The What Podcast
There Is No Bonnaroo Without Bob Weir and the Grateful Dead
Season 9, Episode 5
Published January 14, 2026
https://thewhatpodcast.com/episode/there-is-no-bonnaroo-without-bob-weir-and-the-grateful-dead

I think you can argue there would not be a Bonnaroo without the Grateful Dead.

This entire scene that is the Grateful Dead scene that just migrated to a Bonnaroo field

in Manchester, Tennessee, this is what I want now.

He was born Robert Hall Harbour and then was put up for adoption and was adopted and we know him as

Bobby Weir or Bobby to Grateful Dead fans. He died yesterday.

We are going to spend a little bit of time here on the What Podcast. I'm Barry, that's Brian,

that's Russ. We're going to spend a few minutes talking about the impact that Bobby had on the

music universe and the festival universe and Bonnaroo in general and then we're going to

play some more contest entries. Yeah, a sad day in the music world but a legacy that can't be

denied or debated and a fulfilled life from from Bob Weir. So yeah, a bummer but a celebration in

my mind to a certain degree. Well let's do this. I have a couple of stories. Russ and I talked

and I think we did a little bit with you. Brian, you are by far the bigger Dead fan

than either of us but I do have a couple of interactions, a couple of stories and I want

to go through those and I want to talk about the importance of the Grateful Dead to our world and

then I'm going to let you sort of share whatever you have. There are lots of ways to enjoy Bonnaroo.

There are lots of reasons to enjoy Bonnaroo. We've always talked about it's a great place to

discover new acts. It's a great place to for us as you know journalists which is essentially what we've

been or at least pretend to be. At least where we came from and want to be land but yes of course.

Absolutely. So it's a great place for us to discover, find somebody new, kind of watch

their career grow but it's also an unbelievable opportunity to see people like

Bob Weir, the Legacies, the U2s, the Paul McCartneys. Where else are you going to

be that close to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? You know who's there for us? Sitting next to Steven Stills.

Steven Stills and Daniel Lanois and yeah you know on and on and on. Childish Gambino in the next room.

Yeah unbelievable. Triumph, the insult comic. That was a fun year. That was an amazing year.

2010 I believe anyway go ahead Barry. But we owe a tremendous amount to the Bob Weirs of this world.

There would not be a Bonnaroo without the Grateful Dead. And like I said I'm not that big a fan.

I've liked their music okay. I think Wake of the Flood is a great album that I can listen to over

and over and over. They didn't do much for me but I've always been very much aware of them.

But their ethos and their mindset and their fandom and what they created

has a lot to do with Bonnaroo and what Bonnaroo has become. I mean I think you both would agree

it's hard to imagine a Bonnaroo without the Grateful Dead universe. You know Fish

came out of that. The Jam Band thing. So yeah it's a huge loss and the more we lose people like this

the Tom Petty's. That's the other thing I was thinking about is I didn't get to see Tom Petty

because I made a bad decision. I never got to see David Bowie because I was too lazy to you know

make a trip and go see him out of town. I haven't seen the Rolling Stones you know. Yeah you'll see

him next time until there's not a next time. Exactly. Exactly. When we lose these people and

I know there's a lot of young people that listen to this show and it's you know it's the hey get

off my lawn I'm the old guy. But you don't get these opportunities once they're gone. So take

advantage I guess is part of the message to see these people and to be able to say you saw them

in person live and be in the room means a lot to me. And so it's a big loss. It's a big deal.

He was still making music and again I'll let you Brian talk about that because you've seen you know

your t-shirt speaks to it. From my Sphere show a couple years ago. Yeah but I just wanted to point

out go ahead Russ. I was just going to say there is a there's a Volkswagen connection there too. I

mean the Grateful Dead kind of embodied you know the original Volkswagen microbus was kind of a big

part of that movement. Became synonymous with the whole scene. Jam band. Yeah and I just remembered

in 1995 I think is when Jerry Garcia died. August. Volkswagen put out an ad that you've probably seen

of just a split window bus with a little tear coming out. Yeah. Yeah and it just said Jerry

Garcia and that was it. You know that was I thought that was pretty awesome tribute. That's

a pretty well remembered thing and it just goes to show how these things are linked you know. So

even non-musically there's a huge impact on culture and what we do. Well that's my point

about the Bonnaroo sort of ethos. I mean you can't I don't know how you can separate the Grateful Dead

and that whole universe with the Bonnaroo universe that we think of. Maybe people who are new to

Bonnaroo don't quite get it because you weren't you know into the Grateful Dead or around but

I just don't know how you can separate it. You don't have one without the other.

