Day 26: Manchester, TN
Welcome
Yesterday we performed at Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee.
The jet lag actually worked in our advantage for a change and yesterday’s 4.45am lobby call didn’t feel like the worst we’ve had on this tour. It was just a quick drive to the airport and shortly before 5am we were inside Kansas City International’s brand-new terminal and standing at the front of the check-in queue. We were flying with Southwestern Airlines – another first for us, and with these budget airlines we were through with taking any chances. As it happened we had arrived just early enough to beat the rush, and by the time we had finished checking all thirteen of our luggage pieces there was a large line behind us. It could be argued that we were the cause of this line, though.
The sun was just aloft as we found our gate and it was a rich apricot colour, the sunrise that you strive for in the opening credits of a blockbuster movie. We were an hour and a half early so I spent a good bit of time walking the length of the terminal, making sure I knew every single food option before committing to a breakfast. In the end it was a slightly wasted endeavour and I ended up going to City Market Coffee Roasters and buying an Original Burrito, with scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, cheddar, and salsa. That’s not to say it wasn’t a worthwhile experience exploring this brand-new terminal. Each boarding gate sports huge artworks commissioned by the city of Kansas City, as well as state-of-the-art charging pods underneath every seat with options for USB-A, USB-C, and wall sockets. My favourite innovation though was the tv screens installed at the entrance to every bathroom that display the number of available cubicles. It felt like we were experiencing the future of air travel.
This was our first time flying with Southwestern. For the uninitiated, there are no seat allocations on the plane, so it is first in first served; everyone is flying first class, as the stewardess reminded us over the intercom. We were among the last people onto the aircraft so we got to experience the little dance that is the flight attendants trying to find where the last couple of empty seats are located.
There wasn’t much redundancy built into our schedule for Bonnaroo day. Everything had to run perfectly for it to work. We began well with our smooth check-in and then our flight departed perfectly on time at 7.35am. Our 737-800 made a smooth landing in Nashville at 9am and we quickly retrieved our baggage, heading outside to wait for our pickup - this was the most important piece of the puzzle. We had a new member of the team, a driver/merch seller named Kaylene, and she was already in Nashville picking up our van and saving us a precious hour, at least. At around 9.30 she rolled into the pickup area, and we said a quick hello, and then threw everything into the back so we could get moving. No one was functioning at a very high level after the last few days’ travel, so we were incredibly glad to have somebody to safely operate our vehicle. As we set off, she handed us a bag of Yerba Mates, each of the tall cans containing 150mg of caffeine to keep us operating for another few hours.
These army cars were no match for our Mercedes Sprinter 2500.
Two hours later we arrived in Manchester, Tennessee, home of Bonnaroo, one of the largest camping music festivals in the US. 80,000 people attend the four-day event each year, setting up campsites across a sprawling area around the edge of the festival grounds. In order to get to our stage, we had to enter the world of festival transport logistics, and while it took a while to get to where we needed to go, it was clear that these systems were being run masterfully. We left our vehicle in a parking lot outside the accreditation building, well off-site. A Bonnaroo van came to pick us up, and drove us a couple of kilometres to the transport ops site, located on one of the main service roads, somewhere near the heart of the festival site. There were several prefab buildings, and a good number of transport buggies parked around the place, of various sizes. There was a man who paced around the dusty yard of this transport hub, a man carrying a clipboard and wearing a radio, and he was the transport coordinator.
It was a job that was well beyond my comprehension. Vans and buggies arrived and departed at an aggressively regular pace, and there always seemed to be one at the ready for whichever artist turned up and needed to be shuttled somewhere. We were supplied with two buggies, and we packed our gear onto the seats for the drive to our stage, a journey that took us about ten minutes, beginning on service roads and then using the main access roads through the festival and campgrounds. Traffic management was a crucial cog in this high functioning wheel. At every intersection there was someone managing the flow of speeding buggies and pedicabs, and every traffic controller had their own style. Some preferred hand gestures, some had a stop/go sign, and some had traffic wands providing a glowing extension of the arm.
All the pieces had fallen into place, and we were at our stage with time to spare. There were plenty of stagehands ready to help us and we had a leisurely time setting up our gear while on the grass out in front of the stage people were taking advantage of the shade provided by our huge marquee, escaping from the sun and grabbing a few moments of rest. In the middle of our soundcheck there was a brief interruption while they tested the emergency messages on a giant screen at the back of the stage. Despite this pause, we were soundchecked and ready with half an hour to spare.
Stagehands enjoy a lie down with the show thundering on above their hammocks.
Festival infrastructure: temporary cell towers to bolster the local systems.
Our green room was in a comfortable air-conditioned trailer, and we relaxed in there in the lead up to our set. More caffeine was consumed and at 1.25pm we headed to the side of the stage feeling as ready as was possible in these circumstances. At 1.30 we walked up on stage. The entirety of this huge white tent was packed, which was surprising considering the early time we were playing. A diverse range of signs and flags poked out of different parts of the audience, and it looked like everyone was having an extremely good weekend. With this animated crowd it was hard not to have a brilliant time up on stage. We played our 45-minute power set, and we played it well. It looked like the crowd had a nice time and although we didn’t have time to stop and chat, we did get presented with bracelets beaded with our names by a lovely fan.
We had a bit of time after this set to pause. Kayleen had organised lunch so we sat down and ate while we waited for transport ops to provide us with a ride to the next venue. Soon a pair of buggies arrived and we loaded up and headed for the Toyota stage, another ten minute drive which took us across what felt like the entire breadth of the festival grounds. The Toyota Music Den was a barn. Just a small stage and room for about a hundred people - nice and simple. We were completely rinsed at this point in the day, but also not too worried about this low stakes end to our Bonnaroo experience. The plan was to do a requests set. Gabe would walk around with a wireless microphone and find a person to give us the perfect song in the moment. This worked extremely well and created a Beths experience that has never happened before and might never happen again. “What is your name and where are you from”, Gabe would say to a lucky individual. When they rattled off these facts Gabe always had a piece of trivia about their hometown up his sleeve, wittily delivered like the very smooth MC he is. It was a rough and ready set from us but highly spirited and full of magical moments. Everyone was trying their most flamboyant shit, and quite a lot of it came off. The end of the set was perfectly anticlimactic when the circuit breaker of the PA tripped in the final chorus of Little Death. The venue technician frantically ran over to reset it and I think it came on again just for the last few notes, and that was enough to call it a day.
We packed down and took a buggy back to transport ops. After a brief visit to catering to eat dinner, we spoke to the transport coordinator and shortly after that we were on our way back to the carpark to transfer our equipment back into our own van. It was a two-hour drive to our hotel and again we were grateful to have Kayleen behind the wheel. For the first time in a while we were all in bed before midnight, and we would enjoy a full night of uninterrupted sleep.