Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, Inc. (a 501 ©3 non-profit organization) was formed over twenty years ago to meet the increasing need for wildlife assistance in the Greater St. Louis area and surrounding counties.  Each year, over a thousand injured, ill or orphaned wild mammals are received by Wildlife Rehab Clinic rehabilitators.

We care for all native Missouri wildlife. In the last year alone we have successfully rehabilitated and released red foxes, raccoons, opossums, beavers, skunks, squirrels, rabbits, groundhogs, flying squirrels, and one very special American Badger.  The techniques used to care for these animals maximize their chances for survival when they are returned to their native habitat. Our volunteers attend training courses and seminars to acquire the specialized skills necessary to give these creatures the best care possible.

The goal of rehabilitation is the release of the animal back into the wild in a physical condition that optimizes survival. Rehabilitation involves evaluation of the injury, illness or age of the orphan. A treatment plan is then developed and followed.  The healthy animal is placed in caging to build muscle tone and learn the necessary survival skills that they will need for their future.

Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, Inc. is eager to share our message of peaceful co-existence with all things wild; respect for ourselves, each other and our environment; as well as responsible stewardship of our environment and wildlife ecosystems through educational experiences with the public.  Twice per year we invite the public inside our facilities in order to see first-hand the animals that we strive to serve.

On May 2^nd, 2010, our Spring Open House event will occur from 1:00pm – 5:00pm at our facility, located at 1864 Little Brennan Road, High Ridge, MO 63049.  It is the one opportunity per year for members of the public to get a behind-the-scenes look at the Wildlife Rehab Clinic’s facility, and our spring baby patrons.  Our rehabilitation staff will be present to introduce the public, adults and children alike, to our wild neighbors, up close and personally.

In addition to our own educational programs and activities and clinic tours, we will have several fundraising endeavors underway.  During the Open House there will be a BBQ, raffles, a silent auction with several family vacation packages available, face painting, balloons, ice cream, and a full gift shop. The St. Louis Herpetological Society, House Rabbit Society, and St. Louis Children’s Zoo will be in attendance with even more animals to enjoy as well.  The event is always a huge success with families and people from all walks of life.  We hope to see over 1000 people in attendance this year.

Caring for orphaned and injured wildlife is expensive. Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, Inc. does not receive any federal, state or local government support. All of our operating funds come from concerned individuals and corporations. Your support is critical to our success.

If you or someone you know are part of an organization that would like to sponsor or assist the Wildlife Rehab Clinic’s Open House event, please call our event hotline at (636) 674 – WILD.  To report a wildlife related incident please call (636) 677 – 3670.

When Thursday came around I was a little nervous. I am not the most outgoing person in the world and doing things like this on my own aren’t something I am usually comfortable with. I decided to get over it and go help some animals. When I arrived I was greeted by two very friendly, helpful volunteers. They gave us (two other new volunteers) a quick tour of the building which was a retrofitted Sonic, pretty cool. The animal load is pretty light at the moment, a few racoons, some beavers, some squirrels, and a super friendly opossum.

I was very impressed with the organization of the clinic. Every animal has strict diet that gets them all of the nutrients they need as well as keeping close to with what the will eat when they are released back to the wild. It really made everything less overwhelming.

We started off by cleaning several squirrel cages and feeding them their dinner. The clinic has two shifts per pay so the animals had eaten in the morning. After taking care of the squirrels we moved on to the raccoons. They are really cool animals. The ones at the clinic are late babies from last year so they stayed at the clinic over the winter. Some of them like to stick their hands out of the fence and let you shake it. Very cool. The beaver cages didn’t need much cleaning so their food was just replenished. We moved on to the indoor animals including my favorite, an opossum. It is such a sweet and cool animal.

I am really looking forward to my time helping out at the clinic. Great bunch of people who care deeply about the animals and getting them back into the wild.

The URL for the clinic is: http://www.wild-life-rehab.com

I will ask if I can get some pictures next time.

Stay well.

Long Exposure Night Shot from Hotel

Day two of OpenWorld was Monday the 12th. It was my first day of sessions although there were some yesterday but after the flight delays and getting registered I was not able to make any of the ones I wanted to. Not a huge deal, I am sure throughout the rest of the week I will learn more than I bargained for.

