The What Podcast
Inside Soberoo: Bonnaroo's Sober Community with Founder Patrick Whelan
Season 9, Episode 15
Published March 31, 2026
https://thewhatpodcast.com/episode/inside-soberoo-bonnaroos-sober-community-with-founder-patrick-whelan

So it is just a group of clean and sober, not California sober, but people genuinely

mood and mind altering, you know, drug and alcohol free fans.

So what we're doing is curating a place that's safe for people.

They're just choosing to go do the festival without the use.

Are you not going to drop the big news?

Oh my goodness.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Welcome back to the what podcast.

I'm Barry.

That's Russ.

That's Brian.

That's Patrick.

You guys should recognize if you're at all familiar with this show, friend of the show,

Patrick from sober and so many other things you've been on what three times now, four

times at least.

I think this is a, I think it's the third visit.

This is number three.

Yeah.

Well, you've upped your game with the whole podcast look.

You're crushing it.

It looks great.

We have a lot to talk about.

We have, we missed a week last week and the week before it was just you and me, Russ.

And I thought that was a really good show.

Actually, I was very pleased with that episode.

Brian, you've been out of town.

You got to go see our friend Beth.

How is she?

Yeah, she's good.

She was damn near world traveling.

Ended up in Canada for a few minutes.

We can get into that later on.

Wow.

I see the hat.

Yeah.

Victoria, Canada, the capital of British Columbia, but yeah, great time.

Good stuff.

Well, you were coming back from out west and Canada and I was coming back from Florida.

So that's why just travel, travel, travel, travel last week is why we couldn't really

make it work.

Out west is one thing, but the very tip of the continental US, like all the way up there,

man, that takes a long time to get there and back.

So yeah.

So anyway, but glad to be back.

I'm going to remind everybody that we are just two months or less away from Bonnaroo.

So in keeping with that, I'm going to open.

Oh, nice.

Got the coconut water.

Per the advice of our friend, Brad Parker, getting ready.

You guys should be getting ready.

You need to start hydrating.

You need to start walking.

You need to start packing.

Getting those steps.

There you go.

Patrick, what are you doing to get ready?

Catching up on sleep.

That's important too.

Yeah.

There won't be much when that ball drops in Manchester.

It just is go, go, go time.

One of the things that I want to ask you about is you do sober who is where you alluded to

at Bonnaroo, which is and Brian can ask more specific questions and has you guys.

This is such a great thing that you guys do for festivals, but it's not just Bonnaroo.

You do it for a lot of festivals, right?

And you go to a lot of festivals, which is part of why I love having you on this show

because you bring a perspective that has a lot of angles to it.

What have you been to in the last year?

There's a great one over in West Tennessee.

My friends put together called MIMFO Fest.

I love going over to MIMFO Fest.

They usually curate a really, really cool lineup, things that this audience would love.

It's in a really nice set and they've really put together a nice venue and it's always

a good time.

So I love that one.

I spent the day in Manchester like everybody last year.

What else?

So yeah, our 501c3 business does about 30 festivals a year.

I don't go to all of them.

We've got some cousin accounts, some cousin businesses, people that have taken over work

that are now doing something similar like Healing Appalachia has something now.

So it just kind of organically spins off or grows and some of the other ones like shut

down, you know how that goes in the business.

But I'm on the road trying to maintain sanity.

But it's the chase for live music.

It is just part of the bloodstream over here.

If I'm not feeding it, I feel like I'm missing something.

I want to ask about that specifically later.

Like I said, there's so much to get rid of.

I need to address the robe.

I was going to say we're burying the lead I think here.

I know.

I need to get to that.

I need to apologize to Caleb, our friend Caleb from Bonnaroo Yearbook.

Because you're copying him.

I know and I need to apologize.

But when I saw it on him, I had to have it.

I bought it that day and I do have the pants.

Absolutely.

Well, between Caleb, you and Beth, you might all be twinsies by the time June gets here

from Manchester because she is obsessed with those pajamas.

I have to have them.

I was like, listen, listen, you go ahead and spend a buck fifty or whatever it is.

About 35.

If that's what you need to do, I'm not going to stand in your way.

But eventually everybody's going to have these things.

It's sharp though.

It's sharp.

I got it.

I was telling Russ before we got on the air when I told Kelly and my wife I came home

and I said I'm buying these Bonnaroo pajamas and she's like, why are you wasting your money?

And when I opened it, she just laughed and laughed and laughed.

I said, there it is.

She got it.

It's silly to tell.

Those are cool.

What say you, Patrick?

Would you wear such a get up at night with your end of the night cigar or whatever your

routine at the end of each evening?

I think if it was a onesie, I would wear it.

Oh, God.

That's even worse.

Yeah, I'd do a onesie for sure.

The only complaint that I have is the pants don't have pockets.

But everything else is perfect.

It's so soft.

And now I'm hoping it's going to be really cold at two in the morning.

Did you get the hat with it?

Did you get the wizard hat?

No, no, no.

I didn't have the wizard hat that Caleb had.

You just need the Dayglow Orange Fanny Pack.

All right.

So we got that out of the way.

I want to jump real quick back to Bonnaroo Prep too, because I've been starting my own

prep with the bus.

I got it washed super clean.

I'm doing a deep clean on the inside.

I got to change the oil later today.

I finally got the tire patch.

It's had a slow leak for the past year.

It just loses air over weeks.

So finally got that patched.

I'm finally doing all the car maintenance stuff that I've neglected.

So this is a good time to get started.

If you've got a big road trip coming up, make sure your car is in good shape.

Start working on getting all that getting ready to go because June's going to be here.

Absolutely.

And like Patrick said, start hydrating, start sleeping.

Sounds simple, but it's reality.

Start walking.

I'm so excited.

When we talk about this a lot of times, I think I sound like doom and gloom, like it's

such a bad thing.

I'm so excited.

I love Bonnaroo.

I'm so excited about it.

It is a lot of walking.

It's a lot of heat and all that, but it's the best.

I just don't know of anything else that I think about as much as I do Bonnaroo.

I see you shaking your head.

You agree?

I mean, I love when it's getting off of exit 114 or 117, whichever.

You know it's coming, the countdown of the miles and the exits and the mile markers as

you're coming down to the Manchester exits and then the line or whatever the process

is to get to the place that you're going to have your car for the next five or six days,

whatever the time frame is.

Then building the community and starting and it always, you can't avoid it, I have to,

my team gets there middle of the day and it's June in Tennessee and it's probably going

to be like 94 degrees and it's blasting sun and you're sweating and you're dripping and

you're already worn out.

But then all of a sudden the shade tents are up and the tents are built and you sit in

a chair and you just sit back and everything comes down and then start walking around.

There's that path that you take to go to the arch.

There's the tree that's always over by the tent that we are.

You just visit the old blades of grass that you've seen for so many years and it's just a joy.

Yeah, and for those that don't know, Patrick is up in Louisville.

So he's coming, we're coming south up, he's coming north down.

Simplest question that we should ask everybody who's going to be on leading up to the festival.

The lineup dropped early, very early, annoyingly early.

So you've had a lot of time to think about it.

Your thoughts on this year's lineup, Patrick?

I looked at it yesterday just because I was going to be on this call.

So many posters that go just like they cross as like another festival is asking for paperwork

and insurance from me and I'm like too busy to even look at the lineups on a lot of these.

And it was funny when that lineup dropped, it was like out of the blue.

Usually there's like a teaser it's coming on.

