The What Podcast
Bonnaroo 2024 Roundup with Roo Bus and Friends
Season 7, Episode 27
Published July 24, 2024
https://thewhatpodcast.com/episode/bonnaroo-2024-roundup-with-roo-bus-and-friends

All I got to say is let's tag along the recovery and alcoholic to the beer

exchange. Yeah, right. Right.

Geez. What's going on around here?

Hello, everybody. We're back with the what podcast I'm Barry. That's Brian.

You'll notice, of course, that Russ is not with us. Lord taco.

He's not camping. I don't think I think he's had like a family reunion.

I'll just say it over the hills and through the what is it?

River to grandmother's house. Yeah, I think it's something like that and good for him.

So he's taking the week off. So you and I are going to do our best to carry through.

I think we'll be able to keep it together. Now, everything that happens once we stop

this portion, then I'm lost. So without without him.

Understand that third square with him just staring, he does a whole lot after.

It's an incredible lot. So amazing.

And just to like, as we say, inside baseball, when you're going back and editing these kinds

of things, when you're right there, it's a lot easier afterwards because you can

because you're there and you keep nodes if you want to.

And I'm not sure how what his process is, but like, hey, here's a bunch of stuff.

Yeah, have fun with it, man. Go now.

You got to go all through it. It's exhaustive. So we wouldn't be able to do without him.

No. And he loves it. And he told me that three or four times at Bonnaroo. I don't know if he pulled

you aside and said, I just want you to know, I really like doing this. So I'm glad I think

you'll grow out of that. I used to love, love, love, love editing and putting things together

just for fun. I still don't. It's not laying brick. You know, I still like doing it.

But boy, does it get tedious. And every now and again, I'm like, what am I doing?

Because it's not, it's not that it's super, super hard. Well, it is. You have to have a technical

understanding, but it's just tedious and it can take a while. But so he does a great work.

He does a great and we, we appreciate it. It's two things for me. I love it, but it's when I have to

go learn when I have to stop and go to YouTube and learn how to use, you know, Adobe or whatever.

I don't know rabbit hole and I lose my mind. Yeah. I don't know when the age hit that learning

started to stop, but it's, it's starting to happen to me. I used to pick up on things quicker.

So I was going to start with a, you and I have a mutual friend, a radio guy who says planning is

for dollars. Yeah. Our friend, Jeff styles. And that's sort of where I want to start with. Cause

I think this week we thought I probably at one point said was going to be the gore interview

or some such it's not, we're going to go ahead and flip things and do the interview that we did on

the real rebus with a whole bunch of very familiar. If you listen to this show or any show, or you go

to Bonnaroo on the regular, you're going to recognize a whole lot of people. It's one of my

favorite things. And it's what I was most looking forward to. We'll get to that and I'll lead into

it a little bit more. We're going to do that. And we're going to talk a little bit about South Star

and we're going to talk just a little bit about where we are in the season, I guess. Right. I mean,

yeah, I mean, we're, we're, we're really pulling up on dead dead time because everybody is finally

decompressed. You know, we're over a month out and other things are coming up and people are getting

excited about the fall and football seasons right around the corner. And so yeah, this is a, this is

the time when things start to fall off or we go too much further though. I've found her the show,

our great friend, biggest jerk on the planet, but we love him to death. Brad Steiner sent me a picture

and first of all, he was on the, on the floor or the ground at city field where the Mets play for

the Foo Fighters. And, and then later he sends me this picture, of course, five feet away from

Dave Grohl. And I forgive me for getting the, their other guitar player's name at the, at the

moment. But yes, of course, Brad's on the stage can't be anywhere unless he's, I mean, when I saw

him on the floor, I didn't, I didn't, I just moved along, but I wanted to say, what are you slumming

it on the floor? Like, what's up with this dude? I saw the same picture and he looked like he was

about 10 or 12 rows back. I'm like, you couldn't get any closer. What's the matter, man? What's up?

And he's the kind of guy that's gonna be like, really Brian, you're going to go see Foo Fighters

again. And so I'm thinking, what are you doing? Other than it is city field, he's a big Mets fan.

So I can understand wanting to go to the stadium, especially since he doesn't pay for a thing that

he ever does in life. But no, of course he, he makes it to the stage. So good for you, Brad.

Good for you. Good for him. And yeah. And speaking of, are you, are you, have you come down yet?

Have you landed or the feet on the ground from Vegas and the dead at the sphere? Pretty much.

I was talking to somebody yesterday that I, I'm starting to be grounded a little bit, but I want

a, a Grateful Dead tattoo now. I want this, I want the, I've got a picture. I'm not going to do it.

These things are so expensive, but it's just a pie in the sky idea, but I, there's this, I'll,

I'll send it over. It's a black and white picture where I was right in front of the sphere.

And it's the Steely, the traditional Steely with the, with the lightning bolt through it,

rather than some kind of other design, traditional Steely black and white. And it's kind of pixelated

because I'm so close to the, to the, to the sphere. And I was looking at that picture. It's not really

any good for anything other than just, Hey, look, I was standing in front of it and I'll keep it for

that reason. And it's, and I was like, that would look so cool on my shoulder, kind of fade down

and have it be pixelated a little bit to make it look like the sphere. And then maybe throw a date

on it or something. I mean, I'm not a big tattoo guy. That little thing, that little thing, and

that's it. And so I guess I'm not completely grounded yet. Cause that conversation was yesterday.

