Bonnaroo has long been a sacred space for the thousandsof music fans who make the pilgrimage to Manchester,Tenn., each June, but it wasn’t until last year that a set of actualchapel pews showed up onstage. That’s when the Grand Ole Opry, a now93-year-old institution, arrived at Great Stage Park for a special broadcast,bringing along their famed announcer, BillCody, intrepid dancers and, of course, wooden seats. And, lastnight, the Grand Ole Opry returned to The Farm for the second year ina row, moving from Sunday to Thursday and, for the first time, giving thefestival’s traditionally populist opening night something of an unofficialcenterpiece act.
Taking place in That Tent, the live radio programonce again featured announcer Bill Cody and some fabulous squaredancers, as well as Opry members and Bonnaroo veterans OldCrow Medicine Show, who served as the evening’s host band. The inclusionof Old Crow—the first act to play what is now known as the WhichStage way back at the inaugural Roo in 2002—helped bring the entirepresentation home. Returning every few years throughout Bonnaroo’sown evolution, Old Crow have grown into one of the event’s housebands, joining in various hootenanny-like situations and shootingthe cover of their first LP backstage.
Even in the wilds of that kickoffyear, Bonnaroo already elicited a number of warm and wistfulemotions, likely because that early iteration felt like the culminationand confluence of the various jamband festival scenes that, incertain musical circles, defined the late 1990s. Combining that blueprintwith a concurrent revival of Southern roots culture andsome good, old-fashion, late-night New Orleans Jazz Fest revelry, foundingproducers Superfly and AC Entertainment were able to bring the partyto a national level—and Old Crow have always fit snugly into thatVenn diagram. (Speaking of full-circle milestones, this summermarks the 20th anniversary of the first large-scale festivalheld on the site that has housed Bonnaroo from the beginning. InAugust ‘99, this property hosted Itchycoo Park—a Woodstock-style celebrationnamed after a Small Faces song that featured Dave Mason, JohnEntwistle Band, Marshall Tucker Band, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts,Badfinger, and Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels, among otherclassic-rock acts. Though smaller in scale than Bonnaroo, the multi-daygathering proved that Sam McAllister’s farm was ripe for livemusic.)
From 6:30-8:30 p.m. last night, Old Crow welcomed Oprymembers and Bonnaroo vets Ricky Skaggs and Riders In TheSky, and special guests Steve Earle and The Dukes, Morgan Evans,Ashley Monroe, Molly Tuttle and Wendy Moten to their Grand OleOpry offering, for what will hopefully become a new Thursday eveningtradition. “Wherever [Grand Ole Opry] plays is home sweet home,” the program’sanchor said between songs. Old Crow frontman Ketch Secor echoed thatstatement, promising songs of the “prairie and wild West,” andleading his ensemble through one of Tennessee’s official state songs,“Rocky Top,” before launching into “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Old TownRoad,” “Wagon Wheel” and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” Riders In TheSky, the longtime Opry regulars who turned heads last year,racked up a few more young fans Thursday as well, working Bonnaroo intothe lyrics of the sing-along “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”
Of course, Bonnaroo’s first night has always been atime of discovery—the first time now marquee acts like Kendrick Lamar,Vampire Weekend, alt-J, Alabama Shakes, Courtney Barnett, The National and RayLaMontagne appeared on The Farm before returning as knownentities. Despite the presence of a lauded radio program, yesterday’slineup was still stacked with emerging acts, allowing Bonnaroovians to bouncebetween tents while the What and Which stages remained dark and the gatesto the main concert field’s new, Phantom Tollbooth-like LED Bonnaroo Arch remainedlocked. (Though, Clean Vibes founder Anna Borofsky, whose company hasoverseen the site’s recycling program since the beginning, did use theWhat Stage to marry her partner, Brendon, who she met outside the mainconcert field in 2002, during a touching ceremony.)
Peach Pit, a self-described “chewed bubblegumpop” act from Vancouver, officially kicked off the weekend’s musicalfestivities in That Tent, dressed in Ned Flanders dad-wear that pairedwell with Christopher Vanderkooy’s post-jam guitar riffs.Vocalist/guitarist Neil Smith was understandably visibly excited to seethe overflowing crowd, admitting that it was “the most people” he has everplayed for and commenting on the “coldest” (but extremelypleasant) Bonnaroo weather he’s heard about.
Shortly after, New Jersey-bred, LA-based singer/songwriterDonna Missal, a frequent collaboratorof past Bonnaroo performer Sharon Van Etten, opened This Tentwith a set of R&B-influenced alternative sounds, while reminding thecrowd that women need to serve as festival “headliners” and in otherpositions of “power and influence.”
