For the latest High Five Clip, The What Podcast throws it back to 2021, the year of the Bonnaroo that wasn't. The crew was joined by Sylvan Esso, who were slated to host that year's SuperJam before... you know.
In this clip from last year, Sylvan Esso's Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn share what they had planned for SuperJam and detail learning about the festival's cancellation. The duo is back for Bonnaroo 2023, and the Superjam lineup hasn't yet been announced... could their original plans be resurrected?
Listen to Sylvan Esso chat about their lost Bonnaroo Superjam in the High Five Clip above, and then check out the full original episode here.
Also, remember to like, review, and subscribe to The What wherever you get your podcasts.
It's February, 2023.
Lord Taco with me.
I'm Barry Courter.
Brad, you'll notice, is not here.
I was going to make a joke about him being stuck in traffic with Beyonce, but I don't
know when everyone will see this or if anybody watched the Grammy.
So I'm just going to leave it alone.
And it might not be a joke.
It might be true.
It could very well be true.
I know he is planning on a trip south and he's got a lot to do.
So he's not with us today, but we have another high five clip that I got to tell you, man,
I keep going back to find these clips and listen to some of our earlier shows.
And it's pretty cool.
It's pretty impressive.
All the people we've been allowed to talk to.
Yeah.
I mean, not to brag since it is our show, but there's a lot of good stuff back there
in the, in the archives.
There really is.
And this one is completely relevant.
That's the other thing that I'm finding about it.
You know, for this is year six for us.
That's unbelievable, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's hard to believe.
Yeah.
Season six of the what podcast.
I was at lunch the last week at a local place here in Chattanooga.
And one of the waitresses came up and asked me if I was on the what podcast.
So that was pretty cool.
Hello, Morgan.
Hope you're listening.
It was very cool.
You never know, right?
She had no idea that it came from Chattanooga, that it started.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I thought that was kind of funny.
As always, my brain is ping ponging.
I'm jumping all over the place.
I know there's a lot that I want to get to, including our guest, which is Amelia and Nick
from Sylvan Esso.
They were our guest in 2021.
Yeah, I think it was 2021.
Yeah.
And they were going to be the Super Jam hosts.
And we talk about that.
So there's a lot of, like I said, relevance since they have not announced who the Super
Jam guests are, so we'll get into that here in a minute.
But two things I wanted to ask you about.
I ran across something on Reddit yesterday, I think.
Some people were talking about how much walking they do at Bonnaroo.
And it's kind of one of those things like, you know, I don't ever take the top off of
a hamburger.
I don't want to know what's in there.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I never understood people who look.
I'm happier if I don't ever look.
You don't want to know how the sausage is made.
Exactly.
So when I started reading this, I thought, well, this will be interesting.
And then now I wish I hadn't.
Because there were all these people commenting, you know, with Fitbit and watches, you know,
we can tell how many steps.
And guess how much walking people do just in general at Bonnaroo.
Oh, it's got to be 20,000 a day or more.
Yep.
You're right on it.
I mean, that's it's between 10 and like 14 miles.
Some people were walking as much as 21 miles in a day.
That's pretty crazy.
That's a lifetime for me.
Yeah, makes us feel like pansies for getting a golf cart.
True.
And complaining about the short walk that we have.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
It brings up a good point, though.
And it's something I've always wondered.
Why don't they do?
Why don't they allow bikes out?
You know, obviously not in Centeroo, but in the campgrounds, it seems like they could
have a big bike rack up by the arch.
Maybe you could just bike back and forth to camp if you're that far away.
You got to go back.
You got your sunscreen or water, you know, something.
Yeah, something make a lot of sense.
I always assumed it was a crowd.
I know the one year David Byrne was there, I had heard that he brought his bike and was
tooling around back on the production road.
Yeah.
Going from show to show.
That'd be cool.
The other part of bringing that up is now's the time.
And I'm talking to me in particular.
Get out there and start walking.
Yeah.