I don't think I'm actually going to do it, but I mean, I've still, I've still got my, you know,

it's got to be the old man in me, but a pixelated tattoo doesn't sound like a good idea. No, I mean,

no, well, how many tattoos are really that great of an idea? They all look pixelated.

Well, I meant, and that might be the wrong way of putting it, but I wanted it to look like the

sphere up close and the sphere up close doesn't look as good as a sphere does a mile away because

you're too close. And so I kind of wanted it to, I wanted to have a special feel. So anyway, that

probably won't happen, but yeah, it's it, I've talked to some other friends who were going there.

They got the one more run in August and I'm like, I won't spoil you. I'll give you all the tips.

Let's go get coffee. Come on. So I'm not completely off a cloud nine, as they would call it.

I had just one, I think follow-up question. Cause I listened back to the show that we did

and it was fun. Yeah. I rambled too. I thought it was good. But I did wonder and it's not just

because of the sphere, but because we've had people like Jeff Quay are on who ran help run

Bonnaroo for so many years and so many other festivals. And he's now doing cruise tours.

And now we've got the sphere and then we got Taylor Swift just literally sucking the air

out of the industry. And you watch it and follow it as much as I do, which is, I mean,

it's not something we do 40 hours, 60 hours a week, but we obviously care. Yeah. I mean,

was it, does it feel like, what, what does it feel like? Does it feel like, and I think I sort of

asked you that, uh, last week talking about the sphere, did it change how you now expect to see

a music show? Um, have you had any more thoughts about that? You know what I'm asking? Yeah, no,

not, not for me. Um, but I could see that it could, it could happen to others and really those,

and to speak of Taylor Swift and many of these other football stadium shows and, and to the degree

of what the, the what stage looks like now, it, it wasn't that long ago that the what stage just had

two screens on the side that were basically squares, like maybe a little bit rectangular,

but basically just squares on the side of the stage. Now they're, they're life-size from the,

from the ground all the way to the top on both sides and behind the stage is from,

it's completely engulfed. And that's just been slowly happening as technology has made that

cheaper and easier to make a bigger and better production. And so like the rolling stones tour

that's going on right now has these incredible, uh, visuals from, from that kind of aspect.

Now that's nowhere near what the sphere is, but it's still doing the same kind of thing

on a smaller scale. And I think that could lead to people being disappointed in seeing smaller size

shows. I absolutely think that could be. And it's also what's driving these costs. I mean,

we talked about it shortly after, um, Bonnaroo was over the, the post Malone show this year was

unreal production. Now that had a lot to do with pyro, which I always get a little annoyed with,

but it looked, it worked beautifully this year for him. And these productions are getting on such

a scale. It's almost like I use a clip on the, on my local podcast or if somebody who's talking

about a certain number you had to get to, to make any money. And he was talking about how he had to,

you know, decide, do I want to do a show on a lesser scale to keep the prices down or do I want

to do a show that, that I know I'm capable of doing. And this was a smaller thing, but still

the same concept. If you can do something that's really impressive, why wouldn't you? And I guess

the, why wouldn't you could be because of the cost. But right now we're showing we, as a American

consumer public are showing that we will pay the money for the higher end stuff. So, um, I don't

know that for, for the general public, that's a, that's a good question. Will this long term,

it's what we're going to be watching, um, change, but for me, no, I can still go to our local

a hundred capacity, JJ's Bohemia dump hole and watch a rock band and have a great time. I,

I can still do that, but maybe not everybody.

This is a really good segue into the rest of the show, but I want to make sure. Is there any other

news, any other things that are sort of hanging out there before we,

not really that needs to be discussed today. Um, I guess I will say one thing. We, we, we,

I guess I will say one thing. Um, we can talk about this about talk. This has nothing to do with the

show, uh, or Bonnaroo or anything tacos weekend last weekend with those planes. Like when we're

doing this show, we don't see that stuff. That's all posts put in later. And I also was just kind

of still in a daze from just getting back from the other side of the country and wasn't, I wasn't

listening to every word that was being said. I'm like, play planes, planes. Okay. Anyway, you're done.

It's so classic taco. He undersells. He's like, oh yeah, I went to this event and there's planes.

And then I saw, I did the same. I watched that. I'm like, holy crap. I know. And then I'm watching,

I'm watching the video and watching these little damn planes. And he did mention there's a really

small space and you know, there's no room for error, but he doesn't another word about that to me.

But there's, but there's no urgency in the way he said it to where I didn't believe that there was

any danger. Jesus Christ. These things are coming in right where they're camping. If they're off by

five feet, there's some real problem. Classic him. What'd you do this weekend?

Watch a bunch of planes laying right in my camp, right inside the bus. Almost. I was up there with

Indiana Jones. You know, no big deal. I was really cool looking. I was like, I, I could find a lot

of fun in that. I'm going next year if I have to push his bus up and, and, and, and if you're not

familiar with the geography of the city of Chattanooga, it is, uh, it's, it's about as not

as great as you're going to find this side of the Mississippi anyway. Yeah. And lookout mountain is,

is a jewel. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's gorgeous. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And so the fact

that he found a cool place to camp. Okay. Well, sure you did. But that was incredible. I thought

the same thing. I was like, man, he undersold that. Yeah. And well, I couldn't tell if it was

that. Well, it was that plus I was just not paying his attention. I, me either. And the visuals we

didn't have. So anyway, that looked like a really, really cool weekend. So I didn't, I hope it didn't

come across as like, all right, uh, Togo move along buddy. Anyway, that pretty much cover. I

mean, yeah, we don't, we're not ground, uh, breaking any ground here. No, but I did. South star.