I saw something online the day before and I'm like that's not going to be the lineup.

That's another one of those faux lineups that somebody's like blasted out there just to get us.

And then the next day it came out because somehow it did leak.

I was just like well, let's take a look.

It is what it is but for me it's Bonnaroo.

You're trying not to get right to the thing we're all saying.

It's not that good, we understand that.

But there's always, I mean you're just like us.

It doesn't really matter but I mean is there anything on there that you are excited about

that you haven't learned yet or that you might not educate or that you're about to educate yourself for?

Because for me it was very low as far as the oh this, this, this and this.

We all know that'll change as June gets closer but your thoughts there?

Probably 75% of it is something I'm going to learn about on the festival grounds.

Maybe more than 75%.

I mean there are bands, if I'm curating a festival, I go to Hall of Famers,

classic rock and roll stuff that I'm going to tend towards.

But this promotion group, they do it completely differently now.

I've adjusted my expectations so headliners are headliners, they are what they are

but they're even more and more electronic nowadays so I'm okay with that.

There's going to be a crowd, we know there's going to be a crowd whether the crowd's our age and looks like us or not.

I'm past that, I accept I'm my age and don't have any hair and have gray beard

but I'm ready to go see what is new in this universe that the music business is allowing us to enjoy.

On the line of looking at bands, the one thing I laughed was like a Blues Traveler's playing

but they're way down the list of bands but then on that same day

you fit in with this show so well.

I can't wait for Blues Traveler either.

I just wrote down age, that's such a great point because it's,

look I'm the old man and Brian and Russ have made fun of me for years.

And will continue to make fun of you.

Which is fair and should but it's so interesting to think about this.

All of us have been doing Bonnaroo since the beginning essentially,

Russ started in 2018, Brian since the beginning, me since the beginning essentially.

So we have this history and sometimes it's hard for us to remember that the 18 year old,

it's their first you know and so we talk about it differently maybe but not really.

I think we love it, I hope for the same reasons because we know it's going to be this thing.

But it's also hard to explain to the 18 year old what you just said,

there's that blade of grass that I recognized from 20 years ago.

Right? And they don't want to hear that, they don't care.

So that's where the whole what's the line up.

Yeah that's where the line up thing becomes an interesting question.

I'm guessing something like Tedeschi Trucks speaks to you Patrick?

Yeah absolutely.

Modest Mouse, a few of those kinds of things.

Modest John, Weird Al.

Japanese Breakfast, Trombone Shorty will be fun, you get that little vibe.

And then like that Blood Orange and Wet Leg on that Friday deal, those are great live shows.

I haven't seen a whole lot of either, probably less than a handful of Wet Leg or Blood Orange shows

but you know it's going to be fun because they've got new music constantly coming out,

they're churning new music.

This isn't classic rock, we're on there for the classics you know.

They will play their classics, they have classics already

but I'm ready to hear some of the new stuff they're making

because these are bands that are making new music so that's what's fun.

They're in the game of longevity, they want to be on these posters year after year

and they need to create stuff so they need to impress us.

They don't need to impress us but their goal I'm sure is to bring the heat.

So I'm ready to see what they do.

How much, talk about your routine, you sort of alluded to that.

What is your Bonnaroutine?

And I'll ask Russ and Brian the same because I think we've all done it enough

so it's kind of, I don't want to say routine but we have our rhythm right?

What's the weekend typically?

Forget the rain out for you.

On arrival it's just you know let's get like camp set up.

My team that comes in, volunteers, there's a dozen of us.

We manage about a hundred person campground and the campground, the community campground

so we've got to get our kitchen set up, we've got to get our shades and tents

and we've got to get ready and then our easy chairs and then the coolers and the drinks

and start to kind of cool off, relax and then be ready as the crowd starts coming in

with their hang tags that let them camp at Camp Soberoo and then we can get them in

and park the way they've asked us to line the cars up.

We've got to respect the boundaries and stay in.

So that's the first day for us.

It's a heavy day of logistics on Wednesday.

Getting people in as they have opened the gates.

I guess it might be pivoting this year to Thursday.

We'll have to have a conversation about when these people are going to start arriving

and then once you know we've got the majority of the folks in I mean this is going on for us

overnight because some people are stuck in line.

They're not leaving till after work.

They don't get to the festival until midnight, one o'clock, two o'clock and Grace who does

like you know one A with me without her I couldn't do this.

She lives in Cookville.

She's been doing this with me for over 10 years.

She manages the campground.

It's like she's up for like the next 15 hours to make sure that as a host or hostess

to make sure that the people that have bought Camp Soberoo camping find us and get in with us.

And she doesn't go to sleep that night.

She's so I'm bless her heart.

She is amazing.

And then we get to Thursday and it's kind of just like you can't do much because the sun

comes up and you have to get out of your tent.

And it's make coffee.

Get the French press and the water boiling and then really because we've done this so long.

French press.

We've got a kitchen so it's.

Nice work.

You're going to do it.

Baking the eggs.

That's right.

I got people that come that are all in the service industry it seems at some level.

They've done this so many times.

They have already prepped food for us that's not even having to be frozen thawed and cooked.

It's just in a ziplock ready to dump scrambled eggs on a skillet and we're cooking bacon.

Really you know not you know we're you know I'm no spring chicken.

I'm ready to I don't want like just to feed myself fruit loops.

I dry fruit loops for breakfast and go on.

We're going to take care of ourselves.

We're sober people and we have a common sense about us nowadays that makes it.

Let's put it together and have fun and make it like the comforts of home.

While we're at our home away from home.

We got to replace all that alcohol consumption with salt and sugar and calories and fat.

That's how that works.

Hey Patrick I just popped into my head.

I didn't I don't know.

I'm sure we've talked about it in the past but how big does your campsite go for those

who don't know.

I mean if you go to our to the Bonnaroo's website and you buy ticket options and you

buy camping options one of those options is the Camp Soberoo parking camping option.

So that's the this isn't just grassroots anymore.

This is integrated into the festival.

How big is your camp plot these days not not by footage but like by how many people you

get in there.

And along those lines.

Sorry.

Let me let me interrupt because speaking of Barry and the lead let's talk about what it

what it is you do.

We all know.

So but what is Soberoo and let's talk about the mission and if you can blend that into

answer to Brian please and sorry I probably should have asked that earlier.

I know I appreciate it.

So is just a group of clean and sober not California sober people genuinely mood and

mind altering you know drug and alcohol free fans of live music.

We'll have conversations with people I'm thinking about coming but you know my friend who's

coming with me smokes weed and like you're fine here.

They're fine here as long as when they're with us they can smoke the weed at the festival.

I know we don't care about that but just don't come in and have a big cloud fest you know

in our area.

So what we're doing is curating a place that's safe for people.

They're just choosing to go do the festival without the use of drugs and alcohol.

The majority of people are in a recovery program.

That's fine.

There are other visitors that do just plain old fashioned abstinence and that's fine too.

We don't care.

We're just there to have fun with everybody else.

It's not getting you know swirly you know they're just having their their experience

with music.

They bought the ticket to go to the festival.

The festival gives you enough experience without the use of drugs and alcohol.

But hey you know when I was young sex drugs and rock and roll.

So when that wore off it became pretty apparent that I you know was going to have to stop

using or I might die.

I thought everything was over for me and then you know all my favorite bands are still out

there playing and I'll go see live music and I found other people like me.

