TELL US YOUR BONNAROO EXPERIENCES

[JacketGal]

Incredible reviews! Tom, I loved your description of those who didn't know why James was screaming!

And what a first show for some of you! I can't even imagine how insanely incredible this show must have been. thanks for sharing!! I hope to hear more stories...

[primushead]

Can someone gush for a paragraph or two on how Radiohead was?  I saw the setlist...looked amazing.  

So, whoever got to see it...was it tits?

[Skunk_Monkey]

This was my first MMJ show and I'm fearful it's all downhill from here.  3 fucking hours of the most kickass music I've ever heard!!! A friend turned me on to MMJ about a year ago and I essentially bought by Bonnaroo ticket to see them.  I must say it was worth the trip from Seattle to catch this show.  I had seen Bright Eyes, Death Cab for Cutie, and bits of other shows before I popped over to see Tom Petty before MMJ got rolling --- it was 4 1/2 hours between the end of the Death Cab show and when MMJ was slated to start.  I left the Tom Petty show right after he invited Stevie Nicks on stage for a couple of songs.  It was like l was back in high school sitting in front of MTV and I had to get the fuck out of there.  I decided to park myself in front of the soundboard under That Tent and wait.

When the sound boys played "When You Wish Upon A Star" and Jim walked on stage holding a lamp and the stage light only by blue floodlights while the rest of the band kicked into Wordless Chorus, I knew we were all in for something special --- "We are the innovators/They are the imitators" - damn right!!!

My other Bonnaroo highlight was Steve Earle playing his set with only his acoustic guitar and sometimes harmonica and mandolin and opening with "Fuck the FCC" --- "Fuck the FCC/Fuck the FBI/and Fuck the CIA." You said it, brother.

[72vwman]

Hands down one of the best shows I saw on any stage all weekend long.  I had heard many of the band's songs before, but had yet to see them live.  People...if you have not already, you must see this band perform live.  Incredible show...and I have got to add: I completely lost my $^&% when they covered "A Quick One While He's Away"

[matt949]

This was probly the most amazing show i have ever and will ever experience.
The people in my area were all dancing and stuff but for some reason you would never think of it but th people around me went craziest to dancefloors. Right after it this guy i was taking to turns around looking wide eyed said "Now thats rock and rock!" and gave me a hug.
The entire show was just incredible. Good ole Jim did some crazy high jumps.
I loved during run thru patrick did his airport trafic director stick dealy. It was just fantastic.
If i think anything else to say ill post more later

[cmccubbin25]

Can someone gush for a paragraph or two on how Radiohead was?  I saw the setlist...looked amazing.  

So, whoever got to see it...was it tits?

I saw the Radiohead set with probably 50,000 other people!  It was so crowded, but we were able to get about a 100 yards from the stage.  

I like Radiohead, but not nearly as much as MMJ.  That said they put on a hell of a show and played some of their best songs and a lot of new tracks as well.  Thom Yorke matched Jim with energy as he was dancing wildly throughout their set and Johnny Greenwood is so amazing on guitar.

However...I still believe that MMJ delivered "the set" of Bonnaroo!!!  Maybe I am biased because they are my favorite band, but I just feel that they brought the house down taking me (and the crowd) on highs and lows, finally making my head explode with Run Thru!!!  I am still coming down from the MMJ high...

[thebear0284]

This was my fourth MMJ experience, and I was there for the historic Bonnaroo 04' show as well. I saw Radiohead (it blew my mind), Beck was amazing, Devendra Banhart invited a random kid on stage to sing one of his originals, Bright Eyes had a huge love fest with Jim and Rhyff, 50,000 people sang along with Free Fallin' with Tom Petty, and Sonic Youth brought on Stephen Malkmus during an encore that was absolutely stunning...BUT...i have never experienced anything like MMJ on friday night. Right when "When You wish upon a star" started  playing i was already shaking, and by the time Jim came out with a lantern and poured out "So much, goin on these daaaays..." I was ecstatic, but through it all I realized how many other people around me where feeling the same vibe, not only do tons more people actually listen to MMJ since I first saw them, but people who weren't singing along where smiling and dancing. It had to be the greatest opening I've seen, and it only got better from there. The Who cover was perhaps the climax of the night, when jim was repeating, "You are forgiven.." i about cried. I expected an amazing show, but this was beyond anything I could have anticipated, 3 hours and 20 minutes? 30 songs! The Bear? Freakin' Evelyn? I WILL SING YOU SONGS! This was better than any of the setlists I've dreamed of, i don't know what more to say. Transcedent.

