Bonnaroo: Let the Tie-Dyed Whimsy Begin

By JON PARELES

NASHVILLE — I see late nights ahead. I’m headed to the 11th annual Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., where 700 acres of former farmland sprout considerably more than 100 bands, dozens of comedians and 80,000 people to hear them over the next four days.

I’m fond of Bonnaroo despite its frequent hot, sticky weather and the yearly possibility of deluges followed by mud slicks; my raincoat and mud boots are packed. Located between Nashville and Chattanooga, Bonnaroo is blissfully far from media centers. Celebrity-spotting and chic after-parties are not a major feature of the festival, as they are at Coachella in California. So people come to Bonnaroo for the music, mostly, along with the lingering latter-day hippie flavor associated with the festival because of its early years featuring jam bands and the roots music they draw from. Tie-dyed whimsy is part of the charm; Bonnaroo’s big stages are the What stage and the Which stage, with bands also playing at This Tent, That Tent and the Other Tent.

There’s still a jam-band streak at Bonnaroo. The Sunday-night headliner and finale is always a jam band — Phish this year — and jam bands are sprinkled lightly through the rest of the festival, among them Umphrey’s McGee and a new configuration of well-known names, Spectrum Road, revisiting the music of the 1960’s jazz-rock pioneer Tony Williams, including a member of his band Tony Williams Lifetime, the bassist Jack Bruce (better known for his time in Cream). And I expect to spend a part of the post-midnight hours of Saturday night with Superjam featuring Ahmir (Questlove) Thompson of the Roots and unnamed guests. After that, there’s an even later treat: At 2:30 a.m., the rapper GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan is to perform his entire “Liquid Swords,” his 1995 album of extravagantly metaphorical boasts, with its down-and-dirty vamps reinvented live by Grupo Fantasma.

But Bonnaroo also has pop hitmakers like fun. and Foster the People; hip-hop from Danny Brown, Kendrick Lamar and the Roots; songwriters like Feist, Bon Iver, Laura Marling and Ben Howard; soul bands like Alabama Shakes and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and indie-rock from the Shins, the Antlers, the War on Drugs and Here We Go Magic.

From more grizzled demographics, the reunited Beach Boys are playing on Sunday; so is, of all people, the pop-country songwriter Kenny Rogers. There’s an afternoon of African music, including the gutsy Malian singer Khaira Arby, on Saturday. Bonnaroo also gets a bluegrass streak from Punch Brothers, Sam Bush and the Infamous Stringdusters, and some New Orleans from the Soul Rebels brass band and the raunchy bounce music of Big Freedia. There’s a blast of dubstep from Skrillex, and the return, headlining on Friday night, of Radiohead.

Much of the festival–including Radiohead’s set–is to be streamed live at youtube.com/user/BonnarooMusicFest. But streamed sound and computer playback are no match for a spot near the What Stage, which has one of the most magnificent sound systems anywhere. When a good band is behind it, that sound alone makes the whole trek worthwhile.