So we're finding each other through the internet, Facebook groups and we host a table inside

the festival where there's pretty much 16 hours a day of activity of people can come

in take a load off get out of the sun get out of the rain just sit down for a little

bit and enjoy some fellowship of clear minded sober individuals go back out to their music

and then we have four festival meetings a day at noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m. and midnight in

a segregated tent the festival created for us.

They moved it last year.

We never really got to have much of a meeting there last year but it's new.

I'm sure it'll be in the same place.

It's over by the arch now behind the lockers behind the wall.

So we had got a kind of a private area for the anonymity factor inside the festival.

So that's activity that people can enjoy if they want or decide they would like to hang

out with us and then in the campground to Brian's question there'll be 40 50 automobiles

people that got rad shares walk in with their backpack to the festival.

However they get to us we'll have about a hundred or more individuals camping in Camp

Soberoo a lot doing their own breakfasts and hanging out with their crowd and others mingling

with us in the kind of the community kitchen.

And at the campground we have another tent space where we host an 8 a.m. yoga meditation

get up and go type of meeting.

So it's activity for us 24 hours a day.

It's almost nonstop.

A lot of the people that camp and come and volunteer with us are there for the for the

the lineup.

You know they love it.

They volunteer they see the lineup release and they ask and we try to give them a shot

or let the first you know write their first refusal for last year's volunteers and that

they can't make it back someone else and they're going they're going they're going

to Sun Sunrise sets and they're crawling back when we're doing our yoga and meditation at

8 a.m. and they're going to take a nap and then they're going to get up when they get

up and they go and do their thing.

But everybody's got to shift and a set of responsibilities to serve and our mission

is if nothing but to serve the crowd.

And I think most the people at Bono we really appreciate that.

So to clarify in case somebody's one of the mess where you said the meetings were moved

to the arch those meetings you're talking about are the traditional or at least as close

as we could as you could imagine to traditional AA style me 12-step style meetings correct.

It would seem that way if you walked in and you've ever been in one you would feel very

comfortable something that would resemble that it might not be exactly that.

If someone's used to that in their life people many people rely on these things for their

mental health for their sanity for their sobriety and sometimes people just like them.

Like I know people who don't need them just like them.

They enjoy the camaraderie the social aspect of it a lot of people who are involved with

this lifestyle can't go back to their old lifestyle.

It's not that they don't as far as their friends and there's even family members like sometimes

you have to move on from people that you grew up with and that's what this those kinds of

meetings I it's not been something I've needed but I've understood how so that's and that's

why the animated and I can never say anonymous and but that's why that's like that for that

purpose but the rest of stuff you're talking about back over the campground a little bit

more of a like yoga or whatever.

Hey come on.

Hey walking down the gravel.

Hey I want to do some yoga.

Jump on in right.

It's pretty welcoming to all to all kinds.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we're on that path where the I don't know if they're doing the rerun anymore but that

rerun used to just run right by our tent so we would get up and we would just like everybody

would just line that with cheering people on like you were to marathon and then be it's

great because everybody's got a costume on and they're doing the rerun.

Oh I can't wait.

That was my first I was going to rerun last year Patrick and you know all our hopes and

dreams were shattered.

I can't wait to see what Brian's costume is because he wears one every day in my opinion.

I know exactly what he's going to wear.

You're looking at it.

Knee socks with two stripes and yeah.

No I'll ditch the hoodie.

One of the things Patrick that impressed me in our previous conversations and by impressed

I don't mean like I'm odd.

I mean it it stuck with me is that it's not you guys are not just there for someone who

has decided to quit drinking and is in a program maybe though you are there for that.

It's maybe that person who who finds themselves in a camp where all of a sudden their buddies

that they showed up with are just blowing it out and they need they need space.

They need to get away.

They need 10 minutes.

They need 30 minutes.

They need an hour.

They're overwhelmed.

Even just any kind of respite.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the that's a great word.

That's one of the things that stuck with me is is and I'm putting myself in that 18 19

21 you know whatever year old me I would have won.

I would have been the one blowing it out but I can imagine that person who's like this

is not what I signed up for.

I need a minute.

So talk to that a little bit if you don't mind.

Yeah.

I think it's sort of a it's a common you know scenario that you drafted there because it

does happen.

I mentioned it previously I think with the superfly guys and I came up with sober root

to be the name of our the header on the on the tent.

So it's just branded part of the festival branding that you know I think some people

don't understand anything about sobriety recovery any of that stuff.

So people would come up and think that my friend is really had too much.

You know can you guys you know keep an eye on him or her and just let him sleep it off

in the back of the tent and early on you know we'd be like yeah I sent him back there and

then as we got more you know well organized the people on the board were like no you take

him over to the medical tent let them keep an eye on it.

You don't want them to not you don't know what they took and you don't want them to

not wake up in sober root.

So walk them over to medical tent and then you can do that.

I see people have a common misconception I think that sometimes we're like a detox unit

for the people that are over stimulated at a festival have had too much to drink and

they vomited and they can't rehydrate.

Well you all rehydrate them.

We have medical on site for that stuff and that really is their job.

We're not going to you know we're not going to push them away and say no we're going to

walk them if they don't know where it is over to medical tent.

We introduce ourselves in every festival almost immediately on day one to the people at medical

tent tell them what we do over here and there's an occasional visitor that's going to do this

and we're going to walk them over to you.

Then when they've rebounded please walk them back over to us and we can have a conversation

with them.

So and then the person that may have brought their friend over comes back and hangs out

with us.

It's like I'm exasperated.

I don't I can't catch my breath.

This is exhausting.

I'm going to say babysitting but I've been caring for my friend you know for almost two

days now.

They're just they're going too hard and they it's their first Bonnaroo or that you know

their older brothers have gone to Bonnaroo and this is the first time they've been able

to go and they've got this vision of what Bonnaroo is supposed to be an overabundance

of stuff and it doesn't it Bonnaroo is an overabundance of stuff but it doesn't mean

I have to overindulge.

You know I can go I know now I can go completely sober and have an overabundance of stuff

because it's 24 hours a day of live music, food, entertainment, comedy.

You can find it.

It's there.

They've created this this utopian village for us and I don't need to like go so hard

that I can't enjoy any of it and it's sort of a rookie mistake but it happens.

Let me put words in both of your mouths because I'll ask you Patrick and Brian you both I

think have expressed on this show that you you're both dead fans right?

I'm correct Patrick wasn't that your big you follow the dead and yeah yeah yeah.

And again I'm putting words but weren't you both am I not correct that you both were worried

that if I quit drinking I won't enjoy this music as much as I used to.

Yeah Patrick take that one because I'll piggyback off you.

Yeah I saw my first Grateful Dead show in 1985.

I was 19 you all with a calculator can figure out the age and I was in love.

Now Cincinnati River Bend 1985 was a classic Grateful Dead show and I was just after the

show I remember sitting on the hill of my friends spun out you know just really high

and you know wide awake and we're just like what do we do now?

My buddy looks over and he goes drive to Alpine Valley that's what we did we just drove to Alpine Valley.

And we went to the next show.

Yeah.

