kind of a smirk smile

when when he was like, well, we'll listen to what the fans said.

And I said, well, the fans wanted on Thursday.

So that's what we should do.

And he OK. All right.

Here. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

Timestamp marked today and we'll come back to it.

There will never not be a headliner on Thursday.

That's just not how things work.

That's not how, you know, American capitalism business works.

You don't add to something and start assess and then just not do it anymore.

Yeah, that that's not how that's not how business works.

They think if they think it'll move tickets and it probably will

to add a Thursday headliner, they're going to do it.

Because if you don't, you're going to get yours charging us more

because it's going to be at least a little bit more.

It always is. And you're taking away value.

They're they're they're setting themselves up for that very built in criticism,

which maybe they're fine with that.

They won't be. They'll be even act on Thursday.

And I had a boss who used to and I don't know who the historian was who said it

is people don't riot because they don't have something.

They riot when you take something away.

Yes. Oh, yeah. You took it away.

That's good. They they organize.

And you don't have something maybe, but they don't riot.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So suddenly you're taking Thursday. That's a great point.

Good point. And you know what?

In my world, I think I just assume it's always been there.

I mean, even though it's only one time, it just feels like, yeah, you got it.

It feels like that's the way it should have been.

I got some on Thursday. Yeah.

Well, Thursday just becomes such an exciting day that.

I mean, one single headliner on the greatest stage in the world.

You're letting the greatest asset you have sit there.

You don't have something, maybe, but they don't riot.

Weird. So for people who are new,

Thursday, we I used to always write about it as move in day.

Thursday, you know, you started in on Wednesday night.

You went to the Walmart parking lot.

You got in that line for 18000 hours.

And then you finally got in.

You got your stuff unpacked.

You got your camp set up.

You opened a beer and then you just sort of wandered around.

And that was Thursday.

And then you had small stages or whatever.

Just and just a few.

And that was even many years after that was.

Yeah, right, right.

Five, six years in before that started to happen.

And but now used to put one single.

You're already doing that.

You've already acclimated.

So, yeah, Thursday now needs to have now Thursday.

You're ready for a big act.

And one more small point to that, too,

and not because it's dangerous because it's not.

But center becomes really crowded on Thursday

when you leave, when you close off that field,

it's not just that the what stage is not open during that time.

The field is closed. Right.

So you can't the crowd can't alleviate out into that.

That's right. And Thursday's become.

I mean, it's the day.

I mean, you've got to be there by Thursday.

It's coming in on Tuesday and coming in on Wednesday.

Doing it right.

Most people circles.

That's what changed.

Throw up.

It's you know, in any way, I believe that they will.

And they're of course, they're not going to talk about something

that they haven't planned on yet or down the road.

And the other side of that is the back end.

Sunday night with the last band, the last note,

and then everybody wanted to go to where in the woods

because it was the only thing happening.

And as they noted, that didn't going to happen again.

I didn't work to continue to give credit

to to the guys that they didn't even dance around that.

They were like, yeah, that did. That was bad.

We don't need to do that anymore.

Yeah, they didn't try to spin it or try to say.

You got to be there by Wednesday.

Like, well, well, we're checking with our team.

We're looking at. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I can't do that.

He did. He went further.

It wasn't just that that was the only thing happening.

And it was crowded.

It was the fact that they booked too big.

Too big at name acts in there.

And it's not big enough space.

So they're going to look at.

And if you if you listen, those name acts deserve to have a bigger,

better million dollar stage.

Plus, they've got a 24 hour section of Bonnarooo going on inside

that you certainly could put them in there.

But I think it doesn't matter who you could throw Russ in the bus

up on top of that tree on Sunday.

And they were going to they were at no point.

It was like two different love topics.

Exactly. Exactly.

What to do specifically with the very end and what to do with the four days

of programming. Correct.

Over the for the EDM crowd.

That was interesting. That was.

Yeah. I get ready for a lot of EDM this year.

This is the way that I read.

Yeah. They really they really primed it for a lot of EDM for sure.

Yeah. Which I'm fine with again.