Maybe if you want to look at that for a minute, but we, I think we can talk about that later.

It's still, it's still a little bit ways off that down in Huntsville. I do want to mention,

cause I've sort of teased, we thought we were going to have the folks from C3 on

soon and it's probably going to be later in the fall. Um, which is fine. I'm, I'm thrilled.

Cause what we're going to get is going to be a lot of fun and, um, and something unique for sure.

Um, but I did, you were talking about, and I'd ask you about sort of the industry and, um,

it completely random and, and, but not, uh, you do your, another podcast stone on air,

which I recommend people go listen to. I do a radio show every Saturday and we had a

formal local police chief on, uh, uh, David Roddy, uh, to give him credit. And during our

conversation, he said something that I've literally, Brian had to stop and get my pen

and a piece of paper and make him repeat it. He said he was, he was told years ago,

and I don't remember who credited he, who he credited with, but he said, as a, you know,

a person in charge, you're either leading, growing, or running it. And I, I mean, it,

that's Bonnaroo. It's any, it's anything you're either, you know, you're either out there in

charge, you're either leading, uh, or you're just going through the motions to keep it going

or you're growing. And in some cases you might be doing two or maybe all three, depending on,

you know, if it's multiple departments and things like that. And I, and I thought about

that before we got on the air because of specifically, uh, the show that we have,

which is with a bunch of people who's, who I've alluded to are well known to anybody who has

anything connected with Bonnaroo, uh, the, the rebus guys, uh, Mitchell, uh, EDM Kyle. I mean,

these are all names that if you've listened to this show for any length of time, you've heard

them mentioned or they've been on or, you know, combinations of those things. And,

and the thing that we've always said is that Bonnaroo does a really good job of, uh, adapting,

right? It's not stagnant. It has never been stagnant. You, Brian, you know, as well as

anybody, those first two, three years when it wasn't fish and widespread and Warren Haynes and,

you know, the jam bands, people were mad. Yeah. You know, you've sold their souls, you're, you're

all that kind of stuff. Well, they were adapting. They never intended to be a jam band hippie fest

22 years later. Right? Yeah. I mean, to, to speak to the stag, the word stagnation,

they've, they came close to hitting that one time for sure, maybe almost twice. And that might've

been towards the, I, I'll, I'll, I know the second one I'll come back to the first one would have

been that transition. I bet Ashley caps in them at, you know, in 02 probably didn't think about

20 years later and they probably did think this is a jam band thing, maybe going forward, um, year

to year and then reevaluate cause two, three and four, that's all it was. I mean, in four was David

Byrne and, uh, Bob Dylan and, uh, I think Trey was there again and panic was there every year,

all my brothers and then oh six, they brought in radio head and Tom Petty. And that's when it,

that was a big, what the hell are y'all doing? Well, and they still sold today. They sold

today. Well, and they still sold the damn place out because they were, they were realizing these

trends are going another way and we've got to, we've got to adjust and, and, and make those

adjustments to be able to fit what the consumer wanted. And sometimes the consumer doesn't know

what they want until you give it to them. Well, and I can, I can speak to that a little

because I had conversations with Ashley early on two, three years, years, two, three and four.

Um, they, and we've set it on here. He set it on here. The reason that fish was the year one was

because fish had already done, had their own festival and could draw thousands of people who

would camp. Well, for clarification, just in case, so we don't get the comments, I Trey was,

it was widespread and Trey from fish year one fish had fish was on hiatus at that exact moment,

but sorry, go ahead. No, that mean a derail. I'm conflating the fans. You're exactly. Um,

but it was, they knew they would camp and they knew they had to bring people who would camp and

they knew they had to bring people who were connected, um, through whatever the, it wasn't

social media then, but you know, you remember they spent $0 marketing that first one and sold it out.

So could barely even sell tickets online at that time. Right. Um, and fish had just got done with

the new year, new millennium Cypress, something or other. And it was such a success. And I can't

remember if that was in Florida or Vermont. It was probably Vermont either way. And that was the

model was that look at this, how well it was. And yeah, yeah. And so to your, you know, 20,

look in 2022 years, probably then, no, I think they, if they were honest, they would say,

you know, we'll ride this as long as we can. But then they pretty quickly figured out, we can't

do this every year. Uh, so then, and I remember, and I don't remember which year, but probably

fourth or fifth or whatever. So it would have been Oh, eight, Oh, nine, something in long,

those lines. I started seeing the VIP areas and I can remember being offended, you know, like this

is, this is not the hippie vest. This is not, you know, what I think of as Bonnaroo. Yeah. Oh, wait,

had Pearl Jam and Metallica and Chris Rock. And that was really, which was awesome. One of my

favorite, one of my favorite years, one of my favorite years, but that was, that was a six,

seven and eight, seven ed tool, uh, for the first time. And Oh, six had radio head. And so those,

those three years were transitional years. And while you know, the music had loved it,

but the jam fan was mad. The mad jam fan was mad. And you started seeing these sectioned off areas

that were, you know, VIP only. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I couldn't remember what year the VIP came in,

but that sounds about right. Yeah. You know, to that left side of the witch over there. Sure.