[RedPatokaSea]

Radiohead was pretty badass too.  I was pretty far back at the beginning of the show but I was determined to get a good view.  I got shoved aside by a large, sweaty high schooler who was followed by about 6 more kids and was yelling, "We're going all the way!"  So I jumped in and took the train all the way to about 50 yards from the stage ... Yes, I was one of those jackasses.  

I ended up being surrounded by an awesome group of people that were all really into the show.  I thought the band had a ton of energy, but it wasn't quite as intense because of the huge venue.  They played a lot of my favorites, but it definitely wasn't one of their best set lists ... maybe an attempt to cater to the bonnaroo crowd.  I didn't recognize a few in the middle.  Idioteque was amazing as was Myxomatosis ... there's a lot of energy in those songs.  How to disappear completely was one of my early favorites, and was really amazing in that setting (and state of mind).  They closed with Everything in Its Right Place and Thom walked down into the crowd singing those words at the end ...  The notes in that song felt like waves of energy pulsating through the crowd.  Well, it was an awesome show, but it have quite the impact that seeing MMJ live did.  I mean MMJ was out of this world, words-can't-describe-it good.  I pretty much went to Bonnaroo just to see Radiohead and MMJ.  Anything else was just icing.  What a weekend :o

^^Oh yeah, and that cover was tight.  His voice was almost unreal in that refrain.  ... ahh, I got goosebumps again thinking about it.

[Angry Ewok]

yea man the who cover when he was repeating you are forgiven was so profoudngf for me given the circusmtances im going through right now that it just bore into my chest the way aprotpiate words do wether you like itor not.


really sorry for the typing

[cmccubbin25]

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10604418/the_patchouli_stays_in_the_picture/4


Here is Jim (and some others) take on the Radiohead set:

Backstage and on the VIP risers, you couldn't throw a laminate without hitting a famous musician or actor. Reviews were mixed: My Morning Jacket's Jim James said the set was "OK, a little sleepy." Drea DeMateo, deceased Sopranos caster and girlfriend of Shooter Jennings, who played the festival, said it was "fucking terrible -- depressing kill-yourself music." The Kings of Leon, who came to the festival as fans, said it was "amazing."

[spinflow]

To all of you guys who have been there holding up the big fat poster in the sky with bold black MMJ written on it...screaming at the top of your lungs for people to notice this band since day one......

I and a few thousand of my closest friends I've never met.....noticed. :)

My first Bonnaroo was this year.
I went knowing just a few bands on the schedule...one of them being MMJ. But, all I knew about the band was that I liked the couple tracks that I had heard...and that the pillow of incredibly dreamy reverb matched with the harmonics and intense melted rock...were the formations of something I knew I was going to crave....

I've never said a band was my "favorite". I think everyone always wants to...and for me, being of a generation that wasn't around for the classic inspirations that bands like MMJ pull from....it's really weird when you WANT to understand the draw and reason people LOVE the who, or panic, etc. etc...while at the same time, being unable to relate...because the music I grew up with and around...never crossed into that realm of "music you love".

MMJ's Bonnaroo performance, in so many multi-faceted ways, took me across that secret line...and in the moments where I walked away from THAT tent...with a truly dizzying, buzzing vibe of music's drug (and yeah, that was the only one for me that night. lol)...I was feeling some incredible things.

I knew it when When you Wish Upon A Star Kicked In. Lights Down. Lantern Out. I got chills...and the air literally stopped for a moment and I just KNEW what I was getting ready to witness. I could feel that I was at the core, lucky enough to be standing within a few hundred feet....of something grand.

Wordless Chorus started. As one of you mentioned already...glowsticks from all sides started to fly......and if I could try to paint it, draw it, describe it, re-enact it...I just couldn't. The feeling at that moment in the first riff of the song...glowsticks bouncing and floating as if they were an instrument in the band...choreography of randomness...and then the voice....ya'll....it was one of the moments you wait for in life....when a smile just happens...and you feel it all over....and for me, I knew right then I had found it. A band for me. Music for me. MY morning Jacket.

The set continued. I stood there and heard a guy in front of me literally "moan" from his gut...I don't even think he knew he was doing it....and I looked at him, we both smiled and he said "Goddamn, man. That's so good. So fucking good."
Yup. All I could say. Absolutely.

