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so was there a BIG surprise to close b'roo?


Chewie

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First set was nearly 2 hours.

Set I: Push On Til the Day, Money Love and Change, Cayman Review, Mozambique, Sand> Drifting, Last Tube

Set II: Night Speaks To A Woman, At the Gazebo, Mister Completely

Encore: Wilson1 , Bathtub Gin1 , Alive Again

1 w/Trey on acoustic guitar

Setlist Source: Phantasy Tour

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Just got this form the Kimock list. Rather long review.

------------

hi there! just got back from a long trip to bonnaroo.....i thought all in

all things went pretty well out there considering the amount of people and

the swealtering heat. if your're not intrested delete now....

well, it was a ten hour drive for us and we arrived in manchester at

around 6:30 a.m. thursday morning. it was a complete madhouse. if there

was an empty space anywhere it was filled. the gates weren't open yet and

there were only about 2 state troopers in the whole area. we got a call

from our friends working the gate about 7:00 saying they were opening the

gates. we got our car in the front of the line and headed to the site.

still, no cops anywhere. then things just started gettting pretty crazy.

everyone was just rushing madly down a pretty much one lane road to the site

and finally (who thought anyone would say that!) and thankfully 3 more

troopers showed up to start directing traffic. we managed to get in and to

our campsite in about 15 minutes. that was the end of the law enforcement

precense too. there weren't any cops inside the venue that i saw thank

goodness. after that it was a complete traffic jam. traffic was backed up

for about 30-45 miles on both lanes of the interstate until about friday

evening i think. people waited anywhere from 6-12 hours to get in. cars

were overheating everywhere and running out of gas, truckers were freaking

out completely. apparently they had only opened one of the entrances in and

we heard there were 3. people were paying locals to let them through on

their adjoining lands and back roads. we ended up with a great camping

spot with some shade and away from all the main campgrounds. nobody came

around the area unless they were camped there so the port-a-potties stayed a

little nicer (if that's what you want to call it) than the rest. it was HOT

as HELL out there though. oh, and dustier than the dust bowl. there was no

music that day and it quickly became all about just surviving the heat (i'm

serious!). we had been up for almost 2 days straight so this was no easy

task. finally the sun went down and we got some rest.

well, friday was a scorcher as well. by this time the campgrounds were

almost completely full and there were jsut massive amounts of people

everywhere. i was actually so tired and sunburned from the previous day i

only ended up checking out soulive and gov't mule. they were both good and

dj logic sat in with gov't mule which was kind of intresting. there jsut

wasn't much i wanted to see bad enought ot stand in the hot sun for hours on

end yet. i decided to just rest up and slept thru panic and then went to

the late nite tent to see keller williams with string cheese incident. the

tent was almost completely full 3 hours before the show. here's where i

think they made one major mistake. i really think they should have held

these late night shows at the big stages. it was so unbelievably crowded

and dusty under these tents that held like 3000 and there were atleast 3-5

times as many people outside the tents. they had karl denson over in the

other tent and i think he was pretty crowded too. of course just about all

80,000 people wanted to go to the late nite shows but they jsut couldn't be

accomodated. they had speakers outside the tent but i don't think you could

really hear much. fortunately since we got there early we got a pretty

close spot. however, there was absolutely no moving from there until you

were ready to just go back to camp. you couldn't move. it was my first

time to see keller williams and i thought he was great. the first set was

going rather nicely and was really starting to come together well until they

decided to take a set break an hour and 15 mintes into the set. big bummer!

they were gone for what seemed like forever and when they did come back

string cheese seemed to bring down the whole show. they just could not seem

to bring back any momentum to the show whatsoever in my opinion. they went

offstage for awhile and keller did his thing which is actually very, very

good. i enjoyed him much more solo than with sci. he was laying down

vocal, bass and guitar tracks and then playing more guitar over them and

more vocals. it sounded good. but, then sci came back on and started

dragging things down again. i finally left around 3:30 and karl denson was

raging. he had some serious energy flowing in the other tent. the guy

plays so many different styles of music! i headed back to my tent and could

here the show crystal clear.......

saturday.......let me say, there was NO sleeping in at bonnaroo. the

sun was up and it was like 90 degrees EARLY. so, we jsut kinda got up and

wandered into some shade with a blanket and tried to cat nap as long as

possible. let me also say that coming across drugs was easier than finding

water (which was readily available). just about every thing the webiste

said not to do was going on.....i started out by seeing the del mc coury

band. they are so good! they said it was about the biggest show they've

ever played and they were absolutely loving it. the crowd was really into

it too. it was a nice change of pace from some other bands that were there.