Yeah. Get your own stage.

You got to do some.

It's not based in Trap.

It's it's all kinds of things.

So yeah, I'm all I'm all about it.

Yeah. Well, speaking of EDM, you know, this weekend at the on the bluff,

I hung out with EDM Kyle.

Our buddy, EDM Kyle. What's up, Kyle?

Yeah. So shout out to him.

And he even told me he was like, you know,

there's a lot more to me than just EDM.

I feel like I can offer.

I was like, I get it.

I don't know.

I think that's your I think that's your area expertise right there, buddy.

Well, but we already have Kyle the Bonnarooian.

So this is we had we had to come up with some name to do.

Oh, a new nickname.

Because, you know, the two Kyle's so EDM Kyle.

So we'll have him back on at some point.

Yeah. You get your nickname.

Now you get your nickname.

Yeah. You think I want to be called.

I'm saying, you know, there's a lot more to me than just.

I know he was.

That's what he said.

Was he drinking the brown liquor yet?

Drinking some liquor.

I love it.

Of course, you like being called Taco.

He even told me he was like, you know, maybe for a minute.

That's funny.

But on here, I mean, we've kind of already glossed over a few of these.

There was two in particular that I kind of starred with a note.

I thought it was interesting, the

which is so common in all American business

is the expedited transition from the pandemic,

from AC with whatever was left of the residue of whatever of Superfly into C3

and how that was supposed to be a years long transition,

which is very, very, very common in buyouts.

Maybe like that now.

It's a now we're going to give these people jobs.

And a lot of times it's often creating jobs you don't need, you know, like three.

We'll give you a two year, you know, actually, I'll just use Ashley

because we've all met him and Barry, you know, more personally.

Hey, Ashley, OK, thanks.

We're going to buy your company.

You'll be the executive of interactive fan experience

director for three years at X dollars a year.

You know, that's often how that goes.

It's often needless.

And so there might have been a lot of, hey, here's you know, here's

instead of that three year thing and all this transition,

we're just scratch these checks, move along.

And as we all saw, being a part of it from 19

all the way to 22, 2019 to 2022,

that change to primarily C3 Live Nation control

was evident and obvious and fast.

I'm glad the pandemic made that happen.

I'm glad you mentioned that, because I don't I don't think I

I don't think I talked about that well the way I meant.

And to hear Brad say what he said was for people.

I'm sure if you're listening to this, you probably heard last week.

But I made it sound like I thought C3 was going to be a terrible,

terrible thing, and he was very excited that it was going to be a great thing.

I think it's somewhere in the middle part of it from 19.

We we on this show thought, oh, man,

you know, the 800 pound gorilla, the court,

literally the man, you know, however you want to call it.

The machine, the machine just bought our beloved thing,

and they're going to run it like a corporation.

And there was some of that.

Oh, I think the jury is still out.

It's too early to say that this is like the smoothest thing we've ever seen.

It's too early to say that.

Except what we just said earlier about having Brad and Corey be the face of the.

I mean, these these guys are they're us.

I mean, they love this festival like we do.

But C3, I know ginormous corporation.

And so, you know, there were some nearly global conglomerate.

Right. So well, they kicked us out of our campground.

So they kicked us out of our campground.

That's probably the worst thing that's come out of it because we, you know,

talked about it too dang much.

They figured out they could make a buck.

We have joke, but that is the truth.

They have to make money.

They are a business.

They have to make money.

And I get that. But they.

And that was the point that I was trying to make.

And I think we did make for them to be able to transition from AC and Superfly,

you know, which is basically is a ginormous corporate.

I was going to say hippies.

They were those guys in college that booked the shows that we all

went to and had the keggers.

And then they figured out they could make a living at it.

They were the cool friends of yours or ours or people's of your of your orbit

of friends and social circles who had the means, had a little bit more

expertise than you did.

But if you just took a picture of all of you, you look the same.

It's those who confused man.

Hey, we're getting a kegger.

We're going up into the.

But those four guys over there had a little bit more capital and a little bit more

pull, and they actually made it happen.