It didn't stop. You've read about the huge crowds and the word spreading through Bonnaroo. They aren't lying.
It is a definite that NOBODY walking by that tent couldn't walk by without turning....stopping conversation as they bought their corn dog or Budweiser...sentences stopping mid-word while they turned their heads without even knowing it...thinking..."who is that playing.....must go over there".

Like zombies, the gaps in the grass around my feet started to fill in. Soon...I couldn't even see the stage anymore. It was thick. There was a breeze right when they started Goiden...I sat down and decided to feel it from the floor.

I was sitting Indian Style during that song...legs and feet all around me, and through the cracks, I looked over to my right and saw a good ten or twelve people all laying down on their backs...eyes closed....I joined....and so did the girl next to me, and the guy next to her.  People started laying down.
I don't have to describe to you why. We were all feeling it.
MMJ was literally directing the masses to an escape only they could.....with music that speaks to another level of it all...I was dreamlike. I didn't care what time it was.

The set break was like the feeling you get when you miss your mom. The silence and the dimmed lights were like a painful ache....literally, people were craving the next hit.
And fuck did it come. My God did it come.
Every moment you're at a show and wish you could feel this or feel that...or hope they play this or play that....just so you can get your fix of why you love them...MMJ made it that night...out of thin air...they got you there, and then pushed you on to the next level.  

I could write and write and write.
Thank you, MMJ, for being my first "I want to follow this band around the country", for being the first band to make me understand the desire all these other people have to track what song is played on what date and do we have  recording of it? I never understood....thank you for making me completely touch something beautiful, understand what perfectly played guitar means, bond with someone through a smile, and at some point between 12am and 3:15am that night, for being the soundtrack that ushered in a new era of what music can mean and be and do.

Thank you for making music you love...so I can too,
Ben
New Orleans, LA

[Angry Ewok]

Spread the Gospel, fiend.

[BH]

That was fantastic.

Well said brother.  Well said.

As elated as I am about being able to "see" it on the internet, I will always still wish I could have "felt" it in person.  If you didn't get at least 4or 5 full body chills during that show then something is wrong with you.

[TEO]

  Dondante
+Bonnaroo=
Monumental
Mystical
Journey

[droseritfw]

That was CRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAZY F**ING AMAZING.

That was my first Bonnaroo, and wow, if you haven't been, you really have to go.

I camped out MMJ at around 10. The two hours of buildup was intense, and just sitting and chatting with fellow MMJ fans was sweet. I was straight up the middle, maybe 8 yards back.

I won't write some big review of the show, but I gotta say Run Thru at the end was amazing. I've never rocked out so hard. That tent was jumpin'

[SpacedCowboy]

Bonnaroo was my 8th Jacket show so far, that includes Bonnaroo 04 Bonnaroo 05 and Mountain Jam 2 weeks ago.  AND this show has blown every other show out of the water.  I had planned on gettin to that tent at around 11, but when I walked by at 9 and saw people already waiting I knew i had to get over there.  Definately a good decision.  The 3 hours creeped by so slowly while anticipation increased.  The small group in front of the stage slowly built up to encompass the whole tent so that a half hour prior to the show the tent was packed with no where to move.

SHOWTIME....  from the opening bars of "when you wish upon a star" to the very end of "run thru" it was the most amazing musical experience of my life.  The energy of the crowd and the band were through the roof, the playing was amazing, the sound was excellent and the light show was spellbinding.  Truly an amazing night.

Some impressions i felt while watching is that this band has come so far in the past couple of years.  If Bonnaroo 04 was the year they proved they were rockstars, then this year they solidified it.  It was both a testament to the past and places they've been and where they've come from, and a statement of where they are now and the direction they're going.  I felt as if I was in a huge arena in which the sound, lights, and psychic energy pusled through every square inch, bringing everyone present to ecstatic heights.  In the monotony of everyday living, MMJ live proves that MAGIC exists.

So, theatre tour next fall?  the band sure seems more than ready for it.

Also, I'm back in Boston....  2 nights of Jacket with the pops this week.... holy shit, this week can not get any better

[jrat]

not being there, and readng these reviews......i feel like i missed the birth of my child.....praise be for internet, cause im living this through your stories and this little video that seems to be on repeat, making my neighbourhood understand all that is otherworldly. If I GET CHILLS WATCHING AND HEARING THIS, i could ONLY imagine how it must have felt.......and i settled for them and PJ instead. regret kills

[phonewentwest]

I got a chance to go to the 3:30 press conference on Friday afternoon, and while I was there, a reporter asked the whole group being interviewed( Jim, Lewis Black, Robert Randolph, Ben Folds, dude from Steel Train) what was the first song they heard that made them to play music. Well, Jim's was "When You Wish Upon A Star."  He said something about being three years old and thinking when that song was over that Disney was over...and that he was sad, but that the words of the song really inspired him.