And we're like, Oh my God, this is, um, but then you started to see the infrastructure, uh, the

the real attention to the infrastructure, trees, grass, plumbing, grading for storm, all the stuff

that nobody's supposed to see, but me runoff was stormwater runoff was such a big problem for so

long. And it took them so long to fix that. Exactly. And then to quickly to, to, to the other

stagnation time that they adjusted so well was in 16. And you, we all remember we were all, you know,

it fully entrenched in our camp, not butter and are probably at our height of, of the amount of

people, industry people, musicians. I mean, just some of the best, coolest people I've connected

people I've ever met around this time period. And that's the year the, you know, the sold base,

basically half the place. And it was awful, uh, ticket sales. And for me, for an old middle,

middle on my way to middle age, uh, rock and roll guy, Tame and Paula Pearljam and dead and company

sounded like as good as it gets. Yeah. But that's the year. Yeah. But that is the year. And then the,

the, the, uh, quote, uh, came into the ethos and, um, but it just didn't work. And they, it was a

really bad miscalculation and it could have been the death of the festival. It very much could have

been, and they just hard pivoted. And in 2017, lore, I'm going on memory, Lord, the weekend,

rainbow kitten surprise was a, I found them that year. They were on the witch stage. Nobody had

heard of rainbow kitten surprise. And the place was like losing it. KG elephant on which, uh,

that was the first time I've seen them. I wish I could remember other headliners. I'm sorry,

but that 2017 year was pop music city. I bet the EDM was coming in heavy that year too.

It had already started to creep in, but I, I don't remember the timeline exactly. Forgive me, but

that hard pivot. And I remember at that time, I was like, what are you doing with my festival?

You're turning into a pop. What are you Taylor Swift next? Right. One of my favorite years,

2017 is one of my favorite years. A sold out again. And I, I walked away saying the weekend

is one of the coolest things going. That's my point with, and that's why when David Roddy said

that the other day, you're either leading, growing or running it. And, uh, that's, you know, those

are hard decisions, uh, risky decisions. Uh, yeah, that could, I mean, you could, you, they could have

they could have made that 2017 shift and had a bunch of pop acts and it might not have worked.

And Lord wasn't huge yet. The weekend wasn't huge yet. A lot of these names weren't huge yet.

And I'm God, I'm sorry. I wish I could think you're focusing on the acts. Think about what

else they did. I mean, that's when they pivoted hard with the different choices, the camping

experience choices. That's true. Yeah. And then the bar, the Barnes and the plazas started focusing

on the plazas. And what are you going to do besides the, the, the music, you know, the, besides the,

um, the lineup, uh, and you know, I don't think you can emphasize enough. You can't do these things

all at once. You know what I mean? Probably somewhere and somebody's desk drawer is a plan

for the future kind of thing. And you can't do them all at once. You can't afford to,

you don't have the people. Yeah. And you can't, I mean, that's turning the Titanic around. You

can't do it in one season and one tree and it'd be shady, you know, it's not going to grow 50 feet in

a year. Yeah. I mean, that's oversimplifying, but, but they planted trees, they planted grass,

they planted all these kinds of things that, that now you don't even think about, but you and I

remember, man, when people were fighting over six square inches of shade because of a pole that was

in the ground. And if you think I'm kidding, I'm not kidding. Yeah. That's how bad it was. So,

yeah, that's, I mean, I, you're right. The, the, the infrastructural, uh, shifting

really is something to, to dissect and to, to really look at. And I'd actually, at some point,

maybe in the off season, look at that year to year and see when the different things were

implemented, whether they worked or not, but most of them, most of them do work. I mean, very few

things have they, have they added and then said, okay, we're pulling that back. I'm sure there are

a few, and I'd like to remember what, and we, these are great topics for when we do talk, see

later down the year, but the biggest one I can remember is roll like a rock star. Not the biggest,

it was probably the, you want to talk about I roll and roll in line rock star, get out of here.

Well, and they've said it was, it was a good idea. It got a lot of attention, but it didn't gain

them anything. So it went away. Um, yeah, well, just for, in case anybody doesn't know, cause it

was very short lived, you basically paid high end to come in on a tour bus and you could sleep.

Basically you come in like roll like, it's, it's, it's specific to the name you roll in on a,

in a tour bus, you sleep on a tour bus and something like that. I don't know, but I remember

hearing that thinking, all right, you guys have lost your minds, but it didn't, and it, it clearly

wasn't a success. And then they moved on and, you know, now we're onto different things like

Platinum's and area nine three ones, which do seem to be working. And well, again, the platinum,

we'll talk more about that down the road in the off season too, but just lots of different ideas

come from failed and successes, create more ideas. And that goes back to the leading and the growing

and the thought and the, um, and the other would, sorry, the other portions of those quotes.

And so along those lines, and this is, um, again, when we were there, uh, we did interviews, uh,

which you've heard from happy landing, say she, she, um, Michigander and war. And we also, uh,

went to the beer exchange, which is going to be today's episode. Um, we talked a little bit about

it in our recap, but, uh, the beer exchange, uh, Brian, for me was the focus. This was the one thing

that I was really lasered in on in the weeks and months leading up to it, um, because of the people

that were going to be there. It's not because I was particularly interested in changing,

extending beer. Sure. Oh, well, I mean, I, I, I understand. Um, I mean, a lot of people have not

have thought that that's a little lame. Um, that's fine. I think we all think what we think about

whatever, but it's got a family reunion kind of feel to it, right? Like that's got a, that's got

a charm and excitement to it. And these are people that have been in the, um, you know, the ecosystem

of, of a lot of these things that we do. And, um, you guys, you and taco and, and even Brad know

many of them way better than I did. So I've got to know them more sense and, um, yeah, so I get it.

