WORK: Music: > 700 Acres In Tennessee

"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."

- Carl Jung

Dispatches from Bonnaroo 2010 by Alex Frank

The second day of Bonnaroo is the day you feel the most insane. The first day it’s all awe and wonder, and by the third day you have your bearings. But on the second day, it feels like waking up in a carnival fun house. There are bodies everywhere, about a million of them. Some are naked. Some spray pixie dust on you as you walk by. Others offer to pour cold tap water on your head to cool you down. Even if you aren’t disoriented by the social hysteria, the multiple event stages are named in a purposely confusing fashion, dooming you to circle around the same homemade drum shop 20 times. It’s real freak-time déjà vu. There’s “Which Stage” and “What Stage” and “That Stage” and “This Stage,” all positioned throughout a campground that’s built in huge intertwining circles. If you ever can find the stage you want, hardly any schedules are posted anywhere, so it’s still a crapshoot whether you’ll see the band you’re looking for.

On our way to the campgrounds on the last morning of Bonnaroo, when we stopped at a roadside stand to pick up a basket of peaches for a dollar, the vendor asked us if we were in town for the festival. When we responded yes, he shook his head and, almost pitying, said, “God bless y’all.” When we left him, we took the scenic route to the festival and discovered that, less than five miles from the chaos of Bonnaroo’s campground, there are acres of flat corn fields, the quietest places imaginable. Is Bonnaroo a mirage? It’s filled with almost a 100,000 people, but in Tullahoma, Tennessee, just miles from the festival and its behemoth sound system, you’d never have a clue, except for a few Phish bumper stickers scattered along the highway.