Yes, it was that was all real.

And that's what made it so a bunch of I don't want to call it in the beginning.

But that's I mean, that hasn't been the way things are for 15 plus years.

No, no. But but, you know, we knew them.

We talked to those guys.

No, I had them on the show every year.

They're literally like, you know, I want to have Paul McCartney at my event.

You know, we're going to get I'm getting a kegger beer.

Y'all come there just happens to be 80,000 of you.

And so, you know, when you hear C3 is buying or Live Nation,

you know, naturally, you're thinking,

dang, what's going to change, you know, is everything

is it going to become too corporate?

And it had some of that.

But some of that is

charmingly wonderful from the beginning.

As if you're the guy that gets really irritated by the massive

over corporate takeover of stuff.

I mean, we don't have the Verizon wireless stage,

but I mean, they got the Verizon wireless.

Yeah. Right.

They you know, they got they they've they've kept.

I think they've done a really good job of incorporating

a lot of corporate sponsors from I wish I

I don't know why my memory is not working right now.

They're fruit fructose.

The sure, sure. Shampoo company.

I mean, there's so many others.

And, you know, I mean, I once upon a time, I would have looked at that

on any level as.

I don't know what, you know, is silly, annoying,

ridiculous. It has to.

Oh, I mean, it's been doing that for walking there in the what stage

with the beautifulness of it, and all of a sudden it's got a banner

hanging down on it and says T-Mobile.

I might have a problem with that, but outside of that, man,

you got to make the money and I'm OK.

And I'm OK with it.

And that that was the point.

And that, again, it all wraps up and it, you know, we're obviously fans.

We're a fan of Corey and Brad.

We're a fan of the show, the event.

For them to be able to transition

from that is is pretty cool.

It is. And it is.

And let me and you just preface it all correctly, but I'm going to stay in the

in the in the realm of Live Nation and C3.

The other thing here, whatever.

I don't have a problem.

I don't. This is a paraphrased quote from Brad saying that C3

has revolutionized the entire industry.

And I'm guessing entire would would put brackets of festival,

you know, or live event industry is what he was referring to.

And I thought, OK, the way he's saying that sounds like, you know, OK,

great revolutionize the whole industry.

That sounds like a really positive, good comment.

And then I'm like, or is it? We sure.

In. Hold on.

Ticketmaster first.

The villains, the bad guys going all the way back to the mid 1990s.

And that's just people got used to it.

And the last one I kind of have, we never changed our mind, right?

We never came around 20 years later and said, you know, that ticket master,

a little misunderstood, you know, we never did that.

And then Live Nation bought Ticketmaster 10 year, however long years ago.

And then Live Nation started to really, I mean,

they turned into the new bad guys and none of us, at least I haven't said,

you know, kind of getting a little soft spot for the Live Nation conglomerate.

I mean, they're kind of doing they're they're helping things.

No, all I do is look at is Live Nation is not doing things well.

They're not doing they're making ticketing more difficult.

Yeah, you the dynamic.

You talked about that on your Stone on Air podcast.

All this stuff is a whole other thing.

Yeah, stop. It's all the same thing now.

And so the idea that that I'm supposed to celebrate

that C3 has revolutionized the industry is hard for me to digest.

I'm not mad that the comment came out and I don't even know what I think at this point,

but I'm conditioned to say, did you miss misspeak revolution?

Did you mean destroy? Was that the word you meant?

And that's being a little unfair, probably, because I what I write here,

I wrote C3 revolutionize the industry in parentheses.

Good question, Mark.

And then we don't like Live Nation, right?

Right. That's that's what I wrote down.

So I don't know if they're revolutionized.

It's all the same thing now.

And so the idea that that I'm supposed to sell a book or knows what he's doing,

just like he told you in the text, we know what we're doing.

They do. They absolutely do.

He also knows how to communicate well.

Yeah. And I do believe they're doing great things.

I do. You look at the resume of C3 and the festivals they produce

and the work they do is really, really good.

But I thought I hated Live Nation.

So I'm I'm stuck on this.