And so I was on the bus so we just had the best time and that was it I mean that until

95 a decade of seeing concerts and then my love of live music was was hatched but you

know my addiction was also hatched and not that there's gateways for anything and my

problem's my problem but I just always said yes let's try something new and I was a let's

try something new kind of guy if you had it show me how to get it in me and you tell me

what it's supposed to do and I'll tell you if it does that or not and I'll figure out

the dose and I'll keep doing it if I liked it and I won't if I don't but there's not

much I didn't like so I spun hard in the 90s to a place of you know despair and hopelessness

that you know I couldn't really get off the mat you know I could maybe get my mail order

you know into GDTO for Craveful Dead tickets but I was struggling to do the things I love

to do because I was addicted to the thing that I guess I really fell in love with and

Jerry you know passed away you know we all know and it's like oh my god I don't know

about you all or Brian's experience but I remember I mean I just told my boss I can't

I can't be here today and they're like I get it and I went out to the park and there was

already hundreds of people you know in mourning just spent the day out there with just like

silence it was eerie that day and it's kind of like 9-11 you know that day and I was already

you know really just horribly addicted and 97 you know I got I got into recovery and

I went to my first incarnation after the greatful dead that I saw I think it might have been

the first incarnation was TOO the other ones it was basically everybody else plus like Mark

Karen or no Steve Kimmach Bruce Hartley they were you know going out and playing the big sheds you

know in the Midwest and the big theaters and and stadiums and I was like let's go and I went to my

first show and I didn't really and I guess I knew about the Warfstrat but it wasn't on my radar to

go to the Warfrat table and they were there and I just noticed earlier this morning I was doing I

go on Facebook like once a day to send out happy birthdays to anybody that I know and then I get

off Facebook but the first thing that popped up on my Facebook wall was my this woman Teresa from

Indianapolis was at that show working that table and she is celebrating 40 years in recovery today

happens to be her birthday so I'll wish her a birthday directly we're still in touch and another

gentleman Tim was on that table with her he just a week ago celebrated 36 years they both were in

Indianapolis people I'm in Louisville they're an hour north we became like really good friends

immediately and you know thank God I just really I felt comfortable I felt at home Tim had long

dreadlocks Teresa wore all the you know colorful clothing and they all had you know the vibe of a

deadhead but they were choosing to stay substance-free and when I went to shows in Chicago I could come

back and stay at Teresa and Daniel's farm or I could call Tim and stay in his apartment and those

were just relationships that just blossomed and introduced new relationships and you know that's

kind of like where that was for me it was just like it was like the it's always been part of my life

all right go ahead Brian I know you have an answer to this and you've talked about it very well

wonderfully before just a little bit a couple of things there first of the warf rats were from the

the 80s the the version of soberoo to the Grateful Dead correct I've got that right Patrick yeah just

so I didn't know that also for any of our local people here in Chattanooga when Patrick said

Riverbend and Grateful Dead that's a Riverbend music amphitheater in Cincinnati the great which

is also in Hamilton County it's also in Hamilton County we're Hamilton County also so yeah the

Grateful Dead did not play Riverbend in Chattanooga no but well I guess I'll answer the question

quick and then I have a question for you Patrick as far as the music itself and and in 95 I was

15 and I was more that was on the tail end or the the middle fade out of grunge so that's all I

cared about at the time that was a footnote of music history for me at that time it was into

the early 2000s that I started to really get into to all the new versions of the Grateful Dead and

all the way to the point actually this story kind of comes around in an odd way my first sober show

completely sober show was on the final Dead and Company tour in 2023 and that was that those

tickets were bought a year in advance so I wasn't planning on being sober for that and then I went

with a bunch of people who were not sober and I thought I don't know what I'm gonna do here I might

never listen to the dead again after after this week and it was the complete opposite it was there

was something about it so new you talk about I was the same way as you Patrick I think we all are to

a certain degree I'm so excited by new new new new and I was like man I just watched a whole dead

show and remember it and I remember it all and I can drive y'all home if I need to like this is a

pretty cool pretty cool new place to be but my question was as I forget it as I try to remember

it as I talk here in relation to oh how much did the war that's a word how much did the war

for aft warf rats how instrumental was that to you and your mission into sober who or was it at all

it maybe it was just subconscious and it turned into that how much of that was a direct influence

it is the direct influence I mean without it there would be no I mean somebody may have I

wouldn't probably have come up with an idea to have sobriety stations that concerts or festivals

it was already invented thank God for the people that were doing it when I came around and you

know there was a time in the late 90s and I was seeing like bands like Fish and Watch for the

Panic is right out of college and it was just on the road those are the bands and a good friend

of mine had started a group for the fish and they have a group called the fellowship with a pH and

they do a table at every fish show and it is a massive following of fans because they're like

one of the probably biggest touring bands in the country in the world at the moment I mean they're

always on the road they play massive venues and they sell out and they got a big sober following

as well just goes with the numbers so that was happening and I was a bigger panic fan you know

being from the south or mid-south anyway it seems those shows yeah same here and and we were you

know connecting through the internet back in the 90s early internet you know early aol email

addresses and just like starting to like have chats about connecting with other like-minded

friends and the warf rats had a list they had created of good volunteers in cities around the

country and the fellowship kind of adopted that they added a few more cities and a few more people

it's just written handwritten paper and they would you know somehow would be passed around we would

get our hands on it as widespread panic fans and we were trying to get you know some traction with

that band about doing it and they were a little hesitant at first and then they relented at around

2001 2000 something like 2000 they allowed us you know to do something there so you know about

four or five guys originally like it we're starting to kind of like get this going was like a treasurer

and a band liaison and a coordinator for the table people and secretary just making the business

sort of like happen it took off and ultimately I've been the band liaison now you know for most of

its inception and we have a table at every widespread panic show and that was before

Bonnaroo so he got the sober group that's a dead group the sober group of the fish group and the

sober group of the panic group and then Bonnaroo's lineup drops and it just drips with bands out of

those you know lineages and yeah why not you know let's just go I mean the bands wouldn't put us on

the festival bill because they don't have the power to do that but that's how we got started so you

answered it a little bit there talk about the timeline because I mean if somebody's just dropping

in and listening they're probably thinking this is just a two or three year old organization or

you know whatever but it's been around a long long time and and I want to ask you if you can to sort

of tell us the timeline but also how things have changed over those over that time yeah you know

it was in the dirt under a tree you know by the coffee tent you know naturally the first year we

just had to figure out on this 400 acre farm how do we find each other you know it's easy to do at

a concert meet me at the merch table but you go to a festival we're talking first year right early

early 2002 2002 right and you know we I'd already met lots of people on headphone numbers and email

addresses and we're trying to figure out logistics and where we part how do we even park together you

don't know where you're gonna park they're gonna put you where they're gonna put you and that's

where you are for a week and and we get off and start walking around and then suddenly you know

word would leak you know coffee tent go to the coffee tent go to the coffee tent and we just

commandeered a table and chairs and started meeting there we'd say come back here at five you know or

come back here at nine tonight you know if you want to like come back to you and then pockets of

us would just go who's going to that tent and who wants to go to the other tent you know who wants

to go see somebody on which stage right here we're gonna go now we do this we all like run

together and come back together and hang together and next year same kind of lineup you know year

three similar ish kind of lineup it's starting to evolve you know the Bonnaroo lineup is evolved

can't keep having you know the Grateful Dead iterations watch for a panic and fish every year

they got their own agenda and you got to bring in new you know fans and you got to bring in new

music and they started doing that and I just living close enough just kept going stupid me I

just kept going it isn't just like the very first thing you all asked you how do you get ready for

it you know I just understood what I needed to bring now you know I needed to have certain things

to survive five days at Bonnaroo and be ready for it and regular people from Louisville were coming

with me and we would go every year and just sit in the dirt and tell people in advance and we were

doing it very organically in one year the head of field operations pulled up on her golf cart

she's sitting across the dirt it's now a paved road but she's sitting across the dirt trail

watching us and that that ended and and she waved you know it's like hey hey hey you know come over

here I'm like what's going on and she goes what what are you guys doing something's going on here

why is somebody paying attention to us we're just trying to be off the radar and then she gave me

her card so just give me a call next week you know settle down let us get this thing you know

wrapped and and I reached out to her asked me a couple questions more questions and said would you

get on a video call with some people from the festival and they invited me on a I don't even

know if it was zoom whatever it was they had a meeting at that time it's 2007 after the 2007

