Before we offer you Keller and Trey’s brief thoughts on the event, we just want to let you know that the official Bonnaroo FAQ is up at the festival site. Theres plenty of pertinent info relating to logistics and the like. Its well worth checking out.
By the way, we will soon have an announcement about an information resource that we will help to create at Bonnaroo, so keep checking in for that.
Trey Anastasio
A number of our readers interviewed Trey for the collective interview that appears on the site. In so doing, they asked few questions about Bonnaroo, and here is what he had to say
What is your overall impression of the event at this point?
Im surprised how many people are going. A lot of people approach me on the street, people I meet at stores and say, Oh, Ill see you at Bonnaroo. So I guess a lot of people are going to head down there.
In part due to the production staff and the volume of people attending, Bonnaroo is somewhat reminiscent of Phishs big events. What do these sort of shows represent to you?
Whenever we were driving away from any of those events, Great Went, Lemonwheel and especially at Big Cypress, we were amazed by it all, the way people took care of themselves, that feeling of being lucky. We felt like it proved something about humanity. If left to their own devices people want to be cool. Maybe thats an oversimplification but thats the vibe that I always got at those events. People would rather not be starting bonfires and generally just being assholes. I know that the people who are putting this on are following that model so I know it’s going to be an incredible weekend and Im sure looking forward to going there.
Plus I would imagine it will be interesting for you to see how Russ Bennett will create this environment [Russ worked on the Phish events- we interviewed him for an earlier Bonnaroo Beat.
Russ is working on this? Wow! Then its going to be amazing. Hes juts a great guy and hes got all that history. I havent seen him in a while so I cant just wait to just see him. Actually thats part of my excitement about Bonnaroo- Ill get to see a lot of musicians there that I dont see much. So Im looking forward to that.
Keller Williams
Keller spoke with Dean Budnick and Jeff Waful on the Jam Nation radio show (Sundays 8-10 WMRQ, Hartford 104.1) about the festival.
So whats your initial take on Bonnaroo?
I just feel very lucky to be a part of the bill, and happy that I have management that found a way to weasel me onto it (laughs). Its cool. Its a huge festival but it looks like Im going to play after Panic in a big tent and were going to do two full sets. So its great. I feel like I have the best of both worlds. Im playing this great festival and I get to do two full sets. Im pleased because it seems like something thats going to go down in history. I have to admit theres a little inkling of fear in the back of my head but Im going to be there and its exciting.
Are those concerns related to traffic?
Traffic makes up a large part of that little tiny inkling of fear at the back of my head. So just make sure you set aside the time to get there. [Editors note- to this end, once again we encourage you to check out the Bonnaroo FAQ.
Youre performing with String Cheese Incident. Obviously youve gigged and recorded with them before, so in that situation will you just encourage them to listen to your latest disc and check out the tunes or will you rehearse?
Normally I just kind of show up at the show and if time allows well run through a song. But since were doing this big festival were going to take some time to do a couple days of rehearsing and Im going to send them some material that I want them to learn. Theres a good twelve songs that we know right now but that doesnt cover two sets.