No, no, I it feels like completely different things.

There's I mean, there's Bonnarooo and then there's,

you know, your local venues and your local touring and your local ticket master.

And the industry, the way that I mean,

Brad knows what on your podcast I've heard you talk about,

you know, sometimes it goes well, you buy a ticket, it goes well.

But then if you have to resell it, it creates a whole another thing or

or it's it. Yeah. I mean,

the fact that they own the secondary market is something I'll always have a problem with.

Like, you'll never convince me that these massive,

you know, well, which is basically Live Nation.

I mean, these are all subsidy, not subsidies,

subsidiaries of of of Live Nation, C3, Ticketmaster, Axis,

any whatever you're buying, if it doesn't say Ticketmaster, a lot, you know,

you've had been Live Nation and they they've monopolized the the

secondary market, they've made things that used to be pretty simple,

much more difficult, but they give you the illusion than using

George Carlin terminology or the illusion of choice that, oh, we've we've given you all these great options.

You didn't really. You didn't.

I just wanted to buy tickets.

I think, yeah, I think that's the main point.

It's the lack of competition because there really is no competition to this.

So if we are unhappy with the way they do things, there's no other option.

Like you said, I mean, it's another thing about Pearl Jam.

They had this thing since 1994 and it's the same nation.

And but then there's also they do put on Taylor Swift.

You know, they do put on an in spectacular show.

All this stuff, all the stuff that that

that Brad Parker talks about, about the the best in the business of live entertainment,

and all the cool, quirky terminology used best in the streets.

The show refers to every as the show, the best show.

He's not wrong there. There's no argument there.

These are world class, incredible events.

But there's a lot of parts to it that I've been.

Yeah. Maybe even unfairly preconditioned to say,

well, that sounds great.

Screw you anyway.

Problems then. Yeah.

You're going to I'm going to go way off the rails.

You're going to think I'm crazy.

To me, it's sort of like home renovation stuff and paint colors.

We all go to a store and we think we're going to pick something unique to us.

But the reality is those colors have already been chosen for us.

And if you drive through a neighborhood,

all the houses look similar.

You probably never thought about it, but I have because no, 100 percent.

Never. I know.

But you didn't really have a lot of choices.

You had about eight or nine choices.

It was already picked for you.

I'm I'm you're going to I'm going to go way off the roller.

Yeah, no, that's a fair.

That's a very, very interesting and fair comparison.

And there is a lot of truth to I will I will I will subscribe to the theory.

Oftentimes, people don't know what they want.

Right. They're not sure what they want.

And being a tastemaker, I think that's another thing.

He said we will always we will always be in the, you know,

in this industry, in this industry, in this and also

confident and cocky enough.

It's not the words they use, you know, maybe even arrogant enough to say,

we know how to set this trend.

And I think it's fair.

Oh, I agree. You just picked of those eight or nine, and it's very similar.

Yeah, no, that's a fair.

That's a very, very interesting and fair comparison.

And there is a lot of truth to I'll no one's going to disagree with that.

You know, the greatest music festivals in the world of the last 50 years,

Coachella would knock on your door and say, hey, yeah, you know, but there.

But but that's not it.

That's not this statement that's going to make people like, well, that's crazy.

No way. But when we talk live nation, that's different.

But I'll drop it on that. Yeah.

And then really overall, just quickly, because I do need to wrap things up here.

Sorry, everybody, for personal stuff, but I got to get moving soon.

But take a student tickets, I thought is very cool idea.

Great idea.

Bonnarooo to say, I mean, if you wanted to say if you took out live nation,

you just want to say a quick comment that was not a lot.

Thousands initially, it's not going to be like a couple thousand.

You're not going to get your, you know,

no, they're not going to be 80,000 people at the intents.

No. Yeah. But that's a nice that's a nice little addition.

And the carpool parking pass,

I am dying to know how that'll work because I'm not smart enough to guess

how that works effectively. But it's a great, great, great idea.

Yeah, it is a great idea.

But yeah, how are they going to pull that off?