Before I get into day two I wanted to finish talking about Sunday. After the keynote speech we met up with some folks from EMC for dinner. They took us to the Franciscan. This restaurant is located in the tourist popular area called Fisherman’s Wharf. As you can guess this is primarily a place to get fish. Sticking with this theme I ordered the Halibut with Spicy Tomato Conserva and baby heirloom potatos. It was fantastic, the dish had just enough spice but didn’t overpower the fish. I would order it again in a heartbeat. The EMC guys ordered a couple of the meat appetizers which were also great. If they read this I want to thank them for the fantastic dinner(s) this week. After dinner we walked back to their hotel and had the hotel car take us back to the Kabuki. The ride back is a story for another blog, but the driver did take us down the steepest street in the city which was kind of cool.

Jumping back to day two, the day started at 8:30am with a keynote speech from Charles Phillips, and Safra Katz, both presidents at Oracle. They started out with what would be the theme of most of the conference, open standards and listening to the customers needs. She spoke about how they (Oracle) needs to ship products that work with open standards. The products should work well with other Oracle offerings as well as other vendor software. Anyone who works in IT will probably agree that half of the challenge (if not more than half) is just getting all of the tools we are given to work together in a stable and consistent manner.

After the first keynote was over, I had to leave and did not get to hear Ann Livermore from HP speak. I signed up for some additional ‘Develop’ sessions for the conference. These sessions are hands on labs with instructors and they were meant to challenge the participant while teaching them skills in real world situations. My first session was called ‘Latency is a bug: Tuning your JVM for Optimal Performance’. I won’t bore my non-technical readers with deep details but it was basically a session on using Jrockit Mission Control to tune a real world application. The session was well laid out, the exercises were just the right level of difficulty. I hope they put them online as I would really like my team members to go through the process. It provides a good insight into how the JVM works and why changing certain things, even a little bit, can severely impact performance.

My second session was ‘Adavance Java Diagnostics and Profiling with JRockit Mission Control’. This session was similar to the first in that it used the same base tool. It started out with a few quick lessons on navigating mission control(not really advanced) and went into how to dig down in the application code to look for bottlenecks and how to fix these bottlenecks to improve performance. This session was very helpful as well.

I will save the rest of the session overviews for a later date and talk about the rest of the day. I had a short break in-between sessions so I grabbed the Oracle provided lunch, it was not that great, the food at TechEd was 100 times better. Typical ham sandwich and mediocre cake thing for dessert. I went to a keynote given by the ‘Father of Java’ and went back to the room for a quick nap. The time change had caught up to me at this point. Even two hours can throw you off pretty good.

After the last session of the day we met back up with the EMC folks again and had a fantastic dinner at Castagnola’s on Fisherman’s Wharf. The dinner was typical geek talk with some good conversation thrown in. I had the lobster tail with asparagus and french fries. It was the best lobster I have ever eaten. Dinner always seems to taste better when someone else is buying. We closed the place down (10:30pm) and headed back to the hotel to get some much needed rest.

I did have a funny/scary moment when trying to take pictures of the street near the Hilton. I was framing a shot and out of the corner of my eye I see this lady coming darting across the road. She stopped in the middle of my viewfinder. She was dressed in crazy clothes that didn’t match were all kinds of different, bright colors and obviously had not been washed in some time. I am guessing she was homeless but I really have no idea. She turned and looked at me and mumbled something. I politely asked her what she said and she walked about five feet to my side. I let it go and started to frame another shot. I hear her again and turn to look, when I look at her I see she is flipping me off. She said, “You better not be taking my picture” at least 10 times very quickly. I decided I should leave. I noticed her about 10 minutes later a little down the block giving random people the finger as they walked by. I didn’t have my camera out and was running late or else I would have gotten the picture that time.

Tower at Japanese Peace Garden

Random Street Shot

Oracle Racing Boat

$2200 fine for tampering with smoke alarm

Fast forward to the hotel as getting luggage and find the shuttle was a non-event. We are staying at the Hotel Kabuki which is located in the Japantown area of San Francisco. The hotel definitely lives up to its promise of delivering a western style hotel with a Japanese touch. I will get some pictures of the lobby before I leave. The room itself is very nice, two double beds, 15th floor, looking out over the city, small balcony, LCD television, wireless internet. Everything is very clean and well decorated. So far I would recommend looking at this hotel if you are ever in the area.