Yeah I don't know I don't know where the adage comes from or if it even is one but a local guy

that we're all friends with Jeff Stiles here in town would always say and I don't know if he made

it up or if it comes from every corner of every zeitgeist of all dead fandom but until you see

a hockey game live a NASCAR race live or a Grateful Dead concert live you'll never understand what

those three things are. You can see it on TV you can see a picture of hockey and NASCAR and a

dead show and be like boy that looks like something a little different but until you

step foot in the arena or in the venue to see those three things you'll never get it

and it's so true because it's just such a different thing than anything else you've ever seen even like

Fish rivals it because of their popularity. Wiseford Panic sort of but there's really not

anybody else maybe Pink Floyd once upon a time 35 40 years ago. Almond Brothers had a run for a minute

but nobody with the 60 year staying power with the marketing machine I mean because their

business dealings were so poor as young people and in a band they didn't become rich until they were

like approaching elderly and then they became off the charts a money printing machine of the

entire marketing machine that is the Grateful Dead and it's the hottest brand up until just

a couple years ago when the sphere hit as the the new hottest thing and maybe it still is today and

I will have a jump and a boom right now it is the most marketable sellable rock and roll product out

there. I didn't think about this and I'm gonna let you let you cook yeah sure I'm just bouncing

as our guys say here in a little bit but think about that too they did that before any social

media I mean they were doing this they were selling merch they were giving away stuff they

were giving away bootleg tapes let everybody tape their shows let everybody tape their shows

before the internet I mean for you you guys are in your 40s I'm in my 60s it's hard to fathom

a universe before the internet in your cell phone imagine being a Deadhead fan

before all of that and they made it work and just sent these tapes in the mail that's how they traded

them outside of at live shows and then they would put them in the mail and send them to each other

based on a lot of that was early early AOL internet days when that really started to take off in that

way but yeah trading tapes in the lots that was a pastime along with whatever drugs you were doing

drugs you were doing. Anyway I know Brian you made some notes but I just wanted to say how important

I realize the Grateful Dad and Bob Weir are to this festival that I love so much.

You know like I said I know the music I know it a little bit I like it well enough but my memory

growing up was that you know the old joke was what did the Deadhead say when he wasn't tripping

and he listened to their music it was like yeah they do something. Yeah yeah well that was one of

the things I wrote down Barry was I wanted to know we've never talked about this on the show

what your relationship with the music was let's say in the 70s and 80s as you're growing up

listening to different music certainly as we know because I know where your leanings were as a young

person but what were your thoughts when you were in your 20s you know and listening to

Devo or whatever and the Dead Machine was going right along it was just under a radar of just a

ethos that you didn't see on the internet because there wasn't one. What were your thoughts this is

annoying I don't understand this or screw these hippies or what was it like? Yes pretty much that

yes pretty much that yeah I mean they weren't on the radio they weren't on the radio until trucking

you know my I knew them because of my brothers who were are to this day old hippies so I mean

I was aware of them I would I just never into the music at all yeah I think probably the first real

honestly first time I gave them a listen my sister-in-law was dating a guy and he was a big dead

fan and she wanted to get Wake of the Flood for him and ended up buying it at a local record store

for about 70 bucks which sounded outrageous it is outrageous yeah sounds outrageous today correct

but I ended up getting it for a lot cheaper and then listening to it over and over and over and

I really like it so I've become a fan I like it well enough I don't you know the bootlegs and all

that those tapes were terrible recordings too all those tapers that made all those recordings and

that primitive technology they were not very good recordings the interesting thing with their whole

marketing and look is that if you didn't know better you would think this was

at least you know back in the tipper gore days of trying to you know regulate people's music

from my you know youth you would look at it and think this is like some devil music or something

like this there's all these skeletons and there's there's all the dead the grateful dead and and

and you don't you you're hearing that there's a lot of potential drug use which is mostly marijuana

but you know it's more than that but it wasn't like this absolute drunk tank drug tank every

minute of of their existence but that's what people thought and you know you can think of

like this has got to be some really dangerous music it's got a this is going to rot young

people's minds this is some of the most uplifting stuff you've ever listened to yeah and and it's

on and it's really easy listening for the most part it's barely rock and roll half the time from

what we consider like rolling stones as you mentioned it's bluegrass i mean jerry was a big

bluegrass guy jerry was the blue well and i'm glad you brought that up right there i'll just kind

of shift so like yes so they're not that as we all know now everybody's aware of that now but yeah

jerry was the bluegrass guy and bob weir was the rock and roll guy bob weir was 17

when this band started uh phil less just died two years ago now i guess it was year and a half

whatever it was he was pushing 85 i think he was 84 jerry would have been in his pushing to eight

mid-80s by now and uh and bob was learning to play guitar and i don't know if he just had a

cool factor to him or something and jerry took him in and helped him learn to play guitar better

next thing you know the young kid the rock and roller the really good looking dude with the long

hair the you know the the the typical rock and roll white guy and next thing you know he's just

as part of the band as ever um you know they had they had so many tentacles to that band i mean it's

a dozen members officially totally overall maybe a little bit more but bob was young and that's

he's 70 he was 78 and um i i was always into bob the most it took me a while to kind of to get into

the dead because he was the rocker he was the cool guy jerry was kind of like the old lovable

teddy bear that just you know played a guitar well but some things i mean on a good day a

dead show 30 years ago wasn't very good i mean a lot of the time no i was reading just jump in real

quick reading obviously this morning one of the things it said was that the the fans used to

cheer every time bob weir would forget lyrics that was part of the show yeah which is interesting

because the lyrics were meaning you know like i said in my mind they were silly you know trippy

whatever yeah read into them whatever you want kind of thing well their music is very um independently

digestible right and one song can mean something completely different than to others that's true

with any longevity of a band but generally speaking their music was pretty chill it was

just kind of you know sunshine and daydreaming and um and and i you said something a minute ago

they weren't and i'm i've never made this distinction but they weren't an alcohol

based type of trip it was always drugs to me marijuana mushrooms the psychedelics yeah i

don't mean to miscategorize and say that there wasn't a lot of that going on if that's what it

