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motaman
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Bonnaroo Traffic Slows Down And So Do Arrests
#5760082 - 06/17/06 09:15 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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http://www.newschannel9.com/engine.pl?station=wtvc&id=4989&template=breakout_story1.shtml
Bonnaroo Traffic Slows Down And So Do Arrests
Angela Lee June 16, 2006 - 5:49PM Manchester is just north of Monteagle, Tennessee and thousands of people are making their way to the four day music festival. And that means a lot of traffic is moving through the Tennessee Valley, especially on Interstate 24. So, News Channel 9 took a road trip to see how traffic sized up -- When our camera's left Manchester, Tennessee Friday afternoon, traffic looked like it would any other weekend. However, law enforcement pulling cars over near the Hamilton County, Tennessee and Dade County, Georgia lines is causing a few back-ups.
As for Bonnaroo – the Music and Art Festival is well underway. By now most of the 80-thousand Bonnaroo ticket holders have set up camp.
In Marion County our camera's caught up with Bonnaroo traveler Daryl Lobo. Arriving Friday is no big deal to this Orlando, Florida native. Lobo says he is making one last stop before heading across Monteagle Mountain to get to Bonnaroo. He says he's glad he came Friday -- adding this year traffic isn't that bad. He adds, he's seen --”Just a little construction but not bad at all. It's good. I mean we haven't got there yet but the last time I was here it took us 14 hours to go a couple of miles. So, I really hope we don't run into something like that now.”
But with so many people -- getting to Bonnaroo wasn't so easy Thursday. Ava Davis says 143 is the last exit before crossing Monteagle Mountain. She says since 1:00 A.M., Thursday - she's seen her share of "Bonnarooers." Davis says, “Off and on for the last day and a half, I'd say at least 20,000.” Stragglers are still trickling in. The biggest traffic jam we found is on the Manchester festival grounds. One by one ticket holders arrive -and the Coffee County Sheriff's Department randomly checks cars. Detective Frank Watkins says they are looking for, “Guns, knives, weapons, illegal narcotics and things of that nature.” These searches turn up all kinds of things. Detective Watkins shows our camera mushrooms, pipes, hallucinogenic pills and marijuana. He says one bag of pot confiscated Thursday weighed in at 2.9 ounces. Detective Watkins says, “We do find acid, LSD, PCP, and Nitrous tanks.” But even with THAT this Coffee County detective says so far this year is better than years past. He says, “My information is we are down in numbers as far as citations and arrests. Last year, we issued over 215 citations and I believe it was 40 or 50 arrests.”
Coffee County Sheriff's office says as of Friday afternoon there's been 32 arrests and they've issued 43 citations. The reason for arrests range from disorderly conduct, breaking into cars and drug charges. Tonight rock group Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers take the stage.
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motaman
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Bonnaroo drug arrests down 50%, sheriff says [Re: motaman]
#5767122 - 06/19/06 07:59 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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http://www.fairviewobserver.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060619/ENTERTAINMENT0104/606190336
Bonnaroo drug arrests down 50%, sheriff says
By RACHEL STULTS For The Tennessean
Published: Monday, 06/19/06
MANCHESTER, Tenn. — Despite the obvious presence of drugs such as marijuana, hallucinogenic mushrooms and Ecstasy at Bonnaroo this year, drug arrests and citations were down 50 percent as of Sunday afternoon, Coffee County Sheriff Steve Graves said.
Arrests totaled 76 for all the law-enforcement agencies working the area, and the Coffee County Sheriff's Department had issued just over 100 citations. Most of the charges were drug-related, Graves said, but the quantity of drugs found at Bonnaroo this year was nowhere near what has been found in recent years.
"It's a good thing," Graves said. "So far, everything went better than expected."
But Bonnaroo fans aren't quick to believe that drugs use has dropped significantly.
"I'm high right now," said Earl Carter, 26, of Pasadena, Md., jokingly.
Brad Mitchell, 24, also of Pasadena, Md., said quantities of marijuana may be down, but harder drugs are still making the rounds.
"I'm gonna tell you what's really true," Mitchell said. "It's easier to get hard drugs in because it doesn't stink and they're smaller. You can get whatever you want here."
Some "Roonies" acknowledged that security has tightened — and noted that "there are undercover cops dressed like hippies everywhere" — but said that has only led to an increase in underground drug sales.
"People are more quiet about it, and quiet about selling it," said Christy Walsh, 23, of Culpepper, Va. "Instead of running around screaming that they've got drugs, they're selling to their friends or people they know. It's less advertised, but it's still there."
Drug-traffic control may have been more successful this year, but the event wasn't all smooth sailing.
Joshua Overall, 21, of Hamilton, Ohio, was killed when he walked in front of bluegrass star Ricky Skaggs' tour bus near the Bonnaroo festival site Friday night. Overall, who was wearing a Bonnaroo wristband, climbed over a chain-link right-of-way fence and walked into westbound traffic on Interstate 24 when he was struck by the bus, according to Tennessee Department of Safety officials.