Don't I thought the same because where are you going to put the other two cars

or three cars? Yeah, it's a great idea.

He did say there's just a couple I could I couldn't remember if it was a couple

or a few, but just means not a lot.

Thousands Cori Cori or Brad, one of the two I can't remember. Sorry.

But that the survey, the census or whatever that we talked a little bit about,

which I thought was interesting, but just the comment that it was it's thrown out

there just to make sure we're not asleep at the wheel on one small thing.

That's why they put a bunch of weird like, do you want two days of Banra?

Sure. Yeah. It took a minute to beat it out of them.

There is no chance they're doing two weekends of Banra.

But they put things like that on there to just make sure.

Yeah. What if they didn't get 80 percent of people?

And I'll be I'll be very surprised or interested to see how that turns out.

Quickly, the final one here that I just thought was an interesting comment from.

Percent. Yeah, that's exactly.

It's a little. It also creates conversation.

A little buzz, too. Yeah, it creates conversation.

People think, what? That's on the survey.

Then they're going to go fill out the survey.

Oh, yeah. I want to, you know, so it just gets them more responses at the same.

There's that, too. And they're gathering data and email addresses.

And yeah, that's what part of that is. Yeah.

I do. I do want to ask both of you, Corey and Brad said,

you know, you'll never guess who this Sunday headliner is.

Well, I want to hear your guess. Sunday or Thursday.

Either one. Just, you know, not a rumor, but just saying they do want that.

Well, hold on. That means something.

Let's sit around and talk about it. Exactly.

We like that. We don't think but 80 percent do.

Yeah, that's exactly.

References to guess from or to choose from.

But there is something with GWL something. What is this?

I keep seeing this artist that keeps popping up on a lot of these EDM things.

Whoever that is, whoever this thing, I just randomly kind of sort of

threw some letters out there, whoever that is.

Take three random letters.

That's who I think it's going to be.

All right. That's in your alphabet soup this morning.

Maybe I can find it.

I for some reason, Alan Jackson keeps popping into my head for Thursday.

I thought you were joking when you said who you think it is or who you'd want it to be.

I'm just curious.

Well, because it's going to come from EDM, I don't I'm not going to have

a have a guess right now without, you know, no inside knowledge type of thing.

Dolly obviously is the first one, but, you know, well, yeah, that's on everybody's

straight up said, you know, you'll never guess. Well,

ninety nine point nine percent of the people would have said Dolly first.

So yeah, I don't. Yeah. I mean,

country country's hot.

Country's hot. Pop country's hot. Always is.

And I know Alan Jackson's not pop country, but whoever it is reached out to them.

You know, don't forget that. Right.

Yeah, that's another point.

And my guess or maybe my wish would be no, no,

no, I I think it's a country act.

I don't know. I have no absolutely.

Just see that as being a cool Bonnarooo show.

And that was a South Star.

You know, he was supposed to be Sunday night at South Star.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's part of why that's my guess is I'm just kind of like

wishful thinking, like I did. I really wanted to see that Beck show again.

Could be Blink, you know, because Blink could be out to do South Star.

I don't. But I don't know.

It'd be huge. That'd be huge.

What I mean, is that a is that a you'll never guess huge?

Yeah, no. And I would put them on a legacy act, too.

So I wouldn't I wouldn't expect that on a Sunday.

But I I cannot come up with the name I was trying to be back

partially because we were supposed to get back at Southside and we were denied

because Sunday was canceled.

I could just see that as being a cool.

I mean, you know, if it's just wish list, I've said many, many times,

I'd love to see Van Morrison, but I'm not sure Van Morrison wants to play the farm.

He's, you know, so enigmatic anyway.

Put him in the heat in June in Manchester.

It could suck. Yeah.

You could get a great show or you could get an hour of him

just cussing everybody out. Right.

Plane is deep, deep, deep, deep, deep cuts.

Yeah, we'll spend some more time on these kinds of things

over the course of of the off season.

But I'll get back to you on that ridiculousness.

But I just kept seeing that pop up on EDM line.

Well, I love that, you know, the three of us all guess something.