So you can imagine how I felt when I heard the song come over the PA, and watched as Jim led the band out onto the stage with the lantern. The image has played back in my mind countless times since then, and it still gives me chills. It was so haunting, and so beautiful.

Needless to say I agree with everyone else's opinion of the set. I have seen many concerts in my short life,  and that was far and away the best. The atmosphere. The setlist. The  indescribable energy with which the band performed.  I wonder if it can ever be topped. Certainly not by anyone other than MMJ.  

One great part of the experience was  that  I went with a group that aren't nearly as fanatic as I am, but afterwards they  were  all like, "that was really, really awesome."

However, I still don't think they realized how truly amazing it was.  It was a religious experience. There were moments when I wanted to cry. On account of past experiences, "Dondante" is a song that has brought me to tears.

In the end, we all know, it wasn't a sad concert.  It was wonderfully uplifting. The act  truly showed the power of rock 'n' roll. I  yearn for the day when I can see MMJ again.

[Bojangles]

Absolutely spectacular three days, the most fun I've ever had in my life.  I saw Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers until about the time Stevie Nix left the stage, then left 2 hours early to see the Jacket.  After their set, I could have gone home and been happy to have only spent $200 on my ticket.  Absolutely friggin' amazing!!

When they started easing onto stage during When You Wish Upon a Star, and Bo started playing along to it, it built up such an incredible energy that the entire crowd seemed to disappear.  And when Wordless Chorus dropped, Jim delivered his first line while snapping his head and staring into the crowd while glowsticks flew like rain all around (at least 500 of them).  It almost felt like he was looking through everybody there. It definitely caught me for the rest of the show.  I was running on 2 hours sleep the previous night, and after watching shows all day these guys fuckin' rocked me so hard I still danced my ass off for all three hours and still had energy after run thru.  And holy shit, evelyn, the bear, the best performance of Golden I've ever heard, fuckin' dondante with carl on saxophone, and Phone Went West, and Run Thru as a closer.  By far the best live performance I've ever seen from any band.  I only wish that instead of Anytime they'd done Bermuda Highway or O is the One.  But still, best show I've ever seen in my life.

As far as the other shows go, Radiohead was fantastic for their fans (if you're not into them, their live show won't change your mind). Tom Petty was sort of bland, like I'd expected.  He didn't particularly suck, but I was hoping to hear something I hadn't heard before, not a bunch of songs that sound like the CD so the crowd could sing along.  Shooter Jennings was fuckin' Rock'n'Roll.  Damian Marley did not disappoint either.  Bela Fleck and the Flecktones were really impressive (especially Victor Wooten on Bass), as were moe.  Ben Folds was decent (particularly Rockin' the Suburbs).  I accidentally slept through Oysterhead, Les Claypool, Beck, and the Superjam (I could hear it at my campsite when I woke up, and it sounded fantastic).  But none of them could touch the Jacket.  Even if the ghosts of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin had shown up, they could not have held a fuckin' candle to those guys.  

Fuckin' three hours of heavy ass, balls out, rock and roll!

Oh, and thanks for the Ferris Wheel guys.

[elwood77]

I'm still pretty much speechless, but you guys have already said it pretty well.... definitely the most intense, powerful, amazing musical performance I've ever expereinced.


here are a few of my fav pics I took:

http://www.freebmw.net/elwood/pics/Bonnaroo06/resized/MMJ%20879.jpg

http://www.freebmw.net/elwood/pics/Bonnaroo06/resized/MMJ%20883.jpg

http://www.freebmw.net/elwood/pics/Bonnaroo06/resized/MMJ%20886.jpg

http://www.freebmw.net/elwood/pics/Bonnaroo06/resized/MMJ%20890.jpg

http://www.freebmw.net/elwood/pics/Bonnaroo06/resized/MMJ%20895.jpg

http://www.freebmw.net/elwood/pics/Bonnaroo06/resized/MMJ%20897.jpg

http://www.freebmw.net/elwood/pics/Bonnaroo06/resized/MMJ%20902.jpg

http://www.freebmw.net/elwood/pics/Bonnaroo06/resized/MMJ%20917.jpg


[size=18]Thankyou MMJ!!![/size]