Live from Bonnaroo: Random pisser steals the show
June 13th, 2008 by Brooke Hatfield in Backstage Pass
VAMPIRE WEEKEND: From far away
Overheard at Bonnaroo: “Some guy in VIP was talking about how, like, he got to take free showers, and I was like ‘Well, I shower every four days anyway.’” — Girl behind me in line.
Day one of Bonnaroo started at 4 a.m. and ended at about 1 a.m., and the in-between times were filled with a healthy mix of music, sitting in a car and public urination.
Allow me to explain.
Once we actually got to Bonnaroo and got our tent set up (which only took about seven hours total — proof that God smiles on CL and all its endeavors), the first order of bidness was checking out the opening-day lineup. Superdrag was the first band I caught, which was strangely appropriate — between Metallica, Pearl Jam, Chris Rock and Janeane Garofalo, acts I liked in the 9th grade are making a big comeback at Bonnaroo this year.
I’m not as familiar with Superdrag’s new stuff, which they played a lot of (and which underwhelmed me, frankly), but anything off their 1996 release “Regretfully Yours” was absolute audio gold.
We skipped MGMT and most of Battles (who we heard the last part of while waiting in line, and it sounded awesome and I wish I could have been more adjacent to the stage) for two trips to the comedy tent, which was a hard decision, but one that paid off in two big ways:
1) The comedy tent was air-conditioned.
2) I saw a really drunk guy urinate on two rows of people in front of him.
The first comedy show we saw was Leo Allen (cute, young), Janeane Garofalo (cute, not as young, way skinny, still caustic as hell and an inspiration to young girls bitter before their time the world over) and Mike Birbiglia, who really stole the show from both of the aforementioned.
The second comedy show opened with John Mulaney, who was pretty “meh” all around, but then Reggie Watts came out and kind of blew my mind a little. I have a feeling I would have enjoyed the set more if I hadn’t been ridiculously exhausted — his stuff is more performance art than anything else, with a lot of music and a little bit of more standard stand-up thrown in.
It’s fascinating, but it’s also really challenging, almost Kaufman-esque at times, and I’m not sure it worked for everyone in the comedy tent, many of whom had likely ingested substances that would interfere with anyone’s ability to process comedy.
Here’s a link to the music video of a song he performed last night, “What About Blowjobs.”
Zach Galifianakis went on next, and he killed, as is his wont. I fervently hope that he recreates the “Can’t Tell Me Nothin’” video during Kanye West’s set Saturday night.
But the funniest moment in the comedy tent came in the closing moments of Galifianakis’ set when the guy two rows in front of me lurched up and started peeing on the two rows in front of him. He seemed really out of it — his eyes were closed, and he couldn’t really stand — but it was the most intense public urination session I have ever seen. I think he peed for a full minute, minimum. It was like clowns coming out of a clown car, only instead of clowns it was urine, and instead of a clown car it was a drunk guy’s penis. If we could harness this man’s urine stream for good, global warming wouldn’t have a chance.
The final act I caught before collapsing into my tent was Vampire Weekend, who played a sold-out show at The Variety Playhouse the night before. Their sound was really tight, and didn’t stray much from the album. The crowd was really into it, and the buzz around Bonnaroo this morning is that they definitely had the best set last night, so in celebration, here’s the video for their song, “A-Punk,” which was definitely a high point of their set.
This morning when I woke up, my neighbors had already made me a bloody mary and left it by my tent, and now I’m off to catch Drive-By Truckers. I think it’s going to be a good day.
(Photo by Brooke Hatfield)
June 17th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Oh my god! That jerkoff totally pissed on me! I can’t believe it’s been captured for posterity.
September 8th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Superdrag did not play a lot of new stuff, because, well, they don’t have a lot of new stuff. Most of the stuff played at Bonnaroo was from Regretfully Yours (1996) and Head Trip In Every Key (1998). Head Trip is easily their best album, but they also did at least one song off of In The Valley of Dying Stars (2000) ,which is also a great album. Superdrag hasn’t released a new studio album since 2002’s Last Call For Vitriol.