On Thursday night, an unidentified man fell after he climbed, naked, up the scaffolding of a stage during a performance of the band Dios (Malos) and was airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Bonnaroo officials said.
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motaman
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Hippies and Hipsters in a Dancing Mood at Bonnaroo Festival [Re: motaman]
#5767136 - 06/19/06 08:04 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/arts/music/19bonn.html?_r=1
June 19, 2006 Critic's Notebook Hippies and Hipsters in a Dancing Mood at Bonnaroo Festival By JON PARELES
MANCHESTER, Tenn., June 18 — Radiohead was a dance band when it headlined the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival here on Saturday night. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were a dance band. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the pride of indie-rock, was a dance band. Ricky Skaggs and his bluegrass band Kentucky Thunder were a dance band. If the Juilliard String Quartet had performed at Bonnaroo, it would have been a dance band too. Standing in the 700-acre pasture in Tennessee that has been Bonnaroo's home since it started in 2001, fans get physical with music presented in happy excess.
Bonnaroo started as a festival of jam bands: fast-fingered, long-playing, perpetually touring groups that would rather have a good time than act cool and hip. The tie-dyed trappings and collegiate dreadlocks of jam-band followers invite mockery, but behind them is at least some remnant of 1960's utopianism. Jam bands often refer fans back to their sources — in blues, jazz, country, funk, reggae, world music — and Bonnaroo books a broad assortment. The first Bonnaroo sold 70,000 tickets without advertising; after growing to 90,000 in 2004, the festival put a cap on its capacity at 80,000 and was sold out this year.
But there was change at the top of the bill. Radiohead and Mr. Petty, two of the three headliners — those who play long prime-time sets without four other stages of competition — aren't known as jam bands, though Mr. Petty drew an affirmative roar when he asked the audience, "Can I jam for you?" He did. In "Refugee" the Heartbreakers' guitarist, Mike Campbell, switched his tone and technique to emulate Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, the jam-band patriarchs. Over the last five years jam bands have receded slightly. The Dave Matthews Band, a past draw at Bonnaroo, still jams its way across the arena and stadium circuit. But the Grateful Dead fragmented after Garcia's death in 1995, with the survivors occasionally gathering as the Dead (who headlined Bonnaroo in 2004) and many spinoffs. One spinoff, Phil Lesh and Friends, was Sunday night's scheduled finale this year.
Phish, once an arena staple, disbanded in 2004. Two of its members — the guitarist Trey Anastasio and the bassist Mike Gordon — performed separately and together this weekend. At Superjam in the wee hours of Sunday morning, Mr. Anastasio and Mr. Gordon unveiled new songs they had written together. "I see you coming back again," they sang in the anthemic "Seasons." Was it a reunion tease?
Jam-circuit regulars like Moe, Umphrey's McGee, Robert Randolph, the Disco Biscuits, and Medeski Martin and Wood were here this year. Oysterhead — the trio of Mr. Anastasio, Primus's bassist Les Claypool and the Police's drummer, Stewart Copeland — regrouped to play songs that are basically funk vamps with cackling, sometimes obliquely political lyrics from Mr. Claypool.
But listeners impatient with jam-band noodling had other choices. My Morning Jacket, in a midnight set on Friday night, left behind the electronic experiments of its most recent album, "Z," and unleashed its three guitars in songs that pealed and surged in structures with monumental architecture. Then it turned to other bands' material, including the Who's mini-opera "A Quick One While He's Away."
There was leathery, impassioned soul from Bettye LaVette and a surprisingly extroverted set by Cat Power with her Memphis Rhythm Band. Bright Eyes played Conor Oberst's confessional, self-conscious songs as a mixture of melodrama and hoedown. Buddy Guy teased and streaked through his blues.
A Saturday-afternoon set by Beck had a comic veneer — lip-syncing marionettes behind the band — that didn't mask the somber thoughts of love and death in his songs. Damian Jr. Gong Marley, one of Bob Marley's sons, didn't just follow his father's style. He not only sang but also toasted, or rapped, in the dancehall style that dominates current reggae. He also asked, "Do you like Bob Marley?" and then played Marley songs (like "Bad Card" and "Zimbabwe") that many had apparently never heard.
There was an all-star New Orleans contingent at the festival: the idealistic funk of the Neville Brothers, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the alliance of Elvis Costello and the New Orleans songwriter Allen Toussaint, whose piano and Crescent City Horns carry Mr. Costello's songs south. Their fierce mambo-funk arrangement of "Bedlam" may be the first time New Orleans horns have tangled with a theremin. Dr. John gave Bonnaroo's neo-hippies a glimpse of vintage psychedelia when he appeared in full Night Tripper regalia — feathered headdress, fur-trimmed cape — with songs from his voodoo-steeped 1968 album "Gris-Gris."