sounded like because there's certainly no no i just think that the there is a difference between

a beer drinking crowd and a mushroom or a marijuana crowd yeah more there's more of the almond brothers

uh fandom that's a little bit more the drinking crowd that will certainly skin well yeah skin

it's getting me i know i don't like skinner these days you know different story but um yeah

yeah the beer drinker that yeah i'll try some of that what he got over there put in some in my hand

i'll give it a try or the dead fan who's put that in my hand whatever it is now where's the beer

yeah yeah look what i found on the ground look at this anybody got a drink um or or i've got my

morning buzz and then my afternoon and then hits just right yeah yeah so your pros it's just i mean

there's an amazon doc on them four to six hours long that's five or six years old that is just

every minute of it is fabulous it's just so well done yeah you'll you'll learn as much in those

kinds of things as you'll ever thought you wanted to and then you'll forget half of it because it's

so long there's there's just so much there and they just never stopped all they did was just

play shows year-round for 30 years until jerry's health deteriorated i mean he had a bad drug

problem it was you know heroin at the end and that was less of about the scene and more about

his just demons and bad life decisions um and i you know there's no real evidence that bob ever

had a big drug problem or even a drug problem at all which sometimes it's hard to imagine you could

be in that so immersed and not have an issue yeah it's hard to live as long as he did unless

you know you don't have issues like that unless you're keith richards well yeah in his older age

bob became big into yoga and i mean he would be the ultimate old man light some incense wear some

bergenstocks hippie i mean just hippie dippy dude and that's another reason why he was so endearing

to me is he aged so well um in in in the 90s i was just so entrenched in grunge and loud noisy

feedback uh 90s alt rock that the dead still didn't do anything for me though a lot of my

friends are starting to go that way but all the lifestyle that came with it i was totally into

well that's what i that's where i wanted to go and i you know i i kept i alluded earlier that the

you can't have bonnaroo without the dead and but let's be specific it is the lifestyle and it's

not just the drugs that that's the that's the image that everybody thinks of but it's the

acceptance right it's the fact the community the huge sense of community and acceptance everybody's

welcome everybody takes care of everybody right come as you are exactly come as you are um the

whole shakedown street that's a dead thing right god i'm glad you mentioned that i didn't even

think about that for some reason there's a shakedown street at every single festival

in the world almost almost maybe some of the edm types have not quite done it this way but yeah

shakedown street the name of one of their songs if you're on it at a lot anywhere in the world

and you're buying beads and having a beer and picking up a kombucha you're on shakedown street

yeah grilled cheese sandwich right didn't wouldn't that uh didn't that isn't that

again i'm i'm projecting a little bit but isn't that how some people paid their way i mean they

would go follow the band around they'd sell grilled cheese sandwiches make a few bucks

absolutely that's that that that like those lives still go on today and i've known people

i think you know that i was tempted to say well is there an extra seat in the car i'll go right

around and make grilled cheese sandwiches too even though i didn't quite get the music until

i discovered widespread panic the year before the first bonnaroo and at that point my whole

music listening and digesting of it totally shifted you know i'd gotten out of the 90s and

start hearing this panic band and i'm like this is pretty wild and this is a lot like what the

grateful dead were doing except at that time it's way better and then i started to go backward you

know i knew two or three four songs or whatever and it was very familiar with the the situation

with jerry in the mid 90s but it was that it was bonnaroo 2002 first year you know that that i was

like this is for me right this this entire scene that is the grateful dead scene that just migrated

to a bonnaroo field in in manchester tennessee this is what i want now and for 10 years that's all i

did was jam band community things and i saw the grateful dead variations not the grateful dead

but dead variations starting in 2003 no two no no i'm sorry sorry three at bonnaroo and um

i've been a what you would consider a dead head since you know at the time i was embarrassed

into my 20s and just now like i might have even lied like oh yeah i listen to dead all the time

back in the 90s no i didn't i didn't at all and in 2002 that all changed and for 24 years now

they've been they're nowhere near my favorite band i'm not going to pretend to do that say that that

that would be disingenuous but a band i love and will listen to anytime anytime hey you want to

listen to some dead sure i'm never going to say no to that uh so they definitely rank up there

pretty high just to prove that i listened to your podcast wasn't it a dead t-shirt that you were

wearing when the guy asked you what your favorite song was and you were embarrassed because you

didn't have oh my god thank you thank you for bringing that up barry let me make his day let

me tell that real quick cook so anybody yeah anybody in my taco and i's era uh there was always the

three name three songs you want maybe you maybe this goes back to generations i don't know barry

you can correct me if i'm wrong on that but uh if you want to call somebody out if you want to

expose a poser if you want to be an asshole go up to somebody who's wearing a band shirt and say

name three songs and when they can't you just just just hammer them i mean ha ha we're going

to make fun of this guy for maybe the rest of the semester and i had a shirt very very similar to

this one it's the classic um steal your face it would be back in the 90s and 2000s if you said i

want a steely shirt this was the classic steal your face shirt more tie-dye than this a better

looking shirt than this one actually and i wanted the tie-dye because i was going through a little

hippie phase in the 90s and i uh the best one you could find was that one so my mom got me that

one i wore it under my baha which i know occasionally you still wear taco i do i still

have it and uh and yeah some guy came up to me and pulled my shirt out my baha look he's like