Bonnaroo and probably in like August this call takes place and you know you got you know superfly

you know Rick Foreman on the call from superfly right and then you had the CEO for music cares

who was doing artists you know they help artists and management people in the industry with anything

they have a difficulty you know handling they don't always have insurance they don't always

have retirement savings they don't always have health care so you know they their music cares

is a big player in the industry the CEOs on the call and head of securities on the call and then

Chris who was the girl that stopped me and they start asking questions and I'm wondering what what

is what is this about really didn't think they wanted us to be there doing that at the beginning

of the call as I became interested in the questions they were asking like they they seem

to like what we're doing here they're not having a problem and then the question came up from Rick

he's like how many people do you think you know are attending your meetings and I said you know

there could be a hundred total people but we probably have 15 people at our meetings but there

could be a hundred people that we interact with over the week that we've gotten to know through

the years and his next response was so you're helping me sell a hundred tickets to my festival

and I'm like you know Rick yeah that's what I'm doing that's my plan but that wasn't what I came

up with I was like yeah you know it seems like there's a hundred people there and he said well

what can we do for you and that's just how that's Bonnaroo yeah that the definition of Bonnaroo

right and that's what those original founders were all about yeah thank God I love that I love that

At that time Patrick in 2002 was your sobriety flimsy was it vulnerable like was it that it was

it was it important that you had that at that time I mean it's important maybe to you still today

but that was a long time ago we was it was it out of necessity or you might spin out of control or

was it a combined this is also a mission I'm getting involved in yeah I think it was more

the latter it was more like I didn't need it for me personally for my own safety and security

of course it doesn't hurt but I was doing it more because of what it could provide for those so your

sobriety that point would have been five-ish years based on our conversations maybe yeah yeah

November 97 when I took my last drink and yeah that's a really interesting question Brian because

have you do you have this need to help others in other areas or is it just this it's become

apparent to me that without service I can be the most selfish sob ever interacted with and if I'm

not love this guy my life has been a series of it's all about me or what's in it for me and the

moment I took the foot off of that gas pedal and hit the brakes and put the gas towards how can I

help others and serve a greater cause the things that I was seeking through myself as

channels all seem to materialize and so Brian ain't there yet but we'll see I'm gradually

moving in that direction I'm about to do the Bonnaroo run for crying out loud that's a really

interesting part of it though back to my how has it changed how have how has what you've been

doing changed grown because I mean it's not just Bonnaroo it's a lot of festivals just a lot of

bands you you mentioned that bands now work through you because that you mentioned that

before because that's an interesting take to a lot of the bands were skeptical because they

not only do do fans are they weary of I mean well like how can I enjoy this music if I'm not

stoned but the bands are also like our fans may not like it I might not like it anymore yeah yeah

yeah you know I'll tell you how Bonnaroo's changed for us it's like a lot of its locations you know

where they have us so we have to be able to communicate and then the point of contact

changes is like the iterations of the festival had changed and the ownerships have changed so

it's that that's a constant that it's grown inside of the footprint from just a little small tent to

a small tent with a big meeting tent to a small tent with a big meeting tent to a campground so

that has really evolved internally within you know the organization of Bonnaroo and then there you

know they did Vegas and Vegas so they invited us to come out to Vegas okay I get to go out to Vegas

for a festival it's kind of a concrete festival right is this like in a parking lot with the silver

or the what was it called the silver bowl or wherever the UNLV plays football the football

stadium yeah yeah and then you know first time I ever saw Daft Punk you know do their basically

their Coachella set right at at Vegas right it's just like the crazy pyramid like never would you

know those next festival and invites us to do it because somebody from another festival was at

Vegas or at Bonnaroo walking around stealing best practices right and we become the best practice

for a lot of these is the festival sort of like all get acquired by a larger organization or a

new one pops up sometimes we're invited in or we're added because they do us at their other

festivals and now they want us at the next one that they've acquired let me ask you this Patrick

on the same vein of things changing over the decades alcohol consumption amongst young people

is is very very down and and not even just young people which is a which is a great story unless

it's leading to other things which in some cases it might be but has have you seen in your I don't

want I almost said clientele like I amongst the people who reach out to you for your services and

services like yours I don't think addiction has anything to do with stats about consumption of a

product you know sold legally it might though have you seen any changes in the last five plus years

or so of just just a random people that might seek your your your guidance and help or or or

maybe just from your vantage point or just does addiction no no no trends right there's the trend

of sales might not have anything to do with the with the addiction issue in America and let me

jump on that too because I'm again I'm old so when I hear addiction I think alcohol or cocaine

whatever heroin it's very specific I don't just think of being addicted to all kinds of yeah

opiates or yeah there are a lot of different types of addictions right so I just want to put that out

there is someone yeah I mean I mean the people on Al-Anon will tell you that they have an

addiction it's addicted to trying to fix an alcoholic right so then you've got you know

obviously there's gamblers anonymous meetings around the world for people that have a gambling

it that's not an itch that I ever scratched I mean I'm too tight to like sit at a poker table

for like 12 hours or 12 days but I'll definitely do it with cocaine I don't know why that's so

different but that's my that's my that's a little more fun I thought yeah so but I think you know

like addiction versus sobriety they're two different things you know because not like your

Brian was talking about people who just not even drinking anymore you know the numbers are right

they know reducing for various reasons I'm sure there's a main reason but there's also other

reasons and so does that mean they don't do other things maybe but I think when they go to a festival

a lot of the younger you know late college out of college early out of college early career minded

individuals that can afford it Bonnaroo weekend time off work and the tickets and all the expenses

and planning that goes into going to a festival are more into taking care of themselves are drinking

the coconut water right they're doing the things because there's marketing around that now that

supersedes maybe Jack Daniel's marketing so they are into wellness unlike my generation probably

ever was and they are familiar with terms like harm reduction never heard that until recently

which is fine you know if it was like you know the thing that was killing you is now no longer a

thing but you're still doing something else and that's just reduction in harm fine you know we're

happy you're alive and that you are able to come to this event and have a good time and we're there

for them they will come up because our header says soberoo and ask us questions they may not

interact or participate with us outside of a 15-minute conversation at the table what do we do

help you know they get the answers to the questions like you all are asking and then they go their own

way but they know we're there and and then they say something to their friends and then they say

something to their friends so people find out about us in various fashions they don't have to

necessarily have had the addiction problem that I had they may have just chosen sobriety because

that's how they were brought up through their high school life and they drinking didn't appeal

to them or they drank a few times and they didn't like the effect or the taste but but addiction

trends I it feels like you're about to say they haven't changed all that much with the changing

trends of alcohol consumption from a macro view zoom out down your mission the people who need to

seek your help it doesn't sound like there's much difference there at all because of the vast amounts

of addiction that there are out there yeah and I don't work in the field you know I don't have a

degree in that you know um you know I was telling somebody the other day my graduate degree is OCD

you know I don't have an MBA you know so you know I I know uh what I know from word of mouth or

hearsay with people uh that I know in the industry uh the recovery industry itself but

yeah I think you're right Brian I think the numbers are probably the same if you've got

addiction you've got addiction you just might not have like taken the genie out of the bottle yet

you know if you're not drinking but you have you know genetic alcoholism or

soon-to-blossom alcoholism you're just not feeding it you can have a really good life

well this is a totally odd I'm not even trying to ask for anybody to respond to this but this

gambling thing check back in 10-15 years oh my god the youth I mean it's I'm being serious it

is a dangerous dangerous thing because it's yeah it's sold as it's it's like the doctor

prescribing drugs Steve it's sold as legit it's crazy yeah um because again to put I'm going to

put words in your mouth um and and Brian has talked about this before on his own podcast and

on here with you uh if I'm that guy who thinks I'm an alcoholic I got a problem

I'd like to go to sober I need help um what is the experience my my initial reaction is