I get it. It's just a cool party, man. Fun parties are cool. It, it, it, in so many ways, um,

maybe the most high profile way encapsulates everything we've just been talking about and

everything we pretty much talk about every week because here you had an event, you know, that was

a design, it's a concert. It's, you know, a hundred acts, 10 stages, whatever you're going to go see

music. But no, by the way, what else are you going to do during the day? Well, these guys, um,

just like us, I mean, you and I weren't hanging out 15 years ago and I wasn't hanging out with

Brad or taco or any of the other people that are now, you know, I speak to, uh, certainly on a

weekly basis, uh, in some cases, even more than that, same with these guys. Um, and so somebody

said, Hey, can I bring a bunch of beer? We'll swap beer. And then it became, it literally sort of

has led to group camping, which is a big part of the plazas, which is a big part of it. It's just

the whole thing, you know, that it's a domino or a building block, call it whatever you want. Um,

and next week when we do the war thing, um, and again, this, this was what's been on my mind for

the last three, four, five, six months is everybody has similar kind of stories with

suddenly your friends with people from across the country because of this festival. And we all have

so many similar stories, but they're all unique stories. And they're never, they're always similar,

but they're never the same, never the same. And, but somebody from Montana is meeting up with

somebody from New York and somebody from Florida and one of them drives, one of them flies, you

know, whatever, but they all end up in the same place. And on a lot of cases they end up at the

beer exchange. And that's why I think to me, it's such a cool, a cool kind of thing. Yeah. And then

that was the first time that I had ever seen group camping this year. It's the first time I've actually

seen it with my eyes. I knew what it was and I knew kind of where it was. And for years and years,

we, um, I would give Brad, our former, uh, former cohost of the show and I would give him all kinds

of hell, that guy and step foot in GA, except for the time we all went to the, one of those first

beer exchanges. I mean, that's almost completely literal. Right. And, um, but so I would make it a

point to get out into GA cause I enjoyed it. And as the years have gone by, I do it less and less

and less and less. And part of that is I'm just done. I just don't have the stamina that I used

to have to just go on foot all day long. It's not cause I don't want to, it's just, it just doesn't

happen. And so I enjoyed just getting out there again for the first time in a long time. And,

and when I saw what they do and how they tie it all together, which you won't see in what we do

today, I don't know how much more we'll talk about it, but, and we have mentioned already in our

overall recap a month ago, I guess it is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.

Like who coordinates this going back to David Roddy, like who, who's the leader? Who is the one

who is, is you've got to have somebody doing coordination. This stuff doesn't organic is fun,

right? Organic is neat. And it's all part of everything. Things like this don't come together

a hundred percent organically. It needs infrastructure leadership. Who does that? And

they do it so well and it makes our campsites look like amateurs. And we have some, we've had some

amazing campsites. So wow. So, and you like to be fair, you and I have not done it, but from,

you know, talking to so many people, you're, you're a hundred percent right. For those who haven't

done it, you can sign up for a group camp and you have to have a certain number. I think it's 30

or 35, right? I think it doesn't matter. It's not five. A lot, a lot of people, a lot of people,

so minimum number and there can be, you know, a hundred, 200 in some of them. And so you can

sign up like say you're from Montana and you don't know a soul. You can just, yeah, you can just join

the party. If you find the right people to Reddit or whatever group and they will hold you a spot.

Um, in some cases you can have your stuff, your gear shipped, you know, somebody will coordinate

that kind of thing. So, and then all of a sudden you have, uh, an instant group. I won't say instant

friends. I mean, I, you know, I assume everybody gets along, but I'm sure there have been some

issues, but it's some of them have organized games. Uh, some of them do things together. They go to

shows together. Some it's just a place for you to, to camp, put your head, just to make it easier.

Cause you got nowhere else to go. Yeah. You know, it could be that simple. Could be that simple,

but, um, but in the case of really impressive in case of like the beer, uh, and this is the point

of the Bonnaroo people, they reached out and saw an opportunity and said, these people have

something going. How can we help? So, um, there was a tent last year. There was a stage. I think the

last couple of years there, there've been a stage nearby and they've had some, some bands or performers

or DJs, whatever. Um, so they kind of help coordinate and give them space and do what they can.

Um, because it's a cool thing. And that's, you know, to me that it's just that whole, um,

growing, how can we make this cool? You know, how can we make it work? Um, and it was a huge crowd.

Uh, but for me, in addition to that, we got to see, and this was my, my focus and you'll see,

you'll hear it in the interview. We ended up on the, uh, the real rew bus, uh, Daniel, first time

I'd seen the real rew bus by the way, like in person, it is a very neat, uh, very, very neat,

uh, bus and it has AC in it. So that was fun. Yeah. Not the best AC ever, but it better than

that. Hell yeah. And that was Friday when the heat was just starting to turn up. Like it wasn't

there yet. It hadn't pegged yet. Sunday it pegged, but it was starting to pick up.