Come see pretty much at Bonnarooo.

And if I didn't see him at Bonnarooo, I've seen him pretty much everywhere else.

I mean, I'm just very, very privileged and lucky and thankful, grateful for that.

I mean, it's almost what do you want to see at Bonnarooo?

Well, let me tell you all the ones already have.

Yeah, I mean, there's there's the only ones left

aren't living anymore.

All right. I have not seen the Stones.

I have not seen Van Morrison.

You know, I mean, I can start picking a few out that I haven't.

But that realistic to play at Bonnarooo, there's just, you know, Neil Young,

the Buffalo Springfield. I mean, for me, I mean, I'm just one of the luckiest

guys in the world.

I mean, I've I've I've seen almost every band there is to see

that I want to see pretty much at.

Didn't you know the list of the list of people who are now dead

that I wish I had seen? Yeah, that's a whole lot of list.

But I'm with you.

If you take Bonnarooo out of my life, the you know,

my culture meter drops like to the floor, like I haven't seen anything.

Like I could give you a list of of a wish list of music

that would never end if if Bonnarooo didn't exist,

because every year they package at least

the real Beach Boys is real as I could get, you know, lots of

I just picked a couple of random, you know, those what I would be in

in genres that you would never walk across the street.

Chapel Road, my god, our record.

I paid $60 for this.

What the hell's the matter with me? Right. I love it. I love it.

I love it. Yeah.

And you're just going to hang it on the wall. I can't believe that.

Well, I'm going to listen.

I've spun it like once, but I mean, how many times can I listen to Hot To Go?

Big Pony Club. I got it.

Go on the wall.

I when you're doing your laundry, I can see you listen to that

when you're doing your your swiffering.

The worst songs are always the five or so acts that I just have to see.

And that's been going for 20 years without Bonnarooo.

I would be who the hell knows what I would be in in genres.

Good luck, babe.

Super Modern Girl, you know, Femina Feminammon on.

The list goes on and on of the great songs.

Kink is Kink is my karma.

Oh, best song last year and a half.

Now I want the Bryan Stone cleaning house playlist.

Put it out.

Pink Pony Club.

Yeah. All right, man.

Stone, you got to get down to Atlanta.

Tell everybody at Brave Central.

Goober says, hey, all right, we'll do it.

And it's always fun.

We'll do it again. We're getting it.

We're going to wake up here soon.

Holidays are popular and hot to go and pink pony girl are not on my playlist.

Brian Super Modern Swiffer in the House, the Swiffer into the Chapel.

See you.

All right, man.

Stone, you got to get down to Atlanta.

Tell everybody at Brave Central.

Goober says, hey, all right, we'll do it.

And it's always fun.

We'll do it again.

We're getting it.

We're going to wake up here soon.

Holidays will be over.

Could be right on top of it.

I know we keep saying we're going to take a break, but we still keep coming up with stuff to talk about.

All right. See you guys.

All right. See you.

We'll be right back.

we're getting it. We're going to wake up here soon. The holidays will be over.

Going to be right on top of it.

It'll be time. We keep saying we're going to take a break,

but we still keep coming up with stuff to talk about.

All right. See you guys. All right. See you buddy. Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah. All right, man.

Stone, you got to get down to Atlanta. Tell everybody at brave central

goober says, Hey, all right, we'll do it.

And it's always fun. We'll do it again. We're getting it.

We're going to wake up here soon. The holidays will be over.

Going to be right on top of it.

It'll be time. We keep saying we're going to take a break,

but we still keep coming up with stuff to talk about.

All right. See you guys. All right. See you buddy. Yeah.

Yeah.

Hey, yeah.

All right, man. Stone, you got to get down to Atlanta.

Tell everybody at brave central goober says, Hey, all right, we'll do it.

And it's always fun. We'll do it again. We're getting it.

We're going to wake up here soon. The holidays will be over.

Going to be right on top of it.

It'll be time. We keep saying we're going to take a break,

but we still keep coming up with stuff to talk about.

All right. See you guys. All right. See you buddy. Yeah.

Yeah.