is that a steely name three songs oh god oh god i probably knew one or two i don't but i blanked

for the rest of the semester i was mortified yeah this guy raked me over this coal coals i

went to camelot music we had in our mall here you guys will remember i remember camelot and i would

go study grateful dead cds and write down all the song titles so if this guy ever did this to me

again i'd be like you had your jerk moment yeah yeah yeah jerk store yeah

seinfeld reference for those that don't get it the un indoctrinated um oh i was i was uh it was

the most embarrassing thing of that era of my life and uh i swore i i never wore that grateful dead

shirt again never never put it back on so i went through wikipedia real quick uh all the different

spinoff uh bands the other the other ones the dead further dead and company new writers of the

purple sage old and in the way uh i i don't know of too many bands that have had this many

i mean spinoffs there's a lot of bands the beetles obviously have tons and tons of tributes but uh

yeah fill in friends i don't know if you mentioned that one uh mickey mickey heart and planet drum

um yeah donna jean god how do you say her last name gotcha gotcha band yeah donna jean she just

recently passed too didn't just a few uh six months ago or so maybe yeah i remember reading

her obituary she was notable because when she was on she was great and when she was not she couldn't

carry it well that's that's the whole damn band back then that's why they got exactly that's what

i remember that's why they got together well on that and um as we're marching through towards a

half hour here i don't want to go too too much as we got a bunch of submissions we want to get to

but i do want to just run through i did make some notes to remember to myself uh last night

of how many times bob weir played at bonnaroo and i'm sure there's a sit-in on one of these

years i'm missing that he wasn't scheduled and and i just can't use memory and and and the internet

enough to figure that out but in 2002 phil and friends had had bob and they played a tennessee

jed on a beautiful sunday afternoon after panicked two nights and it was like the perfect kind of

close to the perfect inaugural event of bonnaroo uh then the dead so this would be just the dead

with warren haynes basically taking over the jerry garcia role in 2003 and 2004 in 2005 and

2007 rat dog which was bob's specific uh grateful dead spin-off that was bob's band they played in

05 and 07 and then in 2016 so a big jump almost 10 years at that point dead and company in the

2016 year where they closed out on sunday and i first was media credentialed in in 04

but i had no idea what i was doing didn't know where anything was and then that big storm came

in and wiped us all out you couldn't they cancelled almost anything going on in the media

area on saturday on the next year in 05 was the first time i had access to everything and i

understood where i was and and that's when i first was around bob and then here with him and dave

schools from widespread panic that might as well have been 50 years ago he looks like a young young

man uh in that picture and then in 2016 um my uh my now girlfriend and lovely favorite person in

the world uh elizabeth thorpe shot for one of her first years shooting uh at bonnaroo

uh officially was dead in company and got a got a few good shots of of bob that year too so

yeah a really important person in in rock and roll's life for sure but certainly mine but

you know never somebody never had the poster you know never yeah never um it's not on an eddie

veteran old gallagher you know dave lowry from cracker kind of thing for me uh it's not an idol

these aren't idols of mine but the it really was the bonnaroo ethos that really sucked me in and i

was like this is what i want forever like this is absolutely it and and bonnaroo has still after all

these years been able to maintain that specialness even though they've been so far removed from

anything jam band for going on 20 years now almost 20 15 15 anyway i was trying to think uh john

mayer semi-member type of thing bruce hornsby wasn't he a semi-member who else yeah john well

john mayer is the integral part to the dead in company specifically he actually owns like 51

percent of that and that trademark portion of the dead but yes by uh bruce hornsby my mother was a

huge bruce hornsby fan you know the 80s and 90s stuff and i actually kind of liked it but i never

wanted to admit it because you couldn't be cool and say you liked piano playing bruce hornsby

until i see he's playing with the other ones and the grateful dead and i'm like what i've always

loved bruce hornsby guys i've been on this bruce hornsby thing since where have you where have

you all been yeah yeah bruce playing piano with the with any members of the grateful dead is

fabulous stuff yeah so and then yeah so john and the next question is quickly here and then i'll

i'll be done on this the next question is it already was a question because bob's health has

been slightly in decline more than a lot of us knew but also he's 78 so you you've got to have

a contingency plan on what you're going to do the rest of your life if you are is what happens with

this band now what happens with the band now because so many people during this dead in company

run have have talked about this and most people agree the music's too important too popular and

in some people's minds when they're talking about it too profitable to just say right we're done

with this and you want to call the any member of the dead a sellout you go right ahead no one's

going to listen to you they've done this a way that nobody else has and if they want to keep making

this money with this machine i have i support it and i hope that they do i don't know when i was in

vegas for that three night run almost two years a year and a half ago now one of the greatest live

performance events of my life dead forever was everywhere the hashtag dead forever here on the

screen before the show after the show dead forever dead forever it's like a marketing campaign and i

i said it's a great logo i said it what is a guy all of their their stuff is great logos and i said

i bet you whatever the next version of the grateful dead is to carry on into another generation

that will be called dead forever whatever that is that's what it'll be called and essentially

it'll be a a cover band a tribute band but the dead heads that that don't approve of the dead in

company outfit will already say flippantly well the best cover band in america about the grateful

dead is dead in company okay all right well that's fine john mayer i think is going to be the one that

gets to make that decision and john mayer and bob became real close towards the end so

there's a lot on bob there everybody thanks for sitting through that but uh i didn't even realize