after that i checked out colonel bruce for awhile. that guy has still got

it going on! he was really enjoying the massive crowd too. then i saw a

very promising band, particle. i REALLY like them alot. they have some

really good guitar and bass work going on. they have a huge sound. they

reminded me a bit of netwerk electric if any of you have seen them. i hope

to see them again soon. they were about one of my favorite bands i saw

there. then i checked out the disco biscuits too. they were pretty good

but one of the speakers blew and it was pretty annoying. lots of people

cleared out after that becuase the static and hum was terrible. i decided

to nap during the first set of panic again but got up to go check out the

second set. first off, the fact that this band headlined the festival for

two nights was amazing to me. i did not enjoy them at all. i thought they

would have sounded better in a garage somewhere or in a smoky

hole-in-the-wall. excuse me panic fans i don't mean to offend......but how

did this band get so popular? i left after a few songs and headed over to

wait for moe's late nite show. moe. is just unbelievable!! those guys are

so full of raw energy and just ready to ROCK! they had robert randolph

(whew!) sit in with them for 20 or 30 minutes and they were doing some

amazing guitar stuff. he had his pedal steel going places it may not have

seen before. it was music to my ears. it was some of the best music i've

ever heard and it just got better from there. after that it was mucical

chairs....they had guys from the disco biscuits, michael kang and the

drummer from sci, guys they never introduced and i couldn't recognize.....it

was mad! they rocked on until about 5:30 a.m. it was by far the best show

i saw at bonnaroo. by far......i also checked out galactic on a couple of

bathroom breaks and they were raging! they had robert randolph setting in

with them too and were just going off.

sunday.....this was probably the biggest day of music for me. first i

checked out robert randolph (didn't he dominate this list for awhile?).

talk about someone who comes to put on a show! he is all over the stage and

has really high energy. i was so surpised at how young he was. and he can

PLAY! the man has real talent and can make the pedal steel SING. also, has

a bass player that sings higher than a woman! i thought it was some soul

sister at first but it was this guy and he was going off. i really enjoyed

this very high energy show and hope i'll get to check him out again soon. i

headed over to the main stage to see ween and managed to score a great spot

on the rail where i stayed for the next 10 hours.....ween was good, they are

crazy. quite the performers. their lyrics are funny especially if you have

a pretty warped sense of humor. after that phil and friends played. i was

very happy with my front row spot and was able to get some great shots of

phil and bob together. they really seemed to be having a fantastic time

playing together and after about 2 songs bob looked at phil and said "this

is fun"! i kinda misssed warren's presence a bit though as he adds a bit of

the hard rockin' element to it. but, i thought it was a good show and it

was obvious the band was really, really enjoying playing to a crowd of that

maganatude. then it was another dj set before trey came on. let me say to

dj z-trip: mixing tool in between sets of phil and trey probably not the

best idea. people were practicly cringing....then trey came on and he came

to play! he's really got his big band in tip top shape. he directs his

horn section like an orchesta. talk about someone having fun! i haven't

seen trey that into it and that energetic in years. he was grinning ear to

ear and was all over the stage. it was really sad that everyone around me

was yelling "bring out phish"! can folks not move on? i mean he was

playing some great licks and was obviously so damn happy you would think

folks could just respond to that, but hey are stuck in the past i guess. i

thought he put on a great show and i enjoyed it alot more that his tour last

year. he came out for an encore by himself and played acoustic wilson (to

which he changes some of the words to trey is wilson to show he still has

his sense of humour)and then he played bathtub gin. after that he brought

the whole band out and played one more tune and that was it for

bonnaroo.....

monday.....we packed it up and got in line to leave at 8:30 a.m. we

moved about a half a mile in 7 hours. finally they opened up another gate

(why the hell they waited so long is crazy) and we were out of there around

4:00 p.m. all in all it was alot of fun, everyone was on great behaviour

considering the amount of drug ingestion, the crazy heat, and the even

crazier traffic jams. i think the poduction company did well and bonnaroo

part two looks promising. i might suggest alaska as a nice location for

next year. god, anywhere cooler would be nice! sorry i never met up with

any of you over the weekend! the heat really made you get your priorities

straight....sorry for such a long review! have a good one!!! stacie

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