If you go from zero steps a day, which is probably what we average to 20,000, you know,
night and day like that, it's not going to go well.
It's not.
And especially for that many days.
You know, a lot of people were saying our pod or our plaza was way far out.
So we only made one trip a day.
That puts a lot of stress and pressure on you too, you know, to make sure you're eating
and hydrated and resting and...
Yes it does.
...and all that.
Well, that's one of the tenets of the code, the Bonnaroo code, prepare thyself.
Take care of yourself.
Take care of yourself and get yourself ready.
Trust us, especially.
That first two days last year were unbelievable.
I mean, I've been there when it was hot.
I've been there when it was raining.
Been there when it was cold.
But that heat last year was pretty next level, those first two days.
It was pretty brutal.
So yeah, take care of yourself and get ready.
Start now.
This is February, like I said, it's going to be on top of us pretty quick.
Speaking of, that was my other question for you.
We've had what, three weeks to live with this lineup now?
I know in the past we've come out, this is the best ever and then two days later it's
like, eh, let's back off a minute or the other way.
You know, this doesn't impress me but then after you start doing some research, it's
pretty darn good.
What are your thoughts today?
I still think it's great.
My opinion has not changed.
It's still a great lineup.
I printed it out that day we got it and I put it up on the fridge.
So at least once a day I'll glance at it and think, man, yeah, that's a good lineup.
I know.
I'm still just impressed.
I'm very impressed and I keep thinking that Sunday is going to be so different than years
past because it's so good.
For me every year there's a, well, am I going to stick around?
Am I going to go home early?
There's one person that I want to see but that won't start till late.
That's going to keep me there during the day.
Now that's the best day in my opinion.
Oh yeah, you better not leave early.
Yeah, no, you're going to miss something pretty epic.
Don't know anything yet.
I mean, we're hearing the same rumors that it may sell out.
I can't dispute it.
I haven't reached out yet to ask because it's one of those, you know, they're not going
to tell me the truth and that's not throwing shade at them.
You know, I'm going to get a standard marketing answer which is, it's doing great, you know,
but you better hurry.
Of course, yeah.
That's just marketing 101.
Yeah, it might sell out but what does sell out really mean?
I mean, they're not going to give us figures.
No, well, they have said 80,000 is a sellout.
Now what they, how many support staff and all that on top of that, I've never gotten
that answer.
So, you know, our best guess is 90 to 95, you know, like with McCartney, you couldn't
turn around.
It was so crowded and then other sellout years, it was crowded but not like that.
And as we've said selfishly, last year was pretty cool with only 40 or 42,000.
There was a lot of space.
Yeah, lots of room to move around.
No lines.
No lines, exactly.
So we'll see.
Pretty curious to know and that's another reason I kind of want to give them time how
the new ticketing options has gone.
I do think VIP is sold out, which once again, we need to shut our mouths because apparently
we've oversold.
Yeah, VIP and Area 931, if you made it in there, congratulations.
Congrats, yeah.
Good for you.
Yeah.
Good for you.
Excited for you.
We'll tell you where all the best places are.
I think we've camped all over that place, right?
Yeah, I think we know every inch of it.
Yeah, it's a great place.
So, all right.
So the high five clip today is with Sylvan Esso, like I said, with Amelia and Nick, who
were our guests.
It was just you and me, coincidentally.
Yeah, and almost painful to go back and listen to this now because I left that interview
so excited for their Super Jam because they had such a neat idea.
And then of course it got canceled.
So it's just another, it's another little sting.
Yeah.
Well, they talk about that on that, but on this.
You know, yeah.
Hopefully this year's Super Jam, whoever it is, is going to be just as fun.
Which makes me wonder, do you?
I mean, again, we don't, I don't like, Brad loves to, and you probably do, and some of
the, a lot of the other folks do like to speculate.
Do you think they'll be involved in it?
Is this a do-over opportunity for them maybe?
Because it was such a great idea.