until we started talking about it barry i mean like it's only been we this is we record on sundays

this was saturday night at seven o'clock you know just last night i just slept on it woke up and

like i guess we'll talk the dead today and next thing you know i'm getting sad no yeah i knew it

was it's an important topic i mean um there i i don't think i can overstress there is no bonnaroo

without the grateful dead i think that's very much an accurate statement 100 percent uh because it

created that that festival traveling festival um atmosphere that became that started to build in

the 90s and then bonnaroo exploded into the american uh landscape yeah that's another point

go ahead russ like i said i don't think the volkswagen bus would have become such a

popular symbol of counterculture and uh you know live music as you know without the grateful dead

i think that's very true and it was just a couple of years ago that um j rad was at bonnaroo so

there's that's uh joe russo's almost dead he's uh the more everybody with a story on him so there's

still grateful dead music and now i i bet part of that super jam or something going on this year

will have a bob weir grateful dead tribute in there somewhere i sure hope so hey bonnaroo yeah

don't forget about this somewhere somewhere do something because people the appetite just

never seems to be satiated never seems to be that's a good point yeah and i another point i

wanted to make is and it seems so obvious but it doesn't get said enough somebody had to do this

first um and you know for younger people again you kids get off my lawn type of thing but

this stuff didn't just uh appear somebody had to do it first they created this universe

uh that we now all uh take advantage of and thrive on so you know well i really think that a lot of

the edm and the what we would call techno in the 90s is a byproduct sure of of this absolutely it's

it's we're doing the same things sort of and we're excited about the same things kind of but we're

doing it with a different a different um centerpiece i guess i'll put it and yeah so yeah these these

things don't just fall out of the sky you know exactly so it's it's it's sad but it's also a

fulfilling enriched just one hell of a great story of a man and that's how i that's all i ask to go

out i want people to be like man what a great life you know life well led yeah all right let's take

a break we'll come back and we're gonna play some more of these amazing contest entries so we'll be

right back all right and we're back you're listening to the what podcast as we said last

week we have been uh overwhelmed happily so with uh contest injuries we have two bonnaroo tickets

to give away along with a camping pass and we decided a month or so ago first of december

as we have done since 2018 to give these tickets away uh brian came up with the simple idea of

just saying why should you win that's the contest is that my idea yeah yeah we went

around and around russ and i kept trying to think all these clever things and you said just keep it

simple dummies uh you know why should i win what would they say here that's why they pay me the big

bugs there is a radio that's a that's an experience that we're doubling your pay or just

leave me alone about it already i think that was really what it was i don't want to think any more

about this than i have to but the response you're not you're not uh overstating it very very

impressive very impressive stuff huge numbers and we have been so amazed um touched whatever word

you want to think of with the sincerity the passion um the answers so many people not only

are entering to win for themselves but also to win for somebody else um that's been incredible

uh so many stories about people who understand the power of bonnaroo as we just spent the last 45

minutes talking about uh this is not just a music festival this is a thing that has touched all of

us in more ways than we can count as i've said on here a hundred times everybody's story is unique

but everybody's story is uh very similar right these four days on manchester mean more to us

around the year than most anything else we do that i can think of so anyway we're going to play

some more entries and you'll hear what i'm what i mean you will hear the passion you will hear the

the love that people have for each other and for the farm and for getting back to it and what it

means to them um year-round russe you've pulled a bunch of them i'm not overstating this at all am i

not at all and this is just a small sample of what we've gotten i mean we've got hundreds of these

and i wish we could play them all but we'd be here you know all week um so it's hard to decide

who's gonna who we're gonna play much less who's gonna win but uh i think we got a pretty good

sample of entries here and uh yeah i think there's a common theme that you'll detect in a lot of

these so we'll get started uh let's roll one i guess we'll let's go uh this one is from david

erry russ brian what's up guys i just finished listening to your replay your potteroo contest

entries they hit hard uh video uh i believe i should get these tickets uh well i guess i don't

believe i think i should get these tickets because uh brian i know you went to mexico here recently

i did you can speak spanish you need some tutoring i do i got you my guy okay uh russe

uh i know you love your pdrs let's uh sit back and have a pdr case on me brother uh and barry

okay i know you love your bonnaroo love your music let's chat about music man um anyway in all

seriousness uh last year it was a mess but um i truly got an opportunity to be there with my

my brothers their first year um and they got to experience a day of you know the best time of your

life i guess um and then uh i took the people that are going to be in my wedding party to

bonnaroo and unfortunately everything got rained out um i'm gonna get married here in october

to a very lovely lady who comes with me to bonnaroo when we do go but i do want to offer my

services to you guys uh please give me a shot uh let me let me do what i can and uh consider me

for these tickets thank you so much guys bye bye i don't think you can you're supposed to be able

to bribe us though right like we're not supposed to it's worth a shot well i mean if you're gonna

bribe us that's better than uh you know saying you're gonna make us not wear hats yeah well

that's not drink pbr yeah if you try to take away our favorite things you pondo you're probably not

gonna win yeah yeah but bribing i come out the winter in the pondo deal there yeah i get a clean

reorganized basement you guys got to give up yeah i gotta stop wearing a hat pondo love you hey i

get lost i got i got crap in my basement that needs cleaned out come on it's so funny yeah all

right what's next let's uh let's jump over here let's see this one is dylan greetings the what