Each year, Bonnaroo’s booking team traditionallyspotlights a few Tennessee bands on Thursday, and this goaround was no exception. Nashville outfit All Them Witches, who haveworked with producer and area tastemaker Dave Cobb, ran through a set ofblistering, bluesy stoner rock in This Tent while Boone, N.C. psych act TheNude Party and Miami alt-pop party starters Magic City Hippies bothrepresented other regional Southern musical dialects in ThatTent. The Nude Party paused to wax nostalgic at one point, reminiscingabout rolling into Bonnaroo as fans six years ago.
On The Who Stage—perhaps the purest spaceto catch tomorrow’s stars on the rise—Austin psych-soul comboKalu & the Electric Joint, LA-based R&B/disco artist Mk.gee (one oftwo artists named Mike Gordon performing this weekend), German popsinger bülow, Chicago rock band Friday Pilots Club and Brooklynindie/electro/pop performer Evan Giia all racked up some new fans. Likewise, inThis and That Tent, Colorado livetronica act SunSquabi, Chicago rapperSaba and Kentucky hip-hop artist Jack Harlow were each part of cosmicthreads that can be traced through the Bonnaroo lineup poster to theweekend’s headliners. Melbourne indie favorites Rolling Blackouts CoastalFever were perhaps the day’s most traditional “guitar-rock breakout band,”running through a set of surf-influenced tunes and reminding the audienceto pace themselves for “the long haul.”
The Other, the open air, EDM-focused performance spacethat debuted in 2017 in place of The Other Tent, returned in fullforce last night too, with fans raising their rage-sticks toproducer Dorfex Bos, a collaborator of Bonnarooregular Bassnectar, before parking in their spots all the waythrough a special all-night bass summit that weaved in SpaceJesus, Eprom and Shlump.
Some of Bonnaroo’s most unique bookingsveer outside the confines of a traditional stage and, as campers gotacclimated and reacquainted with their neighborhoods for the weekend,the Plaza’s mini-villages were firing on all cylinders. Sample wizardChuck Sho-Hoo held court in The Grove, a mix of Nashville comedians entertainedin Plaza 6’s The Boogaloo and Plaza 2 was transformed into the Sanctuary ofLove wellness area curated by Hayley Williams of Paramore. The Farm’snewest amusement park, Where in the Woods, was also up and running, offering amix of R&B and funk DJs and chill-out zones while the sun was up and somehouse wax and the music of tropical bass darlings after magic hour.
However, for many, this year’s Bonnaroo reallyboils down to the return of Phish. The Vermont Quartet’s late-‘90s campouts notonly inspired Bonnaroo in the first place, but many of the event'skey production staffers and creative teams also worked onthose large-scale events more than 20 years ago. Phish’s membershave played Bonnaroo numerous times—including a closing set byTrey Anastasio in 2002—and Phish themselves headlined in both 2009 and2012.
The Centerooo fan festivities kicked off with a KasvotVäxt celebration in Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club Barnearly this morning. A nod to Phish’s recent musical Halloween costume,where the band wrote new music under the guise of a fake Scandinavianband, the house party found New York DJ and producer JesseLauter, who has worked with Roo alums like Tedeschi Trucks Band, Craig Finn,The Low Anthem and Elvis Perkins, mixing KasvotVäxt cuts like “Turtle in the Clouds” with elementsof the music he felt would have inspired the fictional band(including Scandinavian funk, the Krautrock of CAN and Guru Guru, andunderground prog). Most in attendance wore white, nodding to theclothes the members of Phish wore on October 31.
Phish will return to the What Stage thisevening for a late show slated to start at 11 p.m. The performancefalls just a few shows into the band’s summer tour, which kicked offearlier this week with a two-night run in St. Louis.Both gigs featured material from the KasvotVäxt performance as well as the Phish debut of some tunes fromAnastasio’s deeply personal Ghosts of the Forest project, which theguitarist toured behind this spring. Wednesday’s St. Louis showalso boasted some arena-sized fun: Playing in the Blues’ hometown asthey won the NHL championships, Phish opened their second set with their debuttake on the hockey team’s own victory song, “Gloria.” The members ofVampire Weekend, who were headlining their own shownearby, stopped by for a bit to meet the band as well and ended upworking up their own take on “Gloria.” They aren’t playing Bonnaroo this year,but there Bonnaroo roots run deep: some of the members of VampireWeekend came as fans to see Anastasio at that first Bonnaroo in2002.