I don't want to be preached to I don't want to go sign my life away I don't want you in my face

saying you need to do this you know you know what I mean I don't want the strong arm that's not what

you guys do right so explain um explain the experience I guess is for lack of a better way

to put it no I think that's the perfect way to put it it's experience you know I only have my

experience right my experience is my experience which could be an invaluable tool to someone

who's going through their experience I explain my experience they identify with it and they want to

know how I stopped or got better and that is the essence of recovery not the finger pointing you

know I mean men men and women boys and girls that have gotten in trouble with drugs and alcohol and

have mom and dad putting the finger in their chest or in their face you have to you must those I

mean I heard that from you know you know girlfriends and bosses and parents for a decade um you got to

get it together you got to quit you know I don't hear that but when the first time I was in a

recovery meeting and I had somebody approach me and say look you know when I was going through

that this is what I did you know you they I love storytellers you know I think a lot of people in

recovery are just nothing but storytellers we tell our story and then other people listen

and we're great question askers you know instead of just you know direction givers and I think

that's sort of like why it's effective well um off a Bonnaroo topic a little bit I wanted to

to get into quickly as we're we're already ran uh the the minutes are calculating quickly here

oh I knew it's gonna be a long one um but you're in Louisville and so we were talking about uh you

know everybody was recently the bourbon and beyond lineup I based on everything we know

between the four of us you're just like us you love it too um I haven't asked you but I bet you do

talk about the logistics of that festival you would at the expo center um or whatever exactly

it's called it's a little bit on the outskirts of the city and and and what you like about it what

you don't like about it and um what people can expect more from just logistically because that's

where I've heard the most problems about that festival the problem ain't the booking the the

lineup is amazing the booking of that lineup at year in year out might be the best in the country

you know Coachella might have something to say about it but other than that talk about the

logistics because that's where I've heard a lot of the problems could be and a lot of that's

anecdotal and reddit and all that kind of stuff yeah they the group that comes in and does that

um Danny Wimmer presents they came to Louisville I don't even know like now 12 15 years ago and

they put together this festival that we got word of through the newspaper that they're going to

put on the thing called louder than life it was going to be their festival down on the river not

where forecastle used to be but like in an old country club vacant lot that people walk their

dogs in on river road pretty big intersection right off the highway had some good logistics

for getting in and out of the city hotels were right there but it was down by the river and like

Bonnaroo uh with the when you get a big rain the water rises really quickly on those grounds and

they had that problem maybe year three I mean it was bad and I'm like well this is going to be it

they're either going to be a really good uh citizen or partner to the community and they're

going to fix that that all that acreage that they used or they're going to disappear we'll never

hear from them again they were out there for weeks afterwards laying straw leveling the ground they

did a great job they're a really good steward and apparently a really good partner the city really

adopted them and then they moved them they moved them over to an area over at the fairgrounds

way away from that original location and they added a second festival bourbon and beyond so they

got two festivals going week after week back to back weeks they just changed the colors and the

the headers on every tent and stage such huge reductions too massive productions back to back

weeks but sorry go ahead yeah it's five six stages uh but bourbon and beyond focused in the bourbon

industry or culinary industry a lot of different hospitality focused conversations at certain tents

and then you know um the music is is amazing but the first four years five years they were at this

new location um it was an interesting decision uh the way they do it though it's not that

aesthetically pleasing is that fair to say yeah there's no trees you know yeah no there's no

trees um you find your space and um get it figured out but they they moved it last year for the first

time since they went out to the fairgrounds to a different side of the fairgrounds which incorporated

indoor outdoor air conditioning drive room if it's wet you know they you know you can go inside

there's lots of seating they moved our space inside a building attached to the festival

footprint and they also incorporated the area that's kentucky kingdom which is like six flags

you know right there inside the festival you can go on roller coaster rides ferris wheel already in

place at this event now so they added that last year it'll be again this year and it's much bigger

footprint but the way their stages are set up it's uh the two big stages are right next to each other

and this this band on this stage is wrapping up and this band i remember a couple years ago

like i was seeing durand durand over on this stage and i was having the best time and then

and then uh this stage is uh all of a sudden the crowd moves over to this side and i'm over on that

left side of the stadium and the killers came out like with their big hit opener and it's just like

i just grabbed my phone i was like this is great i'm walking right out to the front of the killer

stage and then then you shuffle back to the other side for the next act and the night wraps but the

other stage is outside because it's um it's maybe kentucky it's a lot of like a jug band bluegrass

band guitar driven um bands that we would love that we all love you know and they're out there

um then you can go out to see those in front of smaller audiences and and they do incorporate

a little more grassy areas now and they roll out a lot of like uh plush astro turf to keep because

it could be super hot but they do do it in september in september and may in louisville

are spectacular months yeah we do the kentucky derby here every year in may because it's a

spectacular time of year as the seasons are blooming and then right before fall so you

usually never get terrible weather unless a hurricane comes out of the gulf that's what

i meant by you never know you could get one of those but outside of that the spring and fall kind

of thing but i mean as far as like just heard a lot of things with water lines and and getting

logistically in and out um i just i've not heard a lot of good things you just described a very

nice picture um it has have the locals did the locals embrace it i mean is there a lot of like

get this traffic mess out of my town or our friend people that are gonna drive a car and

bernarding uh brian heard our you know we talked about this couple three weeks ago and he's

he texted and said i've been i like it a lot okay but i did ask him do you buy vip and he said yeah

well so that's the one thing he does i know you know that's the one thing i've heard is it's it's

good if you do vip that's maybe where we heard some of the reddit conversation is you know for

the general ga it's maybe not as nice but again i'll second that you know you definitely want to

get the vip which is where i'm going from durandor and to the killers or whatever because i'm right

in that area and it's it's not unaffordable i don't think a lot of people drive into the madness

because it is it's a lot of people they sell a ton of tickets 75 000 people at louder than life

last year that is a record that was the biggest festival in the in the country last year in bourbon

and beyonds the week before and they had like 65 70 there they have a day a day you're talking

about right yeah yeah yeah wow tickets sold yeah yeah yeah and then uh they um have within a mile

on that the reason they're there is at the expo center and there's hotels all over the place

and they have camping if you want to bring a camper and set up for that no i don't know how

any of that works i'm not out there for that but you uh a mile takes me about 20 minutes to walk

and you within a mile there's probably 15 hotels if you're planning in advance you get a hotel you

