<< Back 11/27/02 Jam band CD features the best of the genre By Hunter Pope This CD makes me sick. It’s a teaser, a reminder of what I missed on three wonderful days in Manchester, Tenn. I put this disc in when I’m feeling the urge for self-infliction. My insides burn when I hear Widespread Panic going gospel with the Dottie Peoples Choir; my throat closes like a bear trap when salvation plucker Robert Randolph opens the skies to divinity with North Mississippi Allstar’s guitar strider, Luther Dickinson; and I curl into a locked fetal position when Del McCoury reenacts the Grateful Dead classic, “Rain and Snow.” Why the gratuitous pain? Because it’s a token, no, a medium for how pure music can be. Take away the Coca Cola plugs, the Brittany Spears wink, the neon, the MTV clones, and the manicured boy bands, and voila, you have a festival based on an honest attempt to bring music to the fans, and not a two-ton paycheck to the promoters. The first annual Bonnaroo festival was remarkable for many reasons — 1) 70,000 people were able to harmonize, and not succumb to the “Rome is burning” landscape of the 1999 Woodstock “rape and pillage” festival. 2) Corporate consolidation has run through the concert business like an unneeded itch. Many skeptics believed that Bonnaroo had to have a corporate sidekick to make things work. Through the miracle of perseverance and an honest outlook on the music business, two independent promoters, Superfly Productions out of New Orleans and AC Entertainment out of Knoxville, united to birth Bonnaroo. 3) That a festival promoting “jambands” would attract 70,000 people. Even more hair lifting is the fact that the festival sold out essentially through word of mouth. Information came from the Bonnaroo website and from ravenous fans who e-mailed each other once the festival plans hatched. “We knew the river was out there,” said Superfly’s Jonathan Myers from the liner notes. “We just didn’t know how deep it was.” “Bonnaroo” is Creole slang for “a really good time” (coined from Dr. John’s cosmic 1974 classic, “Desitively Bonnaroo”), and the promoters adhered to Dr. John’s credo. Their outline inspirations were mammoth festivals like the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, California’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and the European festivals that spawned the motivation for Lollapalooza. The promoters also enlisted the assistance of organizers of Phish’s camping and concert events (i.e. The Lemon Wheel) in the 90’s. The festival site was owner Sam McAllister’s 500-acre mix of pasture and trees in Manchester, Tenn., 60 miles southeast of Nashville. Once inside, a newly constructed town greeted Festivarians. Subdivided campsites were designated by TV character names — Camp Kramer, Camp Daisy, Bo, Luke, and Roscoe P. Coltrane. The town’s zocalo was “Centeroo,” which tempted the festive-minded with food booths, clothing, art, a video arcade, educational exhibits, and custom-made public artworks. The campgrounds and Centaroo were havens from the madness that ensued between the numerous music tents and the two main stages. The tents were notorious for late night hedonistic acts, thanks in part to bands like Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe and Galactic playing until the rooster told them to quiet things down. Honorary jam pioneer Steve Winwood materialized onstage with Panic and String Cheese, Mardi Gras Parades led the lost more astray, musicians stepped onstage with their mentors, their heroes, and their peers, and the fans strapped on a smile that could bridge North America to Europe. From these plentiful ashes arose “Live From Bonnaroo”, a two-disc set featuring 21 tracks from over 60 hours of live mayhem. The compilation is also the model for how wide the parameters are for the (dare I say) genre of Jam. How far does it stretch? Let’s see: The words of “Amazing Grace” sung to the beat of “The House of the Rising Sun”, bluegrass done with a sampler in the background, horns that sound like guitars, and a steady crooner that can enrapture 70,000 party-minded freaks. Disc one opens with a revival that can collard green the soul. Co-headliner Widespread Panic invited the Dottie People’s Choir onstage for the original “Tall Boy.” Smack in the middle of the song, Peoples begins her fiery version of “Testify”—an ode to her savior above. It’s hard driven swamp funk mixed with Sunday’s finest. Phil Lesh and Friends, with very special guest, Bob Weir, follow with the fitting “Tennessee Jed.” Lesh and Weir are alums of the Grateful Dead, the band that many point to as the culprits who first unleashed jam on the public. Guitarist/vocalist Jack Johnson teams up with DJ Logic on the pop groove of “Rodeo Clowns.” Hawaiian native Johnson was one of the more interesting stories of Bonnaroo. A world-class surfer by 17 (he had a contract with Quicksilver), Jack went to UCSB and received a film degree. While creating the surf movie, “Thicker than Water” (which won the Adobe Highlight Awards at the ESPN Film Festival), Jack discovered he had a musical voice. His folk tunes — a matrimony of blues and hip-hop — got in the ears of surfing communities, thanks to the distribution of his bootlegs. Other mortals noticed Jack when G-Love and the Special Sauce chose his composition, “Rodeo Clowns,”to be the first single off the Special Sauce’s “Philadelphonic.” Rodeo Clowns is a good model for those sampling Jack for the first time. Funk of an eerie variety chills the spine on Galactic’s “Tiger Roll,” Jurassic 5 pumps lyrical poetry on the raucous “Countdown” and Soulive takes the funk back to the royal throne with the delicious, “Turn it Out.” Primus alum and wizard of weirdness, Les Claypool marches in his band, The Frog Brigade, for a cover of the Jethro Tull classic “Locomotive Breath.” Perhaps the finest bass player in the universe, Claypool does “Breath” with seamless reverence to the original. His eccentricity matches the fervor of Ian Anderson, ensuring that the Tull staple was in good hands. The cayenne of disc one is the eight half minute sanctity of “Peekaboo,” done by Robert Randolph and the Family Band with special guest Luther Dickinson. Raised on the strict rations of the Pentecostal Church, Randolph learned the pedal steel (also known as the Sacred Steel) while in the church band. Disc one ends with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band telling everyone that it “Ain’t Nothin’ But a Party.” The musical gala is huge, with horns duking it out for the funkiest sound. It’s New Orleans boogie at its finest, and the DDBB prove why they can put “Party” in a song and mean it. Bonnaroo also saw musicians who were willing to jaunt over a thousand miles in a day to attend the behemoth gathering. Ben Harper (with the track, “Burn One Down/With My Own Two Hands”), Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer (“Bonnaroo Traveler”) and the Del McCoury Band (“Rain and Snow”) all flew from the Telluride Bluegrass Festival to come to Manchester. Fleck’s number was especially effective, proving that classical, bluegrass, and jazz are all intimate lovers. The band, Moe., has relied on odd lyrics and fluid guitars to bend the minds of the faithful. Recently, they have become whispered in the same jam breath as Widespread and Phish. Disc two’s final number is a gospel bookend, with the Blind Boys of Alabama doing a dark rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Perhaps the most pristine gospel group in the galaxy, The Blind Boys morph internal conviction into a choir of voices that has a heavenly sheen. There’s no better way to end a CD full of mind-altering remedies, partying, and superheroes than with a song about redemption. Next year, I’ll see yoo at Bonnaroo. I will not pick up the 2003 disc with the same naïve intentions. I will know first-hand how good music can be, and how peaceful 70,000 people are when the music reflects purity. Sure, I’ll have to wait in traffic longer than Jerry Lewis’s telethon, and yes, the port-o-potties will destroy precious nasal membranes, but it’s nothing compared to feeling the anguish of not being there. Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve been a naughty boy and “Live From Bonnaroo” is the exact punishment I need.