I don't know.
And it, you know, that's, that's another debate that we've kind of had is, is it better to
kind of rehash and redo what we didn't get to do because it was canceled?
Or is it just time to move on and start with a fresh...
Sure.
...set of ideas?
Yeah.
I agree with that.
I mean...
I don't know the answer.
Yeah.
I don't either.
And this was, I think typically move on because as we've talked about, you know, whatever,
wherever you were at that time in your career, life or whatever is past.
So there's probably something better.
But it was, as you'll hear, is a pretty clever idea that I think works maybe this year as
well as last.
So we also, we talked about it, but not as much at length maybe as we could have getting
that piece of information from Brian Benson when he was on our show with us that the...
Did he say star or host or did he just say people?
I think it was kind of vague.
I think he was intentionally vague.
Yeah.
That they may not be on this, on the announced lineup.
So that's the big speculation is who could that be?
You know, you and I could come up with all kinds of names, including everybody's favorite,
you know, Dolly, who has told the newspaper in Knoxville that she would love to do Bonnaroo.
Is this the way?
Does she come and do, you know, three, four, five songs and not have to be on the farm
for a whole day in the heat and all that?
Yeah.
And that fits her somewhat recent announcement that she's going to stop touring.
I mean, this would just be an easy trip for her.
Come in and do three, four songs.
I mean, works for me.
I'll take whatever we can get, you know, but...
Yeah.
Since we don't know in the absence of the news, we don't know.
I mean, it opens up a lot of speculation on who could it be and who do you want?
And you risk being disappointed if it's not who's high on your list, you know?
Absolutely.
And that's typically why I don't like getting into the rumor game because it, you know,
depending it can set up an expectation and then if it doesn't happen, you're disappointed.
And that's not fair to the artist or the festival or anybody really.
I mean, it's fun to speculate and I get that, you know, that's why NFL draft days are so
so popular.
You get to play the what if game.
Exactly.
I mean, all the mock lineups that people put on Reddit leading up to the actual lineup,
you know, I just don't look at them.
Yeah, because I'm not saying it's good, not bad.
It's just not for me.
Partly because I can't tell you how many times I've had a story written only to find out
it never was going to happen.
Didn't work.
Yeah, didn't work.
So now I'm kind of in a until someone officially tells me I'm going to wait and see.
But anyway, all right.
So this is our interview with Amelia and Nick from Sylvan ESSO from 2020 run.
This is five minute, you know, a high five clip from those guys.
And I hope you'll listen to that and go back and listen to the whole show.
It was great.
Yeah, because the whole show was great.
So yeah, after this clip, definitely check it out because it was, you know, I was very
excited after that interview.
All right, here we go.
I almost even hate to ask this, but what was the show going to be?
Can we talk about that?
I mean, a little bit.
Do you put that in the back thing?
You know, what do you do or something like that?
I think there's things that were going to happen that I almost don't want to talk about
for fear that I might jinx them happening in the future.
You know what I mean?
But that's what you take over.
You like had this, you had the whole concept for the whole show.
Well, when we were when we were thinking about it was going to be the first live show that
we played.
And so I wanted to post pandemic.
And so I wanted to recreate when oh, yeah, not that it's quotation marks.
Not that it's over.
But you know what I mean?
And I wanted to recreate the first instance, a first instance of live music that we all
experienced, which is going and going to a wedding and seeing a wedding band.
So I basically wanted I wanted to take super jam and turn it into like the wedding band
of dreams, which mainly means giving everybody permission to sing the wildest, schlockiest
or like songs that just like have touched their hearts and that they would never do
because it's overdone or because because like they wouldn't give themselves permission.
So yes, so she was reaching out to all these people just being like, if you were going
to if you were going to get up and sing live band karaoke at like a dear friend's wedding
reception, what would you sing?
Exactly.
And that and that we put together a set of covers.
It was everybody.
All the guests had to do a cover.
They couldn't do their own stuff.