And so you had the tent with the beer exchange. You had the bus nearby, which was attached to

the monkey bar, which is a whole nother thing. So you had this, this is a, this is a, this is a

whole vibe. I mean, you literally could have probably stayed there all weekend and had a great

time. Well, as we talked to one of the guys we talked to, you said I would be, I would

hang out right. I'm sorry. I don't remember who, I don't remember who was all on the bus. It was,

if we were packed in there. Um, and that's what I, that's the other thing you were going to Mitchell,

Evan, Kyle, us, of course, uh, Daniel was in the bus, but also Romy, uh, who was our, our chauffeur,

our chauffeur, uh, works for the festival and, uh, she kind of wraps it all up. She, and, uh,

I think I told you the day before, uh, Pia from Say She She just nailed the whole

Bonnaroo vibe and what it means. And then Romy said the same thing. So this was a lot of fun for me

to, my goal was to meet everybody. We got to meet the, uh, RooHamm guys in person. Finally, Michael,

uh, Parker and, uh, Jake, um, finally got the hug and howdy. That was the whole point for me.

Uh, it was just a lot of fun. And I just think it sums up in some ways,

in so many ways, why Bonnaroo is just so unique and special. Cause these are people we've been

talking to for months, uh, years, and we talked to around the year. That's, it just stuns me,

Brian, when I think about that, why are we talking about a festival year round? We do this show every

week. That's not, yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I hope there'll be a few weeks here. We won't,

but, but, but yes, most of the weeks of the year. And it's because it's such an infectious, great

thing. Um, and it's, it's a, if you know, you know, thing. Right. I feel like we're, we're preaching

the converted here, but, uh, well, yeah, this is the, this is the choir staring at us saying, yeah.

So let's hear the interview then guys. Yeah. So let's do it.

Yeah. So let's do that. Here's the interview. This is a bunch of us, uh, on the real Roo bus.

You should recognize everybody. I think everybody identifies themselves though. There's a couple of

people on here that, uh, uh, the bus got crowded right there. It got crowded. It was a lot of fun.

So here it is. And, uh, hope you guys enjoy it. All right. So here we are. I don't even know where

to start. We're on the, on the real Roo bus with, so the whole point of this weekend for me was the

Hug and Howdy tour, which I, you know, made a joke about. And I, there's what? 12 people in this bus

that I'm happy to hug and howdy and see, lay eyes on. I meant to tell you what you said. I'll be

quiet. I was like, don't be quiet. Have fun. This is, we're at the beer. She'll be quiet.

And, uh, thank you for your time. We're sitting here with people who have been on our show,

who we've talked about on our show, who we've gotten drunk with, uh, multiple times,

multiple times, handing out my Lord today. And I hit that, which I'm going to regret,

but I'm kidding. I'm glad I did it. All I gotta say is let's tag along the

recovery alcoholic to the beer exchange. What's going on around here? I'm kidding.

Describe the beer exchange to the non alcohol. It's fun. I love it. I love, uh, I love the brands.

You know, I'm, I'm a big brand guy, whiskey. Look, I mean, I, I love it. It's cool to see it stuff

from all over the, you know, the, the region. It's neat. The, you know, we've been talking about this

like crazy. That's the one of the coolest cans I've seen in forever from common John. And, uh,

it's been great. So yeah, I make it total jokes. I'm, I'm, I'm doing great. It's fun. So let me,

let me say this real quick for, uh, Russ and Brian and I have been so thankful and appreciate it with

everybody this weekend. He's come up and said, thanks for what you guys do. Love it. Love it.

It ain't bothering us. But this group right here is, is kind of why we're sitting here. Daniel,

this is your boss, the real robust. Thanks for letting us be in here.

Very. This is just about yours.

As it is anybody's.

Well, I mean, not just the bus with this whole event. That's well,

Charlie and I joke that this thing belongs to all of our readers. Kind of caretaker right now.

So like this year we have kind of like sectioned off, so like the ride is open to me and my friends

come chill out and charge phone or whatever. This thing recharges us for the whole year.

I was just talking with somebody a few moments ago, like a lot of the year you go places,

it feels like we're just thrown down to be there. You go Walmart and everybody feels like a zombie,

but you come here and everybody's just happy to see what it is. Recharges you for the rest of the

year. Yeah, absolutely. Um, Mitchell, who I pointed to kidding you and Kevin are largely

responsible for this crazy idea of beer exchange, right?

There was a dude on Reddit in like 2014. It was like, Hey, I'm coming through. He posted on Reddit.

I'm coming with a whole bunch of beers from Florida. Is anybody doing a trade? I don't know

where to meet. And we were like, Hey, we're in group camping. We're going to have a guaranteed

spot and we know where to send everybody beforehand. Why don't you meet over here? And 14

people showed up and he wasn't one of them. He came like 10 hours later because um,

substance. You missed your own party, dude. Yeah. He showed up 10 hours later with like a giant

cooler and he was carrying it like Atlas. And he like, he asked everybody what their favorite beer

was. And he had something from Florida in the palette of exactly what they were asking for.

Um, but yeah, it's, it's grown from there. But it's, it's Kevin does most of the leg work on the

can stuff by a mile. I, I just show up and look pretty. So we did a whole episode. You do a damn good

job of it. See you there, bro. We carry that well. We carry that well. We did a whole show with Kevin

on, on the beer and it's, it's so cool to see it in person, but describe the day. I mean, when we

pulled up that tent, you could hardly get another person inside that tent. Yeah. I mean,

I took a few minutes to just kind of go outside. I mean, it was kind of bursting through the both

sides of the gills as it does every year. And it was kind of the first time in the last couple

of years that I've been doing this is like sit and just, just be like, wow, you know, it's just,

it's chaos. It's controlled chaos, but it's, you know, everybody thinks me, you know, for this

beer exchange or this beer, and it's not mine. We, we absolutely, 100% do this for the community.

