Relix is currently on site at Bonnaroo creating the official festival newspaper, the Bonnaroo Beacon. For more from the paper, check out the official Bonnaroo Tumblr.
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“As always, I’m mostly excited about our annual reunion of the Bonnaroo family. There’s nothing quite like welcoming everyone back to the farm,” explains Bonnaroo co-founder Ashley Capps on the eve of the festival’s 14th year. “Of the new features at the festival, I think our little wooded oasis that we’re calling The Grove is going to be a special hang during the weekend. The costume parties promise to be awesome this year as well.”
Ashley’s comments highlight both the sense of continuity and the ongoing evolution that continue to define the event.
Bonnaroo 2015 will feature a number of favorite performers from past years, including: My Morning Jacket, Mumford & Sons and Bassnectar along with some artists making their festival debuts, such as Billy Joel and Courtney Barnett.
One change on the musical side at Bonnaroo 2015 is The Who Stage, which will offer new sounds from the site of the old Sonic Stage.Superfly programming manager Robin McNicol explains, “The Who Stage was a fun stage to book because we got to bring some of our favorite new artists to the festival. I’ve personally been listening to a lot of these bands on repeat since we started working on this and I’m so excited to see them on The Farm. The idea behind these stages is to give some of our favorite bands an opportunity to perform at Bonnaroo. When we created the club stages years ago, it was intended to be an intimate setting for acoustic artists, but we’ve had an increasing demand to book hip hop, rock, and electronic artists on these stages. So we made the decision to add the Who Stage this year to better showcase these types of bands to the Bonnaroo crowd.”
Meanwhile, across from The Who Stage, over in the Broo’ers festival, Evan Sutherlandnotes, “This year, we’ve added a few new breweries: some from near (Bearded Iris Brewing/Nashville and Angry Orchard Hard Cider/Cincinnati) and others from far (Green Flash Brewing Co./San Diego, Stella Artois/Belgium & Pilsner Urquell/Czech Republic). We’ve expanded our ‘Broo’ers University’ programming on Solar Stage from one day to three days. We are really excited to see old friends and make a whole lot of new ones.”
Similarly the Food Truck Oasis will continue to offer a number of familiar tasty selections, while two new trucks will debut:Poutine Your Mouth, from Salt Lake City, which serves “Poutine, Fries & Deliciousness featuring Vegan, Vegetarian and Meat options,” and 100% grassfed, which offers “100% Grassfed burgers and ice cream loaded with awesome, great tasting nutrition provided by mother nature herself. All grown on our sustainable organic farm using rotational grazing that is great for the environment, a fabulous lifestyle for the cows, and a third better nutrition supply for us.”
As for The Grove, which Ashley Capps mentioned, it is situated in a wooded area in Pod 7 behind The Grind. At 9:00 tonight it will be formally unveiled when art cars Big Red and Mirage (the latter is a new addition this year) will lead a public parade out from the Clock tower (which has a spiffy new look) into the campgrounds and end up at The Grove where there will be a performance by Camp Over There (Bonnaroo’s new performance troupe—catch the trend?) and a light show, culminating with a dance party.
Superfly’sVincent Treglia explains the origins of The Grove, “One of our goals for evolving the festival is to expand programming outside of Centeroo and into the campgrounds to provide more experiences for fans—we’ve learned that there is roughly 30% of people in the campgrounds at any given time. We worked with David Korins Design to come up with the installations in that area which include sleek lighting elements in the trees, hanging hammocks for fans to relax in and musical soundscapes. Camp Over There, will be hanging out a bunch in this area during special moments where they’ll create moments of surprise and wonder as they interact with fans. Lastly, there will be a large ‘Portal-potty’ installation (16 porta-potties that are gutted and laid out in a ring at the center of The Grove). At times, the doors will be unlocked for fans to enter the front and exit through the back into a performance space to experience intimate performances by magicians, musicians as well as other pop-up treats.”
Another transformation of a familiar space will take place in Pod Two, which will have a competitive focus throughout the weekend. The Game will offer an extended tournament in corn hole, ping-pong and human foosball. Champions will be crowned on Sunday afternoon with Bonnaroo prize packs on the line.
Speaking of competition, the Roo Run will return this year. The 5K race and costume party is slated for 9AM on Friday. The starting line is located at the West Broadway Highway Toll Booth. Superfly’s Director, People & Culture and fitness guru, Laura Gentry Carter, who oversees the event indicates, “All proceeds are donated to our Bonnaroo Works Fund and the more runners that register the more people we help in this community throughout the year. “
She goes to explain, “I think as we start our travel down to the Farm we start to check things off our list that we won’t do at Bonnaroo that may be a part of our daily routine like working out. Through this program I’m trying to provide fun ways for people to Work It Out! Maintaining health throughout the weekend is a tough thing to do so having many different classes and styles available on the farm is seeming help the attendees keep what might be in their daily routine. “A few things I’m excited about this year are the additions of live music to yoga sessions! Yoga doesn’t always have to be to a playlist and everything we do here is live so it will be a nice tie in at the Solar stage! Pod 2 yoga was switched to the morning at 10 AM Friday – Sunday. We’re really excited to introduce morning yoga in the camp grounds! Dancercise is going to be a hot new fun Work It Out program! It’s being held at the Kalliope stage on Friday at 11 AM with an instructor Julia Hubara and DJ Uncle Jesse. We dance our pants off all weekend so we thought it would be fun to constructively dance and workout together!”
Back on the topic of evolving musical traditions, another Bonnaroo staple, the SuperJam, returns with a new creative focus on 1:30 AM on Saturday night (technically Sunday morning) as Pretty Lights, DMC (Run DMC), Metallica’s Rob Trujillo, Jack Antonoff and Chance the Rapper are among the artists who will present what is billed as “Throwback SuperJam Block Party.” SuperJam producer Paul Peck reveals, “This year was a group effort with the SuperJam.Oftentimes the conversation will start with a couple of ideas and then evolve very organically as we start reaching out to artists.My first concert was Michael Jackson, and to this day it is probably the best show I’ve seen. This year we decided to do the ‘80s dance-party theme—that sound is back right now. We all know these songs and love them—and we wanted to bring that energy to the show. We may include some songs from the ‘70s and ‘90s, but the idea is that everything is going to connect with that throwback theme.”
Peck then adds, “I love the fact that the fan energy plays such a huge part in how the SuperJam (or any other great show) plays out. I love seeing special, unique shows so at some point I just began taking the initiative to work with artists and making them happen myself. There’s nothing better than seeing a unique, special show with an amazing audience. That’s what the SuperJam is all about.”
Festivalgoers will have a chance to connect directly with many of their favorite artists via signings that will take place in the area alongside the Who Stage. One Bonnaroo regular who will stepping out this year in for a signing is Danny Clinch. On Saturday afternoon from12:30-1:30 PM, the celebrated photographer, who has been here since year one, mostly behind the scenes taking portraits of all the bands, will appear. There Clinch will sign a number of his photography books (which will be available for purchase all weekend) along with Danny Clinch Photography T-Shirts and Three on the Tree Productions T’s. Of course many of Bonnaroo 2015’s performers both old and new will be on hand for signings of their own over the course of the weekend.
Indeed, with the weather cooperative thus far, 2015 is shaping up to be another, major Roo, one that honors the event’s traditions while aspiring to establish new ones. And it all starts today.
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