And of course there was Radiohead, playing a magnificent set. Its songs were bleak, complex and filled with tensions: lush melody attacked by noise, rhythm pulling against rhythm, a lone guitar suddenly caught up in crescendos like earthquakes. Yet Thom Yorke was dancing across the stage as he sang, twirling and twitching and jittering, making his own kind of Bonnaroo groove. Not like a hippie, but not painfully hip either.
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motaman
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Registered: 12/18/02
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'Sweaty hippies,' rock fans share Bonnaroo [Re: motaman]
#5767145 - 06/19/06 08:07 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060618/ap_en_ot/music_bonnaroo_2
'Sweaty hippies,' rock fans share Bonnaroo
By KRISTIN M. HALL, Associated Press WriterSun Jun 18, 3:04 PM ET
As Beck took the stage at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, he had dancers in bear suits and a band that played on water glasses and dinner plates.
He also had a puppet alter-ego take a swipe at "sweaty hippies stinking of patchouli" — a friendly jab at his audience and the jam-band culture that has supported Bonnaroo over its first five years.
The camping and music festival on a 700-acre Tennessee farm still has its neo-hippies and free spirits, but Bonnaroo has grown into something more than a celebration of endless guitar solos.
Rather than be pigeonholed into the jam-band scene, Bonnaroo has diversified its lineup to include major artists in rap, blues, indie rock and this year, classic rockers like Tom Petty and Elvis Costello.
"At first it was a jam band festival. But is it still?" said Mike Gordon of the former jam band Phish. "There still is a lot of jamming. I think it's grown in respect. It's not considered a niche festival anymore."
Or perhaps it just proves that hippies will listen to anything — as long as it's not heavy metal or punk.
Ashley Capps, owner of AC Entertainment in Knoxville, which co-organizes Bonnaroo with Superfly Productions, said the performances by Petty and the British band Radiohead were watershed moments for the festival.
"From the beginning, we were a music festival that was about the music," Capps said. "We never saw ourselves being limited to one genre or another."
David Taylor, 25, and Lucy Cornford, 24, said the only reason they came from London to attend Bonnaroo was to see a number of indie and underground rock bands like Bright Eyes, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Beck.
"We normally go to Glastonbury (Festival), but they didn't have one this year and there were so many good bands we wanted to see at Bonnaroo," Taylor said.
The festival accommodated 80,000 fans — many of whom spent the entire weekend camped out on the concert site. More than 100 performers played on 10 different stages this year.
Tom Petty's headlining performance Friday showed that even well-known artists can surprise an audience. Stevie Nicks joined Petty for a re-enactment of their 1981 duet, "Stop Dragging My Heart Around."
"I've seen him five times before," said Kimberly English, of Cleveland. "But I saw another side to him that night. He was like a master of ceremonies."
Adding new artists each year gives fans like English a reason to come back.
"If they didn't change the lineup, they wouldn't be holding to what Bonnaroo is all about," English said while watching Elvis Costello perform with jazz composer and producer Allen Toussaint on Saturday.
Costello and Toussaint, both new to Bonnaroo this year, put together a set that included New Orleans jazz with some of Costello's new wave classics. The band performed "Pump It Up" and "Alison," updated with the crisp sound of their New Orleans horn section.
"Most of my life is spent in the studio," Toussaint said. "I am seeing things that I have not witnessed before. It's a whole spirit that I haven't seen."
The pair recently released "The River in Reverse," a collection of new songs written by Costello along with some of Toussaint's songs from the '60s and the '70s.
In addition to the dancing bears, Beck played songs from his entire career — from "Where It's At" off his 1996 album "Odelay" to tracks off his soon-to-be released new album.
In the weekend's most anticipated show, Radiohead played a crowd-pleasing 2 1/2-hour set that included songs from the band's past albums and some unreleased songs.
The crowd roared during the crashing crescendos in songs like "Idioteque," but singer and guitarist Thom Yorke silenced the large crowd with his haunting vocals on "Exit Music "For A Film" off the album "OK Computer."
The festival closed Sunday with former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh and Friends, blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt and New York rockers Sonic Youth.
There was one death at Bonnaroo this year. A man wearing a Bonnaroo admission armband was killed Friday when he was struck by the tour bus carrying bluegrass artist Ricky Skaggs.
Two people died from drug overdoses at Bonnaroo in 2004, and one man was found dead in his tent last year. Witnesses said he suffered from sleep apnea, but authorities said there were indications of unspecified drugs in his system.
The organizers currently rent the farmland, located 60 miles southeast of Nashville, but there are plans to make the festival more permanent, Capps said.
"We've established a good relationship with the people in Coffee County and we would like to keep the festival here," Capps said.
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Koala Koolio
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Registered: 01/07/04
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Re: 'Sweaty hippies,' rock fans share Bonnaroo [Re: motaman]
#5768313 - 06/19/06 02:44 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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In other words:
People saw the shit going down at wakarusa and hid their shit better, or carried less on them.
-------------------- You're not like the others. You like the same things I do. Wax paper, boiled football leather... dog breath. We're not hitch-hiking anymore, we're riding!
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