podcast my name is dylan murphy i hope you fellas are doing well this winter staying warm down there

in the south um i'm coming to you from germantown maryland uh would love to make that 11 hour trek

down to roux again this year if you guys would come through for me i have a cat with me named

roux so you know that i have a special relationship with the festival just based on that probably um

but yeah came down in 2008 for my very first year with my best friend we were out of high school had

like a hundred dollars in my pocket no idea i was gonna sleep but they made it work out my my best

friend's older brother had been before and they had a big group and so like everything just was

perfect and really like opened up my world to you know live music and and just different things

really changed my perspective i would say and been back with that friend a number of times over the

years uh most recently in 2017 we did the full festival then we took several years off i had a

few kids uh he got engaged so in 2025 we decided that we were going to go back so my my best friend

and a few of our buddies we went down there you know for cancel roux we had a great thursday but

then we had to shift our little bachelor party adventure to nashville which was fine it worked

out it worked out great but i think that we're all really itching to go back this year and really do

it right and um i'm not sure if we can make it happen without some type of external event like

winning free tickets so i don't i'm not a prize pig i don't enter contests often to be honest um

i only enter contests when i really really really want to go and i think that this could really

benefit people in my life so that's my little spiel i really appreciate you fellas doing what you do

on the podcast if i win the tickets i'd love to come on and tell you guys a hilarious story about

me and my best friend from that 2008 bonnaroo it involves metallica mosh pits and a pink speedo

all right yeah so hit me up fellas uh anyway i'll definitely be seeing you guys on the youtube's but

i hope to be seeing oh no where to go the what on the farm

let's go good job good job that's i do love a visual i love that um yeah some of these are

videos so if you're not watching now you gotta unsee this pink speedo idea thing so yeah stuck

in your head yeah that's awesome there's a there's a theme here i mean it's not just the

music that people want to go see they there's so many stories about i went there with my best

friend or my brother or a spouse or a fiance or girlfriend or boyfriend whatever i mean it's

very much about the people that you go with and a lot of these people want to win tickets

to give to those people to bring with them i'm surprised at how many people and we heard this

last year it's a sad story of the the girl who brought her whole wedding party last year and of

course it got rained out as we know but i mean how many of those have we heard about people who

bonnaroo is you know where they've gone with their either to get married or their wedding party their

groomsmen or their bridesmaids or whatever i'm i'm surprised at those not surprised but

there are a bunch yeah i'm glad you mentioned that because there are a few more in here that

talk about you know getting married or engaged and wanting to do it at bonnaroo

what's next well let's see we uh let's play uh this one is uh felipe what's going on y'all

my name is felipe and i've been going to the farm since uh 2010 on and off went 2010 to 2012

2000 uh 2023 to 2025 um

uh i'm uh half cuban and i have family in cuba and i have a cousin who uh in uh in recent years we

communication in cuba got better through whatsapp and and i we got to know each other pretty well

he uh was a aspiring edm dj in uh in cuba you know just bedroom stuff not not a lot of resources

out there and uh you know in the last couple years he's made he made it uh to to live in

the united states and we always talked about that i would take him to his uh his first ed big edm

festival and you know he ended up in kentucky and we did we did a smaller festival and i'm like

all right now it's time we're going to do it we're going to go to bonnaroo and last year was uh was

the year and and uh i have gotten there uh on wednesday and unfortunately due to work constraints

he was only going to be able to to make it to uh one of the days which was uh going to be saturday

dope and obviously we know what happened and he didn't get to experience uh the farm you know and

i would love the option of uh of getting him to experience that uh you know that joy for the first

time you know through all his his his you know travels and and his journey to this country like

something that he's always looked forward to was uh kind of taking in uh the edm scene at that level

and and uh you know obviously uh as a new uh arrival to this country he you know he's scraping

by like making his way and uh and this would be uh an incredible gift um of what what uh

the bonnaroo community has to offer uh yeah thanks guys and uh looking forward to

hearing uh all your upcoming episodes have a good one thank you philippe appreciate that thank you

so many of those stories that are not even involved with this contest that i've heard for

the last six months about hell we have our own you know taco and savannah shows up and then hey

oh you gotta go home now um so so many of those like i couldn't get there till friday and you

know worst day to get there and you know in 25 so we've heard that story a lot it's equally sad

every time bonnaroo would be a uh heck of a place to be introduced to what an edm

show festival would look like coming from cuba and kentucky especially yeah coming from cuba yeah

yeah since they've leaned into this so heavily yes yeah it would be it would be all right what

else we got uh let's see this one is mario hello the wall podcast uh my name is mario i've intended

bonnaroo since 2019 and um i fell in love with that festival when i first intended it's honestly

an amazing festival you can feel the love everybody puts into it uh it's the attendees the musicians

everybody um and i've i fell in love with it it's i've been to many festivals and it's probably the

top three festivals i've ever been to um i've been there when it canceled 2021 and then