can walk back to your hotel it after and i think most people they figured out rideshare they'll

just get the rideshare in the rideshares are already pre-programmed with lift and uber where

to take you for those events there's maybe three entry points and they drop you off at the right

place you go in you're there and your rideshare out or you have your friends drop you off and

pick you up but most people are hoteling it if they're coming in from chattanooga or they're

doing the camping and trying to figure out if that's a good call or not but then when you're

inside um you know you've got you know vip is uh upfront it is upfront they don't like segregate

you can have ga on the right side and vip on the left side and you're sharing the front of the

stage it's vip in the front of the stage but they do have massive field screens if you're way in the

back you can see the screens and uh obviously the big stage screens because they've got the biggest

stages like you would imagine so you're saying it all works out well and it's a big time you're

pro you're i think they i think they moved it last year um and they were they told me about it about

six weeks before the festival and then they made an announcement that they were relocating it at

the fairgrounds to a new footprint and then started putting out the the i didn't know what

to expect so i kind of drove out there because the fairgrounds is it's a state-owned property

you can drive on it i just wanted to see sort of like i've never really been on this area and

like i see how that i can kind of i can see what they're thinking here because the other area

didn't make a whole lot of sense they stayed there for a while and i think this is a nicer

thing incorporating the um six flags over there called kentucky kingdom incorporating that people

can go in there and do water slides and ride a ferris wheel and see everything and hear everything

and they i don't have a problem getting drinks i haven't had a problem getting food

but you know it is my hometown and i see a ton of people i know and i'm

and everybody seems to have you got you got all the secrets we were joking about it a few weeks

ago that uh we're all coming to stay at your house because we talked about it we all we talk about it

every year that we're gonna go and we never do and we can go hang out in front of your green screen

you all are welcome you all are welcome

so

all right along those lines there's other events uh rus i i mentioned at the start of the show that

it's been a busy couple of weeks so in the last two or three weeks rus uh you've gotten confirmation

you're going to shaky knees uh brian and i well y'all are too right yeah brian you and i need to

talk about it i know we kind of joked that we're going to go on sunday maybe drive down together

at least for that one day but also uh cave fest we we are going to go um hopefully to that and

still trying to figure out if we're going to go see the less clay pool thing at uh the caverns

yeah that lineup for cave fest dropped pretty early speaking of uh lineups dropping hey speaking

of that patrick have you been to the to the caverns on mon eagle have you been to that venue

yeah it's i'm jealous it's just it's as bad as sweet not as great as anything you've ever done

right i mean maybe not anything you've ever done but i i'm in love with the place and and the

camping set up there which is not for every show but when they do it it has got that bonnaroo 2002

it's primitive you can have a little fire like a little charcoal fire grill and um

big time so you have been there and your thoughts yeah they do a great job um yeah it's like you

said i mean i think it has smaller you know maybe better in this day and age you know for us you

know but you know smaller with a big vibe feel and i think they've kind of put that together

um but they've got a natural beautiful venue at their disposal so you know go screw that up

you know good luck yeah yeah well you got caves all over kentucky too so you're no

stranger to a to a fun cave but boy this place just we like it too because it's independently

run it's one of the very few right that it's still it's no it's no live nation yeah yeah big time but

independently yeah you know you're going to bonnaroo or any of these festivals and some of

those daytime little acts and i love seeing them in smaller venues you know the caverns is one of

those right if you can see somebody like that if it's just more intimate oh absolutely you know it

can't always be that tent with like 400 people let's let's go back to the caverns for a bit

because i think we're underselling it this is cave fest this is two days of a music festival i think

it's the best deal period and it's bluegrass you know if you're not into bluegrass i get it but

99 bucks for a whole weekend of music and it includes car camping i mean you can't beat the

deal and you know there's a lot of bluegrass but there's also uh you know uh fish's billy breeze

is doing a bob weir tribute there um there's there's all kinds of stuff there's a there's a

john prine 80th birthday party happening you know there's there's all kinds of stuff going on

um and yeah i think it's a great deal and everything for those who've never been

everything is right there it's walking uh you're you're camping you know you walk to the cavern the

the outdoor amphitheater it's two of the best music venues that i know two of the most unique

i'll put it that way uh but also great and it's all right there so yeah you've got the cave which

is awesome because you're in a cave and then they also have this watching a concert in a cave in a

cave but they also have this outdoor amphitheater that they built you know four or five years ago

you're and it's massive yeah it's amazing so you know two two stages two opportunities

and you're right there at the campground too and they got a bunch of trucks for any like any sound

engineer that's got to put together the audio in a cave i mean that's that's a that's all order

it is yeah it's a hell of a challenge and um and it's it works sometimes and sometimes not as much

but there's a lot of grace given by seemingly everybody and certainly me when you're in the

setting because how great is but that amphitheater out there is a whole different story like it's a

traditional amphitheater setup that they're still adding more enhancements to the stage and to the

area it gets better every time i see it so yeah we're big fans uh there i mean it's it's almost

like it's like this is almost better than bonnaroo guys in some ways this guy's place is kind of

better in some ways it is and they're thoughtful enough there was a friend who who took a that we

had a little yellow balloon you know sober area there last year i would expect we would do another

one um oh really you have done please do yeah there was like a sister of somebody else that

had volunteered for us before um knew some of the people there i didn't have any contact or i can't

manage and approach anybody about these things usually i'm organically invited but he took the

initiative and got it going and i think i think he'll be back again let me ask about that real

quick patrick in the world of litigation and anti-trust seeming to not even be a thing anymore

and and licensing is do any of those things exist they must have to exist a little bit because you

are 501c3 and all that kind of thing do people if they want to do their own thing do they have

to run anything by you from a legal department standpoint i mean you just kind of said no but

it seems odd because there's damn litigation about everything these days i'm not saying you're going

to go running after anybody yourself but but is there a process how does how does that work

no i mean like the warf ratch are not a 501c3 but when i started out we weren't either and i didn't

run anything by them you know we just did it and they they the guys and girls that are doing these

things at like healing appalachia and you know at the cave fest organically you've just taken the

the reins and run with it and bravo you know i do have conversations with them i know them they have

worked volunteered with us previously to get the mission they're just carrying the mission out in

their own fashion if they get to a point where they are being asked to do i get asked by every

festival to fill out a contract and to have insurance a coi ensuring the festival the promoter

and all the stuff they want me to put in that cover letter the coi has got to have all the language

i've got an insurance company i pay for insurance annually i don't our foundation pays the if they

get to that place where they need those things they'll have to roll it over to be involved with

us but right now it's yeah rolling fine last question for me on sober all the way around it

just another one that popped into my head the yellow balloons thing is that just a ubiquitous

thing within the um within the community of recovery was that a warf ratz thing that you

picked up and went with or is that is that the universal symbol uh it is a warf ratz thing it is

the universal symbol and legend legend has it that you know there was a tour magazine um or maybe

it was even like an early relics it used to have magazine fan magazines and some sober deadhead

took out and uh they put an ad a free placement in the back like a help wanted uh one of these

trade magazines like you know the um relics or something out there's like sober deadhead looking

for other sober deadheads and then somebody like here's how you can contact me and then somehow

letters got exchanged or i'm going to be at this show uh at the spectrum in philadelphia

you know on saturday night look for the l.o.l. too i'll be in section my tickets are in 214

how will i find you in 214 i'm in the guy in the tie-dye you know with how do i find you