So it was it was all based on this crazy, like legendary wedding reception.
Yeah, legendary wedding reception.
That was about like raging.
That like the the finally everyone coming back together.
That was like the whole purpose.
Yeah.
So yeah, joy.
Joyous final.
Who's going to give the toast?
I was I was just going to ask what his song would be.
What do you say?
Oh, gosh, I don't even know.
I mean, I'm thinking Righteous Brothers or I mean, that's a good that's that's a great
theme.
That's never been asked that.
And I'm not going to ask or maybe I will.
Did you have a lot of people lined up ready to sing?
I mean, that was the that's the beauty for people who don't know who are listening.
The show for the first time, the super jam is an occasion.
That Bonnaroo does that I think they do as well as anybody.
It's they bring people together who were already on the farm and they get somebody like you
guys to be the curator and put together a 90 minute surprise, crazy, whatever it can
be.
You know, I love that idea.
The wedding man, my mind is just going crazy thinking of what it all could have been.
Well, I think the beautiful part about that idea that I loved when you were pitching into
it was just it drew something totally different out of each person that we asked.
Exactly.
It's like it got everybody to do a thing that I would never have expected them to do.
Exactly.
So like that was the whole fun.
And the most fun thing was it like I I'm a firm believer that when you ask someone to
do something, you can be like I like or in pitching this idea, I was like, I was thinking
that you could sing maybe these three songs.
So you got we got to curate in this different and totally different way where it's like
here's like here's some covers that could work if you know an idea.
Yeah.
And it really shaped the whole thing in a cool way.
Yeah.
Did you have to go?
I'd have to go for non-blondes.
What's up?
Oh, who doesn't want to who doesn't want to belt that out?
That's a serious that's a serious undertaking.
Yeah, I know.
My talk taco doesn't play.
I didn't say I didn't say I would do it good.
Purpose is joy.
Yeah, but it would be joyful.
I can come hard now.
Did you did you have to go at it with the idea of who was going to be there or did you
get to pick or both or I mean, how were you going to go at that?
We were both asking people who were going to be there and asking people that we wanted
to be there.
There's a couple of people that we caught wind from the promoters would want to come.
Yeah.
So we also just also just shot the moon.
Yeah.
A couple of people.
But also towards as the as time moved towards the festival, everyone was getting more concerned
about Delta.
So there was like there was some rearranging happening.
Well, that was that that leads to the next sort of obvious.
I'm still my head is exploding at this idea.
I love this idea because you could have gone so many ways.
I mean, so many people on site and I could just imagine you saying calling whoever and
saying, hey, what would be the song you would sing at your best friend's wedding?
I mean, what a great question.
Now I'm just now I'm just sad all over again that we didn't get to do this.
Me too.
What a great I thought I was over it.
What a great thing.
So I hope you still hope to do that.
I don't know.
We'll see.
I don't know.
Maybe.
I don't know.
When something gets canceled twice.
Also, to be fair, I do appreciate like I am a great lover of this of Bonnaroo in general.
The super jam was never my dream.
Definitely my dream.
Definitely his dream.
But I was really excited about the theme.
Well, and you crushed it.
I mean, that's the thing.
It's like I think it's a lot of these kind of things like we we have very different interests
between the two of us.
And I think bringing them together in that way is a thing that I think makes the band
work in general.
So it was kind of a perfect iteration of that.
Also we had William Tyler playing guitar.
Oh my gosh.
This one.
And he's such a shredder.
Yeah.
Like he can play anything.
The crew was really, really good.
Yeah.
And for the makeup show, we still played some of the covers that we were going to play.
Yeah.
We had people in the band sing them, which was so much fun.
C. Martin did Peg by Steely Dan.
Yeah.
Had Jen Wasner sing Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac.
And Adam Shatz did his his truly incredible rendition of the Isley Brothers shout.
Yeah.
We had to close with that.
All right.
So like we said, what a good idea.
Right.