We gave away 500 plus beers for free for the community. Like we gave, uh, three kegs of

beer away and like under 30 minutes for free kind of feel like modern day Robin Hood's a Bonnaroo.

I mean, it's just, it's about this. I said this last night to somebody and I will stick by it

pretty much for the rest of my life. I will pay money, the same price ticket to camp here. If

there was no music, because this is what this community has grown. I really would. And that's

kind of the day it was chaos, but it's, it's there's such a piece to the chaos. So talk about the,

the common John brewing that's out of Manchester and how that connection came together. I mean,

it's new on my radar, uh, as a, as a Manchester brewery, um, how did, how did that collab come

together? Yeah. So funny enough, the common John really hasn't been in Manchester very long. Uh,

when we started the collaboration in 2019, um, we would have loved to had common John here then,

but they just didn't exist yet. Um, and so, uh, common John, when we were still doing the

collaboration with pontoon brewing, like the week before Bonnaroo, uh, in the past years,

we common John graciously opened up their, their place to us. And we kind of did like a tap take

over of the other beers for pontoon brewing. And through that we met LeBron and kind of struck

up a relationship. He, he was really fascinated and kind of as independent brewers at which most

craft brewers are this grassroot type movement, this communal movement, that's, that's a big part

of how they get their name out there. And he was just latched to it. And we, we'd said then in 2021

or was it 20, yeah, 21 before the hurricane, we were at his bar when it all canceled, when we were

getting in touch with all you guys and LeBron, me and him kind of looked at each other and said,

let's do something someday. And that was in 2021. And so fast forward to 2024, here we are doing

the beer with him. And it's been amazing. I have a question. I have a question for you.

I don't know if you guys talked about this earlier, but I am in love with the art.

Did somebody do this or is it AI generated? How'd that come to me? Uh, the, they have an

in-house artists, uh, Derek and I apologize. I do not, I cannot think of his last name. He was here.

Um, he is, you know, we just, I have no art background. I can't draw stick figures.

I don't know how any of my ideas have made on any of these cans, but it really is just a,

it's an idea of kind of what the theme is and what we want to do. And then Derek, uh, for common John,

they're in house kind of artists, kind of design kind of just put it all together. So it's, it's

not us drawing. It was put together. It's a beautiful can. There's no doubt about that.

And then a lot of the, you know, the breweries, they do the, just the kind of sticker on the

can kind of thing, which is fine. It's budget constraints. I get it. This thing's, this thing's

beautiful. Talk about it. I was, uh, I was at the post office on Tuesday morning, trying to ship

some out and the ladies at the post office were like, damn, that's a beautiful can. Where'd you

get that? I'm like, were they talking about you? No, but they, I tried to ship it. They're like,

we can't ship beer, but that's a damn beautiful can. Where'd you go? You can, if you're sneaky.

I was not sneaky enough. All right. So I promise this was going to be quick. Um, on the bus or

people you should be familiar with. If you listen to real robots or the, um, our podcast, the white

podcast, Mitchell, uh, Kevin, Evan, Daniel, of course, Kyle's in the back, but also on the bus is Romy.

Romy is here because Romy works for the festival and was kind enough to give us a ride over here

so we could carry our equipment. She did it two years ago and the storm came through, but we just

kind of fell in love with Romy because she's got such a Bonnaroo attitude and that was your first year

and you came and we really wanted you to see this event and you've been here for an hour, hour and

a half. So you bring a different perspective. What do you think about it? I think it's so special.

Um, as someone that I, I kind of see a way different side of the festival than everyone else. So

I'm kind of in the press tent. I'm in the photo pits, like I'm kind of more behind the scenes.

And so I don't get to spend a lot of time with the campers and see what the real culture is like.

And this is so special and I'm so grateful that you guys asked me to come drive you again.

It's really fun. Yeah, I got to talk to so many people and people from all over the country

and so many different beers and I just wouldn't have been able to, I wouldn't even really know

about it if I didn't get to drive our little cart over here. So I feel really lucky and like I feel

like I got a really unique experience and I want to come back every year. And yeah, it's just that

you can feel you were, I thought it was really special that you said, um, you would come back.

There's no music like that gives me chills because it's, it's true. Like the culture

in here is really like tangible and, um, everyone is so nice. There's kind of nowhere in the world

that you just walk around and everyone's throwing beer at you and throwing food and like, what do

you need? What do you need? What do you need? Everywhere, like everywhere you go, it's like,

everyone's just, it's like a utopia, you know, it's like so special and, um, yeah, unlike anything

else, I think that's why you could see why we felt in love. That's all I got. We need to get out of

here. Perfectly stated by the way. That is very cool. And if you want to drive us around later in

the weekend, I'm kidding. I mean, not really. You guys, you guys desperately need to go check out

the house of yes. Something really good is going on. I feel like that has become really integral

to the campground experience the past couple of years too. It gets wild and all the best ways.

Cool. Nice. All right. Thanks guys for giving up 10 minutes in your time. Kevin Mitchell,

congratulations on another awesome event. Thank you so much. And if I may, I need to give one

last shout out because I promised him so much that I was do it. Uh, I just want to give a big

shout out to JT and Haley. I just found out today that JT and Haley, uh, they met by chance at our,

at our craft beer exchange last year, just a drunkenly, uh, he, apparently he was wearing

a Boston Jersey and she came up and she approached him. She said, she must've did something. You said,

must've said something right in your drunkenly because you made her smile. So big shout out to

JT and Haley. Thank you guys so much for coming. Happy anniversary. It was awesome to hear that

you guys met for the first time in our beer exchange. And that's just another really cool kind of,

uh, a feature story that I think is just highlights this whole kind of ordeal. So I just,

I told them that I would give them a shout out. I love you guys. Thank you so much for coming.

