After an average Thursday warmup, Bonnaroo attendees were treated to a veritable smorgasbord of daytime, evening, and late-night options on Friday. The schedule was at its most diverse, making for a marathon day of music. Damp but blissfully cool weather and generally good spirits among the fresh-faced crowd certainly helped the enjoyment factor, and even the kids at Bonnaroo 2014 have demonstrated an admirable respect for the music and positive attitudes.
Umphrey’s McGee has played the festival as many times as any band – 12 times now if all of their sets and mini-sets are included – and they were inducted into the main stage (What Stage) club just after lunchtime on Friday. The band and their fans clearly relished the chance to rock at Bonnaroo’s grandest stage, and a triumphant feeling permeated the atmosphere in the vast field. Umphrey’s chose several songs from their muscular new album Similar Skin along with a handful of touchstone songs from their history. “Similar Skin” opened the set, “The Linear” was sandwiched between sections of longtime live favorite “Plunger”, and “Puppet String” enveloped an aching “Hajimemashite” to form an emotional tour de force set closer. A quite large crowd experienced the breadth of what Umphrey’s has to offer, from groove (“Booth Love”) to grit (“Cut the Cable”) to gargantuan guitar jams (“Jajunk”).
For something completely different, one needn’t have moved an inch after Umphrey’s set. Janelle Monae’s theatrical, relentlessly choreographed set was an audiovisual delight, even if it was scripted down to the last detail. Still, Monae occupied the massive stage with ease, as if it were her living room. It was a black-and-white spectacle set to some pretty enjoyable future-R&B-funk-rock. Monae was wheeled on stage and “activated” in keeping with her android persona, and once she came to life every move was a mini-vignette of its own. Her exit, though, was perhaps the most dramatic, as she ran into the audience and caused great jubilation before being whisked away, James Brown-style. Her high-stepping show and infallible band owe much to James Brown, but aesthetically are indebted just as much to Michael Jackson.
Post-Monae adrenaline was burned off with a dizzying lap around the farm and a stunning contrast of music, from the delicate and spidery acoustic musings of Andrew Bird, the somewhat vanilla radio folk of The Head and The Heart, the synthetic indie drive of The Naked and Famous, and the hypnotic multicultural collaboration of Billy Martin, DJ Logic, Marc Ribot, and The Master Musicians of Jajouka. Vampire Weekend’s preppy, plinky pop was jubilant but a bit thin for such a big spotlight, but that must be a personal thing, as the audience simply gorged themselves silly on ubiquitous hits like “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, “Cousins”, “A-Punk”, and “Oxford Comma”.
Vampire Weekend’s bubbly boating music was nicely offset by French quartet Phoenix, who took their time hitting the stage but did so with gusto. An exciting light show and handsome frontman does not always guarantee success, though Phoenix has both of those in spades. Instead, their upbeat but dense euro pop lit up the night as much as the loads of LED’s and strobes. Their new material is strong, but it’s still the duo of “Lisztomania” and “1901” that make the show go around. Those tried-and-true tunes, along with “Lasso”, set opener “Entertainment”, and subsequent set-closing reprise, were the highlights.
There was much consternation among Bonnaroo devotees about Kanye West’s return to Manchester, and the divisive artist’s headlining set did little to quell the dissent. West clearly has his admirers, but the mass exodus that occurred after just 45 minutes of his show was indicative of just how fed up many people are with his constant antics. It didn’t take long for West to digress into stories about his personal struggle and his beef with Pearl Jam and Bonnaroo and the media and anyone else who happens to be within earshot. As West – clad in a mask and distortedly projected on a mammoth LED tower – wallowed in his own endless misery in front of 80,000 people, his often enjoyable songs were rendered useless. The actual music never lasted for more than a few minutes at a time. He’d rap for a couple of minutes over a backing track, then lapse into rants full of excuses for his behavior. It wasn’t even as fun as that sounds, and this joke of a set was made even more laughable by the peanut gallery of fans at the back of the field making frustrated and hilarious comments throughout the show. Not surprisingly, he wrapped his set up about 90 minutes, 20 minutes before his scheduled finish.
Thankfully, Ice Cube provided a short but hype late-night palate cleanser for those who endured the anguish of Kanye’s set. Expertly ripping through hip-hop classics like “Natural Born Killaz”, “You Can Do It”, “Check Yo Self”, and of course, “It Was a Good Day”, Cube proved every bit the veteran and made the Kanye headlining atrocity seem entirely amateur.
The night’s final fireworks were provided by an all-star Superjam led by Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, featuring Eric Krasnow, David Hidalgo, Willie Weeks, Nigel Hall, and a host of horns and backing singers. The setlist was lovingly curated, and special guests Taj Mahal, Ben Folds, and Chaka Khan were utilized to astounding effect. After the core band slid through Bill Withers’ “Kissing My Love” and The Staples Singers’ “Respect Yourself”, Taj Mahal provided rough but righteous vocals on “I Can’t Turn You Loose” and “Statesboro Blues”. Ben Folds joined in for an inspiring take on Joe Cocker’s “Space Captain”, and soul goddess Chaka Khan belted out Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”, Led Zeppelin’s “What Is and What Should Never Be”, and a downright filthy version of “Tell Me Something Good”. The day may have been beset by a dud of a headliner, numerous inconvenient mud pits, and an overall dampness, but the people, genuine music, and soul of Bonnaroo managed to make for another great day in Manchester.
