Nearsighted: Friday @ Roo

I should have been on top of this a lot sooner since Bonnaroo has been so long ago now. It is already July and that wonderful weekend is now fading into a distant memory. I finally got my pictures online though, and that got me motivated to relive some of those mind blowing moments with you.

Friday was by far the best day for me at Roo, and also quite possibly one of the best days in my entire life. It is most certainly in the top five and will remain there unless several more super extraordinary things happen to bump it off the list.

We woke up at a decent hour, probably about 8:00. we had plans to meet some people I had met on an online community called Inforoo, a sort of online meeting place for all that is Bonnaroo. Inforoo was what prepared me for Bonnaroo....and I was very well prepared. There was an Inforoo brunch in the tent only area. We found it after looking for about ten minutes, which wasn't long considering I had a sinking feeling that I would miss out on the yummy list of food and party favors that might be present there. The smell of bacon helped a great deal in finding Camp Inforoo...what a glorious smell it was! I passed out some fudge that my mom made and ran over to the Mimosas. What a way to start a day at Bonnaroo. Dallas and I ate better there than we did all week. there were homemade biscuits with the most delicious sausage gravy I have had in my life. It was a white-ish gravy, and I have an anti-white gravy appetite, but there was an exception made for this heavenly pot of gravy. yum. Oh, and pancakes with syrup! I believe someone was cooking up some eggbeaters as we left. It was a gourmet camping feast! There were cookies as well that were much larger than my head. I did not partake in the cookies as they were rumoured to be very potent, indeed.
After recovering from a small heat stroke back at camp we went to Centeroo to watch Jose Gonzales at This Tent. He was amazing! If any of you listen to Zero 7 then you will know what a great voice he has. He sounded better live than I could ever imagine. The weather was so nice by then. After my mini heat stroke the clouds came out and brought along the nicest breeze imaginable. It was perfect.

When Jose Gonzales finished his set Tegan and Sara began but we decided to split our time between Minus the Bear and Umphrey's McGee. They were both really good but we literally went back and forth between the two stages that we probably heard two full songs from each band. During one of these shows, I believe Umphrey's, I decided that we should go back to This Tent and catch the end of Tegan and Sara in order to get a prime spot for Swell Season.

Swell Season...they were one of my top two bands for going to Bonnaroo despite being a band that half of America has never even heard of...and this despite the fact that they won this year's Oscar for Best Song in a Motion Picture. I fell in love with Glen Hansard's voice the day I heard it and never turned back. So getting a good view of the stage was very important to me. Of course, as luck would have it they were playing at the same time as my number two reason for going to Bonnaroo, The Raconteurs. they were a bit staggered so Dallas and I agreed we would see the first half of Swell Season and all of The Raconteurs.

As, I knew he would, Glen blew me away. But what I did expect is that he would also blow Dallas away as well. When they sang When Your Mind's Made Up everyone went wild and Dallas was completely surprised at how much Glen rocked it. He is now a loyal fan and we plan to see them in Dallas in September. Thankfully, Swell Season played all my favorite songs during the first half of their set, so that eased the pain. a smidgen, of having to walk away from Glen still playing.
On to The Raconteurs! We figured we'd get the crappiest view for this show since we were showing up right when the first song began. We went up the side of the crowd and ended up right along the gate and could see the side of the stage and the screens were just above our heads but far enough away to see. I could see Jack White's pale skinny body one the stage pretty clearly. I was so glad that I had listened to the new CD so much before we went because they only played a few songs form the first CD. I was a little disappointed with Broken Boy Soldier performed live but I believe it is because I am not a huge fan of distortion microphones. The "WOW" moment at this show was during You Don't Understand Me. listening to the piano solo on that song feels so great but I was not prepared for seeing it live. I am pretty sure that I cried a little bit seeing his fingers fly against the keyboard like that. They were moving so fast that I convinced he had fell victim to some kind of superhero mutation like in X-Men. Now, when I am in the car and I hear that song I always get a little teary eyed during that part of the song.