yeah i'm the gray-headed guy in tie-dye yeah that helps so legend legend has it i'll stand

up at set break and i'll hold up a yellow balloon and come find me and legend has it that's yeah

huh that's it all right there you go that's funny i always joke when my kids go to a balls game i'm

like look for my son he's there he'll be wearing orange yeah good luck all right i only have one

more thing um and rush you know where i'm going with this i don't know if you have any other

things to talk about but uh we got a lot to talk about well i don't know if we have enough time but

we got uh i we got an email this week uh and i don't even remember who sent it to us to say

check out this group oh oh yeah yeah and uh i don't know how to say it but i'm gonna try it

angene de patrini patrine am i even close i've never heard of yeah i don't even know uh it's

french they're they're a canadian band this is a duo and if you've seen them you know what i'm

talking about because they have uh brian have you watched the video i guess not i have no idea what

we're talking about oh really oh my gosh even rick piatto did a video on this because he called the

video stop emailing me about this band they're just blowing up um they wear these costumes uh

it's like a black and white polka dotted thing they've got giant masks on these helmets uh with

big noses uh really surprised you haven't seen this because they're they're they're just cloned

up everywhere i can think of if you remember that viral video what what does the fox say you remember

that stupid crazy wacky thing sort of yeah yeah it's uh russell we'll link to it it's uh the fact

that rick biatto is out there it's it's nuts it's so they're what what are they doing then what's the

story it's math rock they are a duo it's a um but i would they yes it's a guy with a a bass guitar

and a regular guitar kind of stacked together so he's got both sets of frets and strings um and

then a drummer and yeah he'll play like a bass line and then he'll loop that and then he'll play

guitar on top of that and you know it's it's math rock it's it's all very odd time signatures very

fast um you know riffs lots of lots of looping lots of uh you know all kinds of stuff uh barry

to me this is um this is king crimson this is 80s king crimson rust loves it it's yeah that's

why i'm all in i mean this is discipline this is dayloh and genji this is you know everything

about this is so cool and i mean just the fact that they're dressed up in these odd costumes

uh just makes it even better they have the i don't even know they've they've not really like revealed

their own who they are they have made up names um they have kind of a backstory that they're aliens

they have their own made-up language that they do interviews in this language and they have somebody

translate

it

i mean it's a whole and they're on they're on the show next week or something

i just just that we somebody sent us this video is you know we get these all the time

if people like watch this and well it wasn't just that i mean i've seen them everywhere i go online

yeah um they're in another video everyone's talking about them people are calling for them to be

maybe at the bonnaroo 2027 lineup they're booking shows all over the country they're doing these

tours um i mean it's just it's it's amazing to see how how big this has gotten so it's it's

you know it's basically go ahead sorry andrea and andrea bocelli what was the name again

no i'm not adrian but it's a-n-g-i-n-e d-e-p-o-i-t-r-i-n-e

did you get all that it's yeah right it's uh it's daft punk if they did like really bad acid

type of there you go yeah it's definitely a performance costume thing yeah but the music

is really good made me i i'm watching it i'm thinking what do i know why what am i

remind me of and i finally it landed on uh p-funk i don't know if you guys remember

they had diaper man and all these characters and one of them were was sir nose devoid of funk

with the giant nose that's kind of what this reminds me of kind of like alice in wonderland

but with a big obscene you know phallic nose type of thing it's just crazy and you know

anybody can get up on stage dressed like that but these guys can actually back it up with real

talent i mean the fact that they're playing with these huge helmets on this guy's like drumming

he can't even see what he's sitting you know the he's playing guitar he can't even look down you

know because they're just it's ridiculous but uh it is really good i mean just the music alone

without the performance side of it is really really good i'm really enjoying listening to

russ likes it more than i do but it's it's it's very entertaining yeah all right that's all i

got what else you got russ well are you not gonna drop the big news oh my goodness yes yes yes yes

i was hoping we would leave with this but uh yeah we're gonna be back at uh at bonnaroo doing a live

show i did forget about that i was so i was so proud of my robe yes we will be back the what

podcast we'll be back inside uh what is that tent um planet room planet planet room we're gonna be

on the house stage yeah we're gonna be back that was a blast last year uh details to be announced

um yeah like i need another thing to be stressed out about that week patrick you want to take my

spot you can have it i'm kidding i'm kidding i'm kidding i'll definitely come by and i'll definitely

look for you guys and try and say hi and listen to your old it is on thursday in a good time we

don't know what time yet but it's gonna we're there it's gonna work out well for us yeah i don't know

how many details we can share just yet but we can announce that we will be there on thursday pretty

early in the day um not a lot else going on you'll get a chance to come see us come see the live show

star of the day man stars of the day yeah i'm not gonna lie the fact that we got to do something

on stage at bonnaroo is one of the greatest moments of my life so i'm overjoyed that we get

to do it again that they ask so yeah we'll announce more soon um especially once we get

details nailed down like guests and topics and all that so yeah stay tuned yeah you might have to move

that segment to the front i forgot there's so much like i said it's a big show well there's just a lot

to get into yeah all right what else anything else um do we want to mention our upcoming record

store day stuff too oh like i said there's a lot yes we will be doing a segment very soon

at our one of the local record vinyl shops yellow record records we're gonna do a live

thing with ben over there and we'll announce more details soon if you guys want to come join us i

think we're gonna do it i know we're gonna do it from there whether it'll be during hours or not

i'm not 100 sure but if it is you guys can come knowing him i'm sure it will be because he will be

into that idea they got the stage there they'll they got it nice set up so that that'll be fun

as record store day is fast approaching my god it's april already isn't it yeah it's april today

basically is it's april on the day of this is it april fool's day on on on our drop day i think it

is yeah yeah it sure is it sure is yep maybe we've had a lot of bad jokes in here and we're lying

about a bunch of stuff yeah brian loves brian loves him an april fool joke nothing brings out

the creativity and imagination in america than april fool's day yeah it's right up there with

the march 17th lots of random stuff all right patrick man anything else you wanted to add that

we didn't ask you about thank you so much you are always one of our favorite guests because you know

exactly what you're talking about you do a great job and you're a lot of fun to talk to yeah drop

some knowledge on us on the way out here tighten this thing up yeah i appreciate it guys it's always

a pleasure you know we'll be at a bunch of festivals this year the yellow balloons are

the indicator you come find us it'll say sober something at the top more than likely and

it's a pleasure to hang out with you guys and know what you're talking about about bonnaroo because

it's you know i love it as much as you do i hope and uh encouraged to come see you guys on the on

the stage again when you all do your thing all right great show guys like i said lots to do we

have so many things planned next week is easter not 100 sure what that's going to look like

but we have a lot of guests lined up and a lot of things yet to talk about um russe brian good show

glad you're all back show yeah and keep emailing us weird stuff you come across we'll watch it

yes brian won't but we will yeah i'll get to it i'll get to it now i gotta see all this stuff

oh yeah can't wait to hear your both both of your opinions on it yeah we'll put the link

hi guys thanks so much uh for uh for doing this with us every year and hanging out with us at the

festival and everything else man we really appreciate your service and your dedication

to the craft it's really it's really impressive well you're welcome here if you come up for

for bourbon and beyond so all right i don't take up we don't take up a lot of space

i just need a driveway yeah true all he needs is a driveway i need some sparkling water i need some

lime juice i need some cold brew hot shower and a cup of coffee some cold foam if you could get

some heavy cream and some milk you have one one percent on that please