The weather on the first day of Bonnaroo 2009 was absolutely terrible. That morning, Thursday, June 11 to be exact, myself and almost a hundred or so others had been waiting outside of the Fantasy 101.5 radio station for hours when the black clouds rolled in around 10 am. I looked up to the sky and said to myself, “Oh God…not now. Please don’t do this. Not here, not at Bonnaroo, not this year.”
It wasn’t that I was concerned about getting wet at that moment…it’s not like I would melt or mulitply like a mogwai. My main concern was what condition would the farm be in when I arrived. Would I be stuck setting up my tent in a giant ass mud puddle?
Over the course of the entire day, the storms were quick and hard, as it rained more times than I could count on all of my fingers and toes. But a little rain won’t hurt you, and it certainly would not put a halt to a music festival. In fact, it seemed like most welcomed the rain and mud.
For the most part, my first day of music at Bonnaroo 2009 consisted of a shit load of indie rock bands.
I spent most of my time at This Tent, where I saw bands like White Rabbits, Hockey, Chairlift, Passion Pit and Delta Spirit. A couple times during the night, I managed to check out some other music going on at some other tents, like a little bit of Portugal. the Man in That Tent and Those Darlins at the newly designed Troo Music Lounge. But because of the lineup and the kind of music I like, I kept getting drawn back to This Tent. I think one of the things that kept me coming back to This Tent was the fact that most of these bands had a sound dominated by keyboards and synthesizers.
I had never heard of the band, Hockey, but I have to say that I was quite impressed. The Portland, Oregon band mixes dance, new wave and punk for a sound that has drawn comparisons to the Strokes and LCD Soundsystem. They’re currently signed with Capitol Records here in the U.S. and will release their debut album, Mind Chaos, on August 24. Look for their two singles online, entitled “Too Fake” and “Learn to Lose.”
I had really wanted to check out this band I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about, called the Low Anthem. However, I chose to stick with Chairlift because I had seen them a couple months back when they opened for Peter, Bjorn & John at the Southgate House, and I have to say that I enjoyed them much more than PB&J. Chairlift will be coming back to Cincinnati in September, when they play the 2009 MidPoint Music Festival.
Indie, folk-rock band, Delta Spirit, almost didn’t make the festival. They were stuck in a Dallas airport earlier in the day, but managed to pull off a stellar, energetic set despite having jet-lag.
But the best show of the day belonged to the electronica Boston act, Passion Pit. With only one full-length album out, Manners, which was released not even a month before their show at Bonnaroo, Passion Pit first hit their breakthrough with the six-song EP, Chunk of Change. With three of the band’s five members playing keyboards and synthesizers, Passion Pit provided for a great soundtrack for those who wanted to dance in the rain and mud at Bonnaroo 2009.