Awesome. Thanks guys. Thank you so much. Yeah. So there you go. Right. I mean, I think, uh,

we, I had intended to save that interview for last cause it kind of puts a ribbon on it.

But I think everybody said, uh, what we've been saying over and over and over that, uh,

everybody has a story and they're all unique, but they're all, they all have a lot of common

threads. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody does have a story in every walk of life. Some of them better than

others. Some of them, uh, worthless, you know, some of them, um, not so much in, in, in, uh,

I don't, I don't mean to downgrade other people's situations, but at Bonnaroo,

it's that, um, what do they call it? Hive mind, right? Hive mind theory, whatever the hell it is.

Everybody is kind of in the same spot and, and coming from the same place. And there's like this

unspoken understanding of what's going on here. And I, it might not even be able to be described.

It's, it's kind of, um, it's like this thing with the, the sphere and the dead show. That's so brand

new. I mean, Bonnaroo is 22 years old now, so it's, it's, it's ingrained in some people's mind, but

it's like, this is something I can tell you all about. I can tell you all day. How long have you

listened? I can go for a long time, but you won't get it until you immerse yourself in it in some

capacity and you might hate it, but, but you won't, you'll at least understand it. And it's, um,

it always puts me in a different place. I bring this up a lot on this show and on mine and, and,

and I'm a salty guy and no nonsense. I don't like to sit around and, and get real sentimental on

things that much. Yeah. I have a dash of it occasionally, but I'm usually like, you know,

let's get, let's not dwell on the sentimental things. Let's kind of get down to brass tacks,

those kinds of things. But I go there and I lose all that from the moment I get there, really the

week leading up. And then until, until I get home, I lose all that. It goes away. My, leave me alone.

I don't want to talk to you stuff disappears. I want to talk to everybody. You know, I hate,

I'm the, I'm the, um, you know, the small talk is the bane of my existence. Right. Except for there.

I'll small talk with you about anything. You want to talk to whether let's talk to weather.

You want to talk about what you're eating for lunch today. Let's talk about what we're eating

for lunch today. And that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world for me. No. And it's funny. Um,

you said that when the last episode, when you were talking about the sphere, that all you wanted to

talk about was the sphere when you got back. Yeah, still do. Can there, if there is one thing that

we have heard from everybody since we started doing this show, and it's the reason we started

doing the show is you'll hear from people all the time, say, my coworkers are so tired of me talking

about, Oh my God. Yes. I mean, have you heard that once or twice a hundred thousand million trillion

die on team billion and Campbell, right? It's like my co, my people, they want me to shut up,

but I can't do it. You know, we get it. We get it, dude. We get it. And I've done it. Um, yeah,

it's like, I've learned to do better with that. When I'm not, when I'm not around people who

understand I've gotten better at that, but that's because I've been doing this for two decades.

We all do it. And that's what's funny. All right. Uh, so Russell be back, um, next week.

Yeah, next week. I think guys, I think we're going to have a good one next week. And then,

I mean, I don't ever do anything I hope isn't good, but I know, come on every week, we can't do

amazing shows every week or maybe even tolerable shows. I don't know. I think it's going to be fun

though. Um, uh, speaking of our, you know, people we meet, I can't, I'm looking for a reason to go

to Seattle by the way, cause I'm a crash on best couch, but that's going to be, uh, with, I don't

even know her last name. I call her Beth Howard photo. Rue Howard, okay. That's easy enough to

remember in my phone. It's Beth photo. Rue or Rue photo. And, um, she should be in the

show. And, um, she shot the show. We've got a visual evidence of it and we've got the little

clip with, uh, Grodius. We've got, uh, other pictures with, you know, in a, in just a photo op

kind of thing. And then we were, well, most of us were at least at some, it's some earshot of the

show itself. So it'll be a pretty much a gore heavy show from that, uh, that Thursday. And I think

it's going to be a lot of fun. Plus her story, which, as I said before, we met, we camped next

to them three years ago, uh, the two of us with Nate and, uh, and I've said, and I'll say it again,

Nate and I never stopped talking. So I never got to even really meet our camp mates cause Nate and

I never shot up. And, but then this year I got to hear her actual story and it's pretty amazing.

I think. Yeah. Yeah. We, um, I mean, hopefully if we can all keep it up, we've now, uh, expanded our,

our, our zone, if you will, for next year. And, uh, because our campsite is dwindled down just the

three of us, which is fine, which is fine. Just as a tease, she's another one of those people that,

uh, came to Bonnaroo by herself, knew nobody. Um, what, and she's been since, uh, I believe like

Oh five ish or something like that. So long, long time, just about, you know, long enough to say

nearly all of them. So, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll dive into, we'll dive into that next week.

All right. Well, that's it for this week. Thank you guys. Um, I, I got nothing else.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, neither do I. We'll, uh, we'll dive into South star stuff as it gets closer.

Definitely plan on being down in Huntsville and, uh, that the daily lineup was released. I'd

probably even a month ago or so, but we'll, uh, we'll get into that down the road and, uh, plenty

of other things, whatever else comes up. All right. Thanks Brian. See you guys. Thanks for

listening. Subscribe, like, leave comments, do all that stuff. Appreciate you.