By Trish Daly > Senior > English and American Studies > Boston College

Usually, I would be wary of putting myself into a situation in which a large group of people withdraw from society, gather in a field, dance late into the night, and refer to themselves as a “community.” Although this may sound like a cult, once you add the element of over 100 musical performances, you have a four-day event that thousands of people flock to from all over the country, year after year.

Bonnaroo, a music festival held annually on 700 acres of farmland in Manchester, Tennessee, attracts all kinds of people; some who attend every year and some who enter wide-eyed, unsure of what to expect and ready to drink the Kool-Aid.

After a few years of longingly checking the lineup and deciding I couldn’t afford it, this year I made the plunge and bought my ticket. As we made the 20-hour trek down the East Coast, we spotted cars packed with tents, toilet paper, and water, and windows reading “Bonnaroo or bust!” After hours of listening to the Bonnaroo radio station and crawling along I-24, we were finally at the patch of grass we called home for the weekend.  After pitching the tent, we broke out the beers and relaxed. The next time I looked out at what had been empty fields around us, a huge tent community had blossomed under the gorgeous Tennessee sunset. A giant smoke signal went up over the central area, and after cobbling dinner out of hot dogs and Goldfish, we went in to check it out.   

Centeroo, where all the festival activity takes place, is a playground for adults.  The first thing that you’ll notice as you approach is a colorful ferris wheel. There’s also a huge lighted fountain people can jump into, an air-conditioned cinema tent, a scratch DJ academy, batting cages, an arcade discotheque, a tent featuring craft beers to taste, a market with various vendors, selling art, clothing, jewelry, and much more, a comedy tent, tents for various environmental initiatives, and my personal favorite, the Silent Disco, a tent filled with people dancing to music that only they hear, through headphones distributed at the door.

Even with all the great music and fun to be had during the day, and the unrivaled people-watching, the most transcendent moments took place in the evenings. The first Phish show was the best live concert I’ve ever seen. It was hard to tell whether Trey or his captive audience looked happier during the first song, “Chalk Dust Torture,” as everyone shouted along “Can’t I live while I’m young?” The exuberant audience and soaring music during the three-hour set demonstrated the raison d’etre for Bonnaroo. And coming off the high of that set after the “You Enjoy Myself” finale and “Day in the Life” encore, many in the audience were swept along to the 2:30 a.m. Girl Talk set, where the revelers could dance off their energy and finally head to their tents around sunrise. It was the juxtaposition of acts like these that showed the wonderful eclecticism of Bonnaroo—almost anyone could find their niche among the musical acts that covered the spectrum of genres. You could find jam bands, indie bands, institutions like Springsteen, David Byrne, and Buffett, rising stars like MGMT and Girl Talk, hip-hop acts like Beastie Boys and Snoop Dogg, African musicians like King Sunny Ade and collaborations like the duo of banjo player Bela Fleck and Malian musician Toumani Diabate. The festival cultivates appreciation for all types of music, no matter what you came to see.

When it came time to leave, I let my thoughts stray to all the other summer music festivals I wanted to attend. Once you’ve tried it, the idea of being in a place for a few days when you have nothing more to worry about than hearing as much good music as possible is a very seductive prospect. But there’s always next year, and the same multifarious mix of good-natured partiers, “hippies,” and music-lovers of all ages will be back to mingle once again. I have to give the Boss credit for summing up the credo of the festival in the best way possible in one song during his set on Sunday night: “It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive!”