June 11, 2008

Bonnaroo Week rolls on here at Hidden Track with a feature for the stat geeks everywhere. We were taking a look at this year’s performers, and we couldn’t help but notice all of the artists who keep coming back year after year. So we figured we’d lay out a list of the folks who just can’t stay away from Manchester, followed by a few fun facts to help keep you busy on your way into the festie…

[Photo via Goochy.org]

Two-timers:

Ben Folds, Cat Power, Gogol Bordello, Rilo Kiley, Iron & Wine, Ozomatli, Abigail Washington (Uncle Earl/The Sparrow Quartet), Jack White (White Stripes & The Raconteurs), Death Cab For Cutie, Glen Hasard (Swell Season & The Frames), Alison Krauss, The Wood Brothers

READ ON for the rest of our list, and some fun factoids…

What? No, Cover Wars doesn’t come out on Tuesdays, you guys are all crazy. Yeah, what can I say, I’m a day late. I enjoyed the return to using just one song so much last week that I’m going to do it again. Let’s take a look at nine renditions of the 1977 single by Peter Gabriel: Solsbury Hill.

In what I consider true slacker-blogger format, why write when you can just copy and paste? Here’s what the folks over at solsburyhill.org have to say…

The first and last Peter Gabriel hit for quite a while, many critics have considered Solsbury Hill to be Peter’s finest moment. While this view clearly fails to take into account many subsequent successes in the catalogue, it does indicate the unusual and extraordinary appeal of this track. Built around a 7/4 time signature in a sprightly B major, the song’s sunny disposition is largely thanks to the acoustic guitar riff, an instrument which has rarely been used in Gabriel’s arrangements since the 1970s. Lyrically the song takes the stress and uncertainty of a future without his former bandmates and twists it into a positively electric excitement (eg. his heart’s “boom boom boom”). The track’s pace quickens as new instruments are added with each additional verse, the final cathartic moment occuring at the last “home” as the crash cymbal darts across the stereo spectrum (a technique applied to many of the songs insturments, so much so that listening to Solsbury Hill in audiophile headphones can create a sense of motion sickness) and the electric guitars groan down to the tonic chord over bristling shouts and odd-ball squeals. Solsbury Hill is one of the few songs in popular music to guarantee goosebumps with every listen and well deserves its place in the Peter Gabriel catalogue.

That about sums it up…I’ll add that Solsbury Hill is an actual place.

We’ve got nine versions this week, and eight of them appear on the playlist below. To hear the covers in their entirety be sure to register/login to Imeem:

READ ON after the jump for the voting, videos, commentary and the announcement of the winner of last week’s Can’t Find My Way Home CW…

Since we aren’t making it down to Manchester this year, we thought who better to turn to than our buddy Ryan from The Weight – who has way more Bonnaroo experience under his belt then the both of us combined – for some thoughts about who is on his Must See List this year…

With this year’s Bonnaroo festival fast approaching, it’s time to gas up the family truckster, set the GPS to Centeroo and get back to the farm. In what has become an annual right of passage, I’ll be off to Manchester, TN for the sixth time out of the seven years the festival has been in existence (only missed ’05!, with DMB, whatever).

While each year brings its highs and lows (and for the majority of festival goers it’s mostly highs due to an extreme lack of security – cough, cough), just being back in Tennessee is a fantastic excuse to get away from normalcy and pretend that you are still a grizzled tourhead, despite your mortgage. No matter what it is that is calling you to 300 acres of grass and dirt 60 miles southeast of Nashville, it’s truly a magical place to celebrate live music.

READ ON for Ryan’s “Must See” list for Bonnaroo 2008…

The Superjam at Bonnaroo has been a staple since the inaugural edition of the festie in 2002. Typically, it was a bit of an after-thought with a hodge-podge of musicians

For those of us who aren’t going to be attending Bonnaroo in person, we’ve still got some options to check out the action live from Manchester. As usual, the AT&T