2025 as well but the reason why i would like to win the tickets is for the reason that i want to

share this experience with somebody else that i fell in love with as well and that's my girlfriend

um we were gonna go to this year but unfortunately it can't it had to cancel due to weather

but i was hoping i could take her next year especially since this month at the end of the

month i'll be proposing to her um with that uh we're gonna have to plan for a wedding

and it's gonna be kind of costly and i don't know how everything is nowadays but

if i get to win those tickets and give her the opportunity to attend this festival

to give her like a little you know mini vacay especially since we've been working a lot

i'd be pretty nice especially for someone like her she's very special to me and i love her so much

but i hope everybody the greatest luck and entering and hopefully everybody can get what

they want thank you for everything you've done see you later thank you mario and once again i

hope uh i hope we're not um breaking news here i hope she knows yeah yeah i don't know she uh

you guys just got this yeah

yeah

say yes i'm just happy he was able to uh to go in 2019 before before the last six years because

it for all intents 2019 kind of seems to be the last great year for anything so uh i'm glad you're

able to go before before the 2020s because it's it's still a great place but it's a little different

than it was then it is different it's yeah all right you got another one yeah well you got a

lot of these entries people are saying they want to get married at bonnaroo nobody is uh sending an

entry saying they want to marry me at bonnaroo no seems like a missed opportunity i'm just saying

oh i thought you were i thought you were foreshadowing to our net to our next one that

that was possibly now i'm just in the cards well i mean you and brian have already been married

that's true that's true i know but we had to get it done old i don't remember why yeah yeah

i can't imagine why that one didn't work out so i'm accepting new offers how about that well and i

you know speaking of well never mind i'll leave it alone i won't do it to you brian never mind

move on okay thank you okay i think move on move on uh this one is hannah and jordan hey there the

what podcast my name is hannah van quarter and i'm here with my best friend jordan say hey jordan

hey we really really really want to go to bonnaroo but we have no money we are so we have no money

so let me tell you a little something about us um i was once in a barbershop quartet that was

nationally acclaimed i feel like that's pretty neat and jordan is a really really good photographer

like really good so even if we don't win the ticket if you guys have an in to give music

photographers in i know a girl who's good at it it's me it's jordan she's really good additionally

i i love all music music of all kinds i love listening to it i love singing it and i was a

really big skrillex head as a kid i had a skrillex poster so i'm really excited about this and i love

you guys and what you do and jordan anything this lineup is fire this lineup is fire these are bands

that we love and adore to name a few geese um uh to desi trucks very excited wednesday we are from

ashville they are from ashville anyway basically what i'm saying is i love you and i want to take

if you want to give them to me thanks guys i'm here to rob you with what little money you have

oh my god rob we just lost all our money oh now we have no money at all and we'll never make it

to bonnaroo and you ask you can help us please help us The What Podcast we love you we love you

i hope you have a good night goodbye all right that was a nice little touch at the end i like

that i have a challenge i want you to do a skrillex barbershop quartet mashup for us

yeah hey hannah name three skrillex songs there you go

hannah van gorder if that's your real name

i'm kidding i want to know more about this barbershop quartet yeah i'm fine curious about

that yeah no hannah hannah van gorder's got nightly news written all over it like you're

that's a great name hannah van gorder all right play another okay um okay we're gonna play this

one from kira now you remember kira from last week and she called like nine times uh she's called

about seven more times uh with updates um don't you have a job she does know our names yeah she

calls between jobs yeah she calls on her break i'm sorry that was the oldest thing i could have

done sorry that was a bad joke yeah in fact she has uh her boss called in her boss called twice

to recommend tickets for her she got six other friends and co-workers to call in in support

gotta love the hustle gotta love the hustle so and then she uh she recorded this video and it's

it's a long video it's like 15 minutes we're just gonna play like a little bit and then i'll link to

the longer version if you want to hear it so here we go hi the what podcast um it's kira

we're acquainted um i call often mini i'm talking to our friends you all hear my cat

euro tv um so anyway um i call often i've been putting in submissions um and i just wanted to

make a video to kind of put in a submission not for me i mean it's kind of for me because

he's my man but for my fiance um he really is my rock and um mini quiet baby you hear my cat um

he's my rock and um last year bonnaroo was canceled everyone knows bonnaroo was canceled

um and we were supposed to get engaged it was our first vacation together we've been together

four years um we didn't get engaged there we did get engaged after bonnaroo but um it didn't happen

at rube sadly um still engaged still very excited still very happy about it um

but i just want to tell a little bit about my fiance um and our story and why i feel like he

deserves this um anyways like i said it it goes on for about 15 minutes it's pretty there's a you

know uh you know lost some family members and you know kind of kind of sad but uh pretty pretty

involved story so thank you for well your tenacity is duly noted they're uh very very very good work

here we'll see if it pays off for you in the long run yeah all right you got another one

yeah let's see we'll play okay well this one is uh lena who won last year if you remember oh can

we go back to back yeah the crowd would be happy about that wouldn't they hi what podcast is lena

again i wanted to reach out and argue why i think that i would be a great pick for the tickets this

year um as the winner from last year obviously it was a bummer to have my time at the farm cut

short and i would be so so grateful for the opportunity to have a redemption arc this year

and i think the reason why i'm such a good fit is because i absolutely place bonnaroo in my heart

above every other music festival because i truly think that bonnaroo beans are the kindest most

helpful people and i've seen that time and time again i consider myself part of that culture and

i'm ready to continue contributing it to this year i have a few little stories to share about

my time on the farm last year before unfortunately and friday happened and we all had to go our

separate ways but um first of all it was so nice to meet everyone from the what podcast on thursday

and get to see all the amazing organizations that brought their information to bonnaroo

