Bonnaroo 2008 Friday (Day 2): The Sun, The Fiery Furnaces, The Free Beer Tent; This Is Why I'm Hott

Friday morning started about 4 hours after Thursday night ended for me with the sun making things too uncomfortable for me to sleep late. I grabbed some breakfast and got an early start on the day. I got to the media area to do some blogging and listen to the media orientation speech. They laid out everything we could and couldn't do, and none of it really seemed to effect what I'm doing. I don't have all access, but it seems like there are lots of artists in the media area doing interviews and such, so that has been really cool. I gave the guitarist from Minus The Bear some daps before catching some shows.

First up was The Fiery Furnaces. They did a set that was very similar to the set they did at The Variety Playhouse earlier this year, except this time they had a thimble player to make it a 5 piece. It was extremely tight and heavily weighted by Widow City songs, which I love. At some point a cardboard cutout of Eleanor made its way into the crowd, followed by other cardboard cutouts that I thought at first were the rest of the band, but then I saw one of them was Bradford Cox and realized they were from the Converse ad.



After that I stuck around for the first half of Minus The Bear's set and they were pretty good but I felt like the Langerado set I caught earlier this year had a little more energy or something. Next I went to see Tegan And Sara. I watched them butcher one of their own songs about 5 different ways and decided that I wouldn't waste any more of my time with them. Instead I set up earlier at the Sonic Stage to catch the second Fiery Furnaces set of the day. This time they were a 4-piece with Matthew playing a guitar instead of keyboards for the entire set. They dug deeper in this completely different set even taking requests at the end. This band is just so phenomenal and I can't get enough of them. Bonus to this set, Beatle Bob was there doing his crazy dancing backstage. I really need to find him and interview him.











After that I went backstage to interview Royal Bangs. They were chilling out in the hidden free beer and liquor tent backstage, which was a festival changing discovery. I hung out with the Royal Bangs dudes for a little while and video taped it, so expect to see that very soon. They seemed really cool, and probably the thing that I enjoyed most about the interview was their answer to my "What do you think about the state of music and the music industry?" question, which almost word for word reflected my own opinions.

When they left to catch the very end of !!!, I stuck around and started abusing the keg back there. I spent a few hours chugging beers and stalking the Fiery Furnaces as they did interviews for more reputable journalists. After getting properly "festivalized", I met up with my ATLiens and watched some of Willie Nelson. I guess it is cool to say I have seen him now, but that was about all I enjoyed about it. Along with the Bonnaroo masses, we headed to the What Stage next to see Chris Rock. I lost my entire group on the way there and caught his routine stranded by myself. Chris Rock is one of my favourite comedians, but the set seemed lacking. I feel like ever since he started doing Everybody Hates Chris, which I like, he has gotten a lot more restrained and sort of falling back on his typical sorts of jokes. But even a lackluster Chris Rock routine is pretty damn funny.




As the rain that had been looming all day finally broke loose, I opted to go back to camp instead of catching Metallica. It seemed like that was a fairly popular sentiment as the line getting out of the stage area was longer than the one to get in. As I extended my drunk rally, sleep deprivation finally caught up with me and I passed out early. I would have really liked to catch some of the My Morning Jacket set, but I didn't wake up in time.

Now well rested, It's time for an intense day and a long night of music.

Friday Free-Style

Last weekend I caught Nomem Novum (newest project from Moorish Idols) at ParkGrounds and it was pretty cool. Here's a few pics and a vid:









Baroness will be at The Masquerade on March 20th. Even Pitchfork don't know that.

Stone Temple Pilots are playing Wisconsin's Rock Fest.

The new Gnarls Barkley album, The Odd Couple, comes out April 8th.

Chris Rock, one of my favourite comedians, has been added to the Bonnaroo line-up and will be performing on the main stage. Awesome. How about a music video:



Find out why My Bloody Valentine didn't do Coachella here, and "Don't worry--they'll come to America."

So all the wookies and hippies pissed off about Metallica at Bonnaroo are rallying around the newest festival to emerge in this golden ago of American festivals. Behold Rothbury Fest:

Dave Mathews, Band Widespread Panic, John Mayer, 311, Phil Lesh And Friends, Primus, Thievery Corporation, Snoop Dogg, Modest Mouse, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Gov't Mule, STS9, Colbie Caillat, Slightly Stoopid, The Black Keys, Keller Williams And the WMD's, Yonder Mountain String Band featuring John Fishman, Gogol Bordello, Citizen Cope, The Disco Biscuits, Medeski Martin And Wood, Ray Lamontagne, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi Soul Stew Revival, Drive-By Truckers, Of Montreal, Etown Radio Show, The Dresden Dolls, Gomez ,Brett Dennen, Taj Mahal, Mike Gordon, Zappa Plays Zappa, Crystal Method DJ Set, JJ Grey And Mofro, The Greyboy All-Stars, The Secret Machines, Railroad Earth, Beth Orton ,Jakob Dylan and The Gold Mountain Rebels, A3, Bettye Lavette, Emmitt Nershi Band, Lotus, EOTO, Panjea with Michael Kang, Yard Dogs Road Show, State Radio, The Beautiful Girls, Sage Francis, Tea Leaf Green, Bassnectar, Pnuma Trio, Diplo, Flosstradamus, The Juan Maclean, The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker, DJ Rekha, Dead Confederate, Motion Potion, DJ Rootz, Sojorn Busdriver

So if you're one of those folks that wish it were 2003 and every hippy festival had the exact same line-up every year, you'll be ecstatic about this one. It goes down July 3rd-6th in Rothbury, Michigan. Rothbury Fest website.