I mean, what would you what song?
What would you sing if you were at a wedding or a wedding singer?
Right.
Yeah.
Wedding karaoke.
That was the main theme.
And I mean, when you first hear it, you're like, what?
But then when you hear him explain it, you're like, oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That would be great.
What's your mic drop song?
Do you have one?
Yeah.
I think I said on that show, mine was Four Non Blondes.
Oh, that's right.
You did.
Yeah.
Did you say you wish that would be the one or that is the one that you do?
That would be the one.
I don't think I've ever done it.
Yeah, I don't do I'm that's my nightmare.
Somebody hand me a microphone and say sing.
Literally, that's my nightmare.
Well, you're sitting in front of a microphone right now.
Let's hear it.
I'm not singing.
It should be everyone else's nightmare to the idea that I might sing.
But yeah, I have said for the last couple of years, I wish I had like a Napoleon Dynamite
kind of mic drop moment, you know.
Oh, yeah.
Well, you got that new hip.
You got to show us what you can do now.
It would be so great to have that one song that people like, this is gonna be horrible.
And then oh my gosh, he nailed that.
And then that's it.
One time.
That's it.
Never again.
All right.
Well, we have a whole bunch of fun shows lined up.
We've got some more information festivals.
We're going to talk to a couple of people that work with other festivals around the
country in the next couple of weeks.
I'm really excited about that.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaking of other festivals, there was a little news from Shaky Knees in Atlanta.
They have some late artists editions.
311, Snail Mail, Cautious Clay, who we've had on the show, and Anna Kramer.
Nice.
So.
Nice.
The Riverbend lineup will come out this week for anybody in this part of the country.
I know a little bit about it, and let me just say if you liked that sort of undercard at
Bonnaroo 2020, the one that didn't happen, you're probably going to be pretty happy with
this one because I know I am.
2020 and 2021 actually much smaller.
They scaled it down, but I'm really, really impressed with this lineup.
So it's funny.
I was thinking about that a year ago.
We were talking about, are there too many festivals and are the lineups oversaturated
and do they make sense or are they just jumbled, whatever?
It feels like they got it right.
It feels like the festival folks have dialed it back in.
Is that your impression?
Yeah, definitely.
You know, Riverbend is one that I'm trying to remember the last time I was at Riverbend.
I think Santana played.
Wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think maybe 97.
Wow.
I don't know.
Yeah, that's a long time ago.
But yeah, and you know, I kind of regret not going last year because the lineup was really
good and by all accounts, it was a good festival.
So maybe this year I got to go back.
Yeah.
That's one, and maybe we'll have to have those guys on sometime because that's one that's
reinvented itself.
It's been around, this is the 40th year and it's our city festival.
And it was basically, I mean, it took a lot of criticism from people because it was basically
like a county fair with a boardwalk and then it just so happened to have music and eight
days of music.
And so it tried to be all things to all people.
And it worked for a long, long time.
I mean, I've seen some great shows there, but it seemed to lose its way, lose its mission.
And they really redefined themselves last year.
And this lineup, especially you'll see.
Yeah.
And do you think maybe Moon River coming to town had something to do with their re-imagining?
I think everything.
Moon River and just the whole festival scene.
And of course, obviously the pandemic, you know, forced them to look at the bottom line
like all of them did.
And to their credit, they said, we got to make some changes.
And they did make some real hard changes, including basically letting everybody, two
staff members go and selling off assets.
And I mean, it was a real, real rebranding, re-imagining.
So yeah, well, sometimes you got to.
Yep.
So, all right.
Well, there you go.
We'll be back.
We're excited about the coming season.
We're very excited about Bonnaroo 2023 and all the festivals, really, the ones we just
mentioned and the folks we're going to talk to or run in some of the bigger festivals
around the country, like Coachella and Earl Fest and stuff like that.
So I'm excited to see what comes next.
Me too.
It's going to be a great year.
All right.
Well, we'll talk to you.
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