and we're spreading advocacy and all wonderful things and getting to meet barry and lord taco

and brian um was so amazing and i had a great time and then another thing that happened while

i was on the farm is that my friend mary and i who went were setting up our tents and we had an issue

with our canopy and it completely collapsed and this was right right when the rain was starting

so we were kind of in a bad situation and i was able to find someone like a bunch of plazas away

in the facebook group that was willing to just give us an extra canopy that she had so we made

our trek over there set it up took it back down and brought it back to her when we all got sent

home but i thought that was so incredible that she was willing to help with expecting nothing

in return um also i was lucky enough to make my way out to the remuel super jam in nashville

and even though i was ready on the minute to try and get tickets i didn't get them and then someone

in the discord was kind enough to sell me tickets at face value which they could have over priced

by hundreds of dollars so i was so thankful for that and i really think that bonnaroo is the only

place that something like that would happen and i'm excited to contribute to that kindness and

share the love with my neighbors when i'm hopefully back on the farm i also absolutely love to take it

and leave it um little bins that get left out all over the campsites that was one of my favorite

parts of thursday and i would be so excited this year to make little bracelets trinkets maybe

crochet something be creative with it so i can truly contribute to the bonnaroo community again

and that is the reason why i would love to be out on the farm again thank you all again for

everything that you do i love listening to the podcast every week and i'm so thankful that you

all had me on to share my opinions as well a couple weeks ago take care thanks lana yeah lana's a rock

star uh oh yeah we've i follow her on social uh added florida um uh university of florida i'm

trying to say sorry yeah she's going places good good work lana we'll we'll see how it goes we'll

see yep i think she just graduated with her doctorate if i read that right is that sound

right yeah i think that's right she points out a couple of things too that we always uh that i

always like to um echo uh a lot of these submissions that we get they people mentioned that a particular

band that they want to see but it's not always about the band or it's almost never about the

band it's the community it's the hey my tent broke but somebody gave me one uh and the mate

and they'll take it and leave one type of stuff those are those are the things that we all take

home and remember right in addition to the amazing show that we got to see well it makes a potentially

bad experience i mean you know your tent collapsing or whatever and it changes it from i'm never coming

back here to i can't wait to come back and it's all because of you know the people you meet and the

the kindness and the want to spread that and pay it forward for sure yeah i might have called in

under a fake name you know since she won last year but uh worth a try yeah again respect the hustle

yeah yeah uh all right speaking of respect the hustle it's uh i think i've got one more queued

up cool hi so my friend and i are entering for a chance to win some honor tickets absolutely

crossing our fingers to win um but while i spin this disco ball on my finger let me tell you why

we would be the perfect festival duo um we bring absolutely endless energy the two of us

we have a shared love for basically all music no everybody says that but we mean it we cover all

genres um and a little bit of an insane love for bottom room um i mean we have been watching

waiting for every update waiting for lineup and waiting for tickets um

in 2024 was both of ours first not only camping festival or not only group but

camping festival as well um and now we're itching to come back and make

2026 through even better than 2024 and the lineup is crazy um i think we're like over the top about

the lineup better than anything i could have imagined um but yeah um one room down and

hopefully more to come i thought she was actually gonna take her finger off that little string and

just sit there and let it like globe tracker style i thought she was about to do that and i was gonna

think you win yeah if you can do that that'd be amazing yeah still good work but uh i i thought

for a second i thought is she actually gonna do this very cool yeah i don't know if uh maybe

she was speaking quietly because somebody was asleep and she didn't want to come up

or maybe it's some kind of asmr thing yeah it's the baby is kind of whispered yeah don't wake the

baby all right don't like the baby yeah uh we got one more from vivian who won the bonnaroo yearbook

last year um she said that she couldn't go to bonnaroo because she had just had a baby

and she wrote back to say don't give me tickets i'm not going this year because she still you know

got a young baby to take care of but she did send some photos over so we'll put those up

and you know honestly we got a lot of pictures from people that have emailed us um and we'll

probably just put those up as well just kind of a slideshow so you can kind of see you know

uh a lot of these entries that we've gotten has been amazing i don't know what you guys think but

it's overwhelming it's incredible absolutely incredible and i don't i don't you know i teased

a little bit about brian and his simple question why should we give you uh why should you win

tickets but i don't i can't tell you why we've gotten so many this year and not in the years

past we've done this since 2018 every year we've done a podcast we've given away tickets but uh

for some reason uh it's um people are are interested in going back which i find

interesting fascinating and thrilling i'm so glad that uh people are or you know want to go back so

thank you for your entries um we will play some more next week

and then we'll give those we're gonna give these tickets away at the end of the month

don't know quite yet how we're going to choose i don't look forward to how you two are gonna

figure that out us too wait a minute what i thought you were gonna do it good show guys uh

enjoyed the the bob weir discussion um and uh enjoyed listening to the entries please uh you've

got time send some more uh tell them how rus yeah uh four two three six six seven seven eight seven

seven is our voicemail hotline you can call and leave voicemail uh you can call and leave ten

voicemails you know uh we've got an email comments at the what podcast.com you can send us pictures

videos we look at all those um the what.co. slash win has all the details on how to submit video

audio whatever so yeah keep keep them coming keep them coming we're still getting a lot in every day

all right good show guys thanks everybody hit that like and subscribe uh share tell your friends

and thank you guys for everything that you do for us all right peace