A festival that I'd probably be slightly more interested in checking out is the New England Metal Fest. They got a line-up too:

The fest will be merging with Gigantour for one-night, as the Friday night portion of the show will feature Megadeth, In Flames, Children of Bodom, Job For A Cowboy and High on Fire, so the first night is officially Gigantour night. Saturday’s lineup will be headlined by Dimmu Borgir, Shadows Fall and Behemoth. Sunday will feature Ministry, Meshuggah and Nevermore. And that’s just the friggen headliners. Take a look at the rest of the bands expected to play on the show:

The Dillinger Escape Plan, Overkill, A Life Once Lost, God Forbid, Disfear, Hate Eternal, Municipal Waste, Shai Halud, Soilent Green, Skeletonwitch, The Acacia Strain, Vital Remains, After the Burial, Animosity, As Blood Runs Black, Belay My Last, Born of Osiris, Briandrill, Classic Struggle, Cockpunch!, Cold World, Dead to Fall, Demiricous, Eluveitie, Elysia, Embrace the End, Emmure, The End, Ensiferum, First Blood, From a Second Story Window, Full Blown Chaos, The Ghost Inside, Hemlock, Impending Doom, Keep Of Kalessin, Kid Deposit Triumph, Ligeia, Mensrea, Monstrosity, On Broken Wings, Recon, Red I Flight, Rhinoceros, Shipwreck a.d., Since the Blood, Sleeping Giant, Sons of Azrael, Stick to Your Guns, Stray from the Path, Through the Eyes of the Dead, Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganze, Trap Them, Turisas, Tyr, Unexpect, Unholy, Vanna, Veil of Maya, Waking the Cadaver, Winds of Plague, Withered, and Xtyrantx.

Pretty exciting! The event will take place from April 25 to 27 at the Palladium in Worcester, MA.

Stereogum posted some funny Valentines cards, so even though I'm a day late, here's a few:











You can go get Amplive's Radiohead In Rainbow remixes here while you ge ready to snag tickets tomorrow or are stoked about the tickets you got yesterday.

Yeasayer is coming back to Atlanta with Man Man on May 3rd at Lenny's. I'll be there. Some jams:

Man Man : Top Drawer


Yeasayer : 2080 (Brenmar remix)


Yeasayer : Sunrise (Hey Champ remix)


New Death Cab album tracklist here.

British Sea Power will be at The Earl on April 21st.

Sonic Youth are about to start working on a new album due out next year. YESSSSS!

Pelican will be at The Masquerade on April 26th.

Handsome Furs are doing 5 Florida dates and nothing in Georgia.

Opeth's new album, Watershed, comes out June 3rd.

Get the Ratatat Remixes Volume 2 here.

Pine interviews Atlanta's Cassavetes.

Ghengis Tron is streaming their new album on their myspace.

Listen to Thom Yorke's NPR Valentine's Day DJ set here.

Boris has a new album out on April 29th called Smile.

Passion of Weiss has some new stuff from Atlanta's Jamie Radford.

The Subliminator has a new album due out next month.

New Beach House:



British Sea Power:



Radiohead:



Justice:



The New Pornographers:

Humpnight Randomnimity

I just wanted to say thanks to Elevado, This Piano Plays Itself, Eric Guenther and Ben Wetzelberger of From Exile, and Missile Command for playing our One Year Anniversary party last weekend and thanks to all of you for coming out. It was truly an epic event. Here's some pics from the night:

Missile Command:



Elevado:



This Piano Plays Itself:





Biggie C video taped almost all of the sets, so expect videos posted soon. Just an extra note, in all of the madness of the DJ Douschebag set, I spilled beer on my laptop, so until I get a new one in a couple of weeks, I'm borrowing computers to blog, so I will be limited a tad bit in my posting.

Tomorrow night you can catch Missile Command at The Earl:



Portishead's new album, Third, is out in April.

Stars will be in Athens, Ga at the Georgia Theater on March 22nd, but is skipping Atlanta.

Tokyo Police Club have also forsaken Atlanta to play in Athens, Ga on April 7th at the 40 Watt. They also have their first full length album out called Elephant Shell.

Lil' Wayne got arrested for having drugs on his tour bus.

Passion Of Weiss had this Chris Rock video up today and I remembered how much I loved it when it came out back in the day:



Yeah Yeah Yeahs are working on a new album.

Liars' Angus Andrew suffered a back injury but it is unclear if this will affect their upcoming tour. Remember they are scheduled to play The Earl with No Age on Valentines Day.

Bradford Cox has posted demos and out-takes from their Fluorescent Grey EP on his blog.

Pine Magazine interviews Matthew Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces. I can't wait to see them next week.

Blitzen Trapper will be at The Drunken Unicorn March 20th.

Be Your Own Pet have a new album, Get Awkward, out on March 18th.

The Coachella East fest will be called "All Points West Fest".

Scott Weiland is talking Stone Temple Pilots reunion.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of The Mars Volta has a new solo album out February 5th called Calibration. TMV's The Bedlam in Goliath comes out Tuesday. I'm about to freak out waiting to hear these.

Tapes 'N Tapes have their second album, Walk It Off, coming out on April 8th.

The Streets have a new album coming out in April.

The guys from Hot Chip have side projects.

Black Moth Super Rainbow will be at The Drunken Unicorn on March 10th.

Midlake are working on a new, "darker" album.

Pelican will be at The Drunken Unicorn on March 12th.

Mike Doughty will be at The Melting Point in Athens, Ga Sunday night.

You want to watch Amy Winehouse smoking crack? ok, sure:



Feist "I Feel It All":



Saul Williams "Sunday Bloody Sunday":



The Mars Volta "Wax Simulacra" on Letterman: