Music

Bonnaroo 2014’s Five Least Attended Acts: Which Ones Were Worth Attending?

Meghan Tonjes performs at Bonnaroo on June 15, 2014.

While most music lovers head to Bonnaroo due to the pull of the main stage acts, the more intrepid concertgoers know to check out some of the small stages in search of promising lesser-known artists. Before the masses headed down to Manchester, Tenn. this weekend, the official Bonnaroo festival app allowed users to “check in” to performances ahead of time, in order to announce their music-watching intentions and see which performers were the “most scheduled” of the weekend. Not surprisingly, headliners Elton John, Kanye West and Jack White were among the most scheduled artists of this year’s fest, with over 20,000 checking in to each main stage extravaganza. But what about the “least scheduled” artists — those scrappy groups playing to crowds that statistics indicated were going to be tiny? Who were these artists out of the 300 listed performers at Bonnaroo, why were they the least scheduled, and did they deserve to have less than 100 people “check in” to their shows?

Mixtapes: Part 2

Of course, there are many mixtapes I’ve made over the years, and I can’t help but diving back into this topic.

So, let’s take a look at some of my Greatest Hits over the years. I have lost some of my mixes, but they were mostly shitty anyway so I’m not too worried about that.

Gangsta Grande Grillz GRIP GRIP GRIP GRIP – For most of my mixtapes, a bizarre and unnecessarily long title is usually present. This is a 51 song playlist that I made based on news there would be a way to play music at the after party of my sister’s wedding.

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Mixtapes: Part 1

My bathroom reading for the past week or so has been Cassette From My Ex which, coincidentally, was also the last new book I bought. I’ve always had a bit of a propensity for making mixtapes (for this entire piece just know I use mixtape as a synonym for playlist even though there are some differences) or lists of any kind and I purchased the book a few months before my trip to Asia. I guess I was feeling nostalgic about the past (when am I not feeling nostalgic?), and a collection of short stories about music, ex-loves, and mixtapes seemed mighty appealing.

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Modern Vampires of the City (2013)

Somehow I missed the boat on listening to Vampire Weekend’s latest album, Modern Vampires of the City, when it was released last year. I had never been much of a Vampire Weekend fan or at least I had never given them much of a chance, so I delayed and delayed until finally I scheduled a time to process the album. There is a song on the album that affects me much more than it should. It’s always interesting how a certain chord progression or vocal melody or whatever can inspire a powerful reaction in its listener.

The particular moment came to me in song three, Step, when in the chorus the singer, Ezra Koenig, belts the lyric, “I feel it in my bones, I feel it in my boooooneeees.” For some inexplicable reason, the second iteration of “bones” affects my soul like nothing else.

“I feel it in my booooooooneeess.”

God. I am so jealous. What a wonderful feeling to affect a person in such a way that they keep repeating and repeating and repeating and dissecting and listening and consuming the same exact three seconds. Is it pure luck to create something so beautiful? Is it the result of thousands of hours of effort? Is it the random result of God smiling down upon his ignorant heathens? What is it? What is it that forms such beauty?