(Imelda May on the Sonic Stage at Bonnaroo 2010. Photo by Ric Hickey.)Live music of every kind imaginable is presented from noon ‘til dawn for four days straight at the annual Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. There are five large stages throughout the festival grounds where the big name acts can be seen, while the smaller stages at Bonnaroo play host to the newer bands. Occasionally Bonnaroo performers will “double up” by playing a brief second set on a smaller stage after completing their performance on one of the main stages. In rare cases, a particularly ambitious act might even perform three times over the course of the weekend. Many bands must adhere to tightly scheduled tour itineraries that leave them with little or no time to hang around at Bonnaroo for more than their allotted set time. Others who have a little free time to play with will perform as much as possible at the festival and even hang around the press compound for spontaneous interviews and photo shoots.
The bandstand on the Sonic Stage at Bonnaroo is approximately the size of that which you would find in a small club. While it is an open-air stage, it is small enough to provide an experience somewhat akin to seeing a band in a bar or small venue. Every year at Bonnaroo it is the Sonic Stage where I get turned on to a new artist that I had not previously heard of. After a 2-hour performance heavy on dark weirdness and feverish jams at last year’s Bonnaroo, Umphrey’s McGee re-surfaced just an hour later and did a second, 30-minute mini-set on the Sonic Stage. The soon-to-be-setting sun faced the bandstand head on for their second performance and I could see the heat taking its toll on the band members. (Half of whom it turned out were fighting bad summer colds that day.) In a display of instinctive performance therapy, Umphrey’s calmly cruised through a brief set that included a cover of Paul Simon’s “Graceland” that seemed to bring a brief respite from the punishing heat. The familiar and soothing groove actually seemed to cool everyone down for a few minutes. At a festival where shade is in short supply, you can’t put a price on moments like these.
The heat factor pendulum swung to the opposite end of the spectrum when Rockabilly siren Imelda May performed on the Sonic Stage last year. Her excellent band, good humor, and feral feline howl brought the Sonic Stage to an absolute boil. I was walking from a now-forgotten point A to a soon-abandoned point B when I passed by the Sonic Stage during her performance and immediately fell under her spell. Ambling up for a closer look, I didn’t stop until I was at the edge of the stage. I remained there for the remainder of a stellar performance by an artist that just 20 minutes earlier I had never even heard of.
One of the many things I have learned about Bonnaroo is this: You may go to Bonnaroo eager to see acts that you already know and love. But when you come BACK from Bonnaroo, you invariably will be talking about all the amazing NEW acts that you discovered there over the weekend.
Other than the aforementioned Sonic Stage, the other small stages at Bonnaroo include Café Where? located in the way back of the lawn in front of the What Stage, the On Tap Lounge, and a Solar Stage that is powered by an angled platform of solar panels right next to the stage. The Solar Stage is one of numerous “green initiatives” at Bonnaroo, including an aggressive recycling campaign and a number of environmental groups stationed at booths scattered among the other merch and food peddlers.
There is never a shortage of fireworks coming from the big stages at Bonnaroo. But a lot of ‘Roo veterans will tell you that the smaller stages are where the real action is. This year the small stages at Bonnaroo will give attendees the opportunity to witness up close and personal performances by Bruce Hornsby, G. Love, Nicole Atkins, !!!, Bela Fleck, The New Orleans All Stars, Futurebirds, Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Gary Clark Jr., and Amos Lee, to name just a few. Cincinnati’s Walk The Moon is scheduled for a pair of small stage performances this year and the band is riding high on a goodwill wave of music industry buzz paralleled by very few other acts on the Bonnaroo 2011 line-up.
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