Friday at Bonnaroo

Kings of Leon.  Daryl Hall and Chromeo.  Tenacious D.  The Flaming Lips performing Dark Side of the Moon.  Kid Cudi.  The Crystal Method.  Steve Martin.  Conan O’Brian…. Are you kidding me?  Bonnaroo’s Friday was super jam packed with amazing acts throughout the day.

Admittedly, I’m not the biggest fan of Kings of Leon.  I do like their newest album, and a few other tracks, but had never gotten into them like B has.  “Kings of Leon is going to melt my face,” B said.  Hey, at least they’re not Dave Matthews… Oh.  Wait, they’re here too.  Oi.  On the other hand, I’ve been very intrigued by the odd pairing of Daryl Hall and Chromeo.  Hall and Oates is a band that you tend to forget about the legion of hits that they had put out over the years, until you hear them and think, ‘oh yeah… they wrote that too!’

So, back to the festival…  The heat has been brutal, the people have been crazy, and the music has been superb.  Friday’s action was non-stop with Conan O’Brian kicking off the day to thousands of people.  No, not just the lucky ones who made it into the tent, but to 10,000+ people watching him on the Lunar Stage screen.  It didn’t make any sense that he didn’t perform on the main stage.  His crowd would have been larger than Chris Rock’s.  Conan’s show was a mix of music and standup, which would have gone very well on a large stage.  Oh well.  The Train isn’t the show promoter.

Nas and Damian Marley tore it up midday.  They had a solid balance of solo songs as well as tracks off of their album.  We then swung over to She and Him, which had an enormous crowd.  Zooey can definitely sing her ass off.  There was a great chill vibe flowing through the crowd. Maybe it was the huge green cloud surrounding the tent.

Later, we headed to the Tenacious D set.  I was a bit skeptical about how they’d sound live, but they certainly proved me wrong.  The Kage Man and Jack Black can tear it up.  The show was extremely high energy, and the whole crowd was very into it.  Jack can sing much better than I had originally remembered.  I was extremely impressed with the entire show.

Next up were B’s boys, Kings of Leon…. (To be Continued)