February 10, 2010

There’s been plenty of chatter around the HT Headquarters about yesterday’s Bonnaroo 2010 lineup reveal. We wanted to share a few members of our staff’s thoughts about this year’s bill and then we’d love to hear your take, so please leave a comment after the post.

Kind of an odd mix, at first glance, but makes sense when you consider Bonnaroo’s more recent push to make everybody happy and expand its audience demographics. You have baby boomer appeal with sizable reach (Stevie Wonder), an anchor jamband that has no problem with large crowds (DMB) and the most bankable rapper on the planet (Jay-Z). Not bad, but it’s nothing that’s going to get me to Tennessee as an automatic.

The Lips playing Dark Side will be fun, but boots of their New Year’s performance circulate and they’ll probably repeat the feat at other festivals. It’ll be cool to see Tenacious D back in action, the Avett Brothers and Zac Brown Band are riding a wave of acclaim and excitement, the Kings of Leon are a force to be reckoned with, Phoenix, The National and LCD Soundsystem are your indie attention-grabbers, and whoa, hey, there’s Steve Martin and he’s going to do his bluegrass thing. Throw in Tori Amos and Norah Jones and you really do have something for everyone.

The most intriguing listing, for me, is Jimmy Cliff, who’s said to have a full-blown return tour in the works. Can’t think of a better festival than Bonnaroo to re-introduce the man. Here’s hoping for lots and lots of collaboration, too, though I can’t see anything so far that would rival Springsteen’s Phish sit-in from last year.

I kind of miss the ‘Roo’s jamband/jam-friendly indie roots: it’s always been eclectic, but I feel like it used to have more of a personality all its own (i.e. it looks like Coachella now, whereas Coachella, despite its own continued boomer-baiting, hasn’t gone all hippie or anything). – Chad Berndtson

READ ON for the thoughts of a few other HT Staffers on this year’s bill…

Words: Jonathan Kosakow
Images: Adam Kaufman

Josh Clark, Trevor Garrod, Reed Mathis and Scott Rager took the stage Friday night at Terminal 5 to a mostly empty room, and those who were there on time jumped for joy at their own personal Tea Leaf Green show.

[All photos by Adam Kaufman]

It’s no secret that Terminal 5 doesn’t provide the most incredible experience for those that enjoy actually watching a band perform, so it was a healthy surprise to have a virtually clear line of sight from anywhere in the venue as the band took stage. Soon enough though, after Mathis’ driving bass lines coupled with Clark’s screaming guitar solos opened up the room, the growing crowd filled the space.

It was a solid performance throughout the show, and if it wasn’t evident that the group was having fun by watching Clark shred his guitar neck to dust, then it was clear by the time that Garrod pushed away from his keyboard to dance midstage at the rhythm section’s streamlined funk. The tight southern-style rock that sometimes comes out of this San Francisco-based quartet makes it easy to draw in even a novice of TLG, like this reviewer, but it’s the fluidity of jams and ease of transitions that has obviously made Tea Leaf Green a constant staple for many.

READ ON for more of Jonathan’s thoughts and Adam’s photos…