View from my hotel room #1

View from my hotel room #2

Sliding doors to patio in hotel room

After checking into the hotel we made our way to the Moscone Center to check in to the conference. This was pretty uneventful as well, got our backpacks, schedules, meal tickets and headed off to eat a late lunch (it was 4:30pm local time by the time we actually ate). I can’t remember the name of the restaurant but it is right next to the registration area and had some huge televisions with sports on. I chose the sausage spaghetti, it was decent, some crushed red pepper flakes cooked with the sauce gave it a little bite. After dinner we headed over to the keynote session for the evening.

The evening keynote was delivered by Scott McNealy, the Chairman of Sun Microsystems. Since Sun is in the middle of being acquired my Oracle this keynote was sort of a farewell speech for Scott who is one of the original founders of Sun. The speech was also intended to ease fears of Oracle buying Sun and dropping the technology that made the company what it is (Solaris, SPARC, Java, MySQL, etc).  Scott did a couple top ten lists which I will try to find at some point and then went into the future of Java with Oracle. He brought out James Gosling who is known as the ‘Father of Java’ and the two talked about how they were confident that Oracle would continue on the path to deliver great new innovations in the Java space while keeping the core values of platform.

After James and Scott were done, Scott brought Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle) on the stage to talk. Larry continued on with the theme of how much better computing will become when the merger is complete and how Oracle wasn’t going to destroy key Sun technologies but instead invest more money in developing them and utilizing them to continue to revolutionize computing. I will write more about the keynote and the rest of the evening in the next blog, it is time to get ready for the sessions today. There are several I am really looking forward to including tuning a JVM.

Shot from Keynote Hall

Shot from Keynote Hall #2

An unexpected Tweet from @versadave last night led me out to the Firebird for the first time. The venue is nice, the staff were all friendly, sound was good. I recommend going to see some bands there, I will sure be back. The three bands on the bill were The Features, Autovaughn, and Fractured Army. They all put on a decent shows although I like Autovaughn the best. The Firebird was kind enough to let cameras in so we figured we would try our hand at taking some concert pictures. I didn’t realize it would be so tough. Only four or five pictures turned out good enough to keep and they aren’t even that great. the Canon 28-135 was not the optimal lens for the dimly lit conditions. It doesn’t help that I am new to photography in general. This was definitely a learning experience!

The other pictures I got are on my Flickr.

@versadave had similar problems, check out his post here.

Normal morning routine, wake up, wipe down, cook breakfast/lunch, and head to Centeroo. This time we got a little distracted on the way in and decided to check out some of the vendors on Shakedown Street in a little more depth. We did a pretty thorough walk through admiring all of the wares and resisting the urge to buy anything, I have enough stuff as it is. Like I mentioned in the previous post, if you want it, you can find it. Outside of Centeroo there were more pipes for sale although I am not sure if they weren’t supposed to sell them or not because they were usually all the way in the back of the tents. Another popular ware was handmade hammocks, I know there were at least three or four different places selling them. I wish I would have taken more pictures of the vendor stands but I was so interested in looking that it just slipped my mind.

We made our way to Centeroo at around 12:45pm in order to score a good spot for “Ted Leo and the Pharmacists”. They have become another of my favorite bands as of late.  They are a rock/punk/indie band from D.C.  The band lineup has changed several times since it was formed but the front man, Ted Leo, has remained constant. Showing up early paid off, we were able to score a spot right on the rail to the right of the stage. It was right in front of the speaker stack so it was pretty loud, we decided to live with it.  When we got there Ted and the band were setting up their own stage, I would have thought they were big enough to have roadies to help or maybe they just like to do it themselves. They actually finishing setting up a couple minutes early and decided to get the show started.  The whole set was fantastic. Pulling songs from all (I believe) of their albums they can cover the gamut from pop rock, to punk, to indie rock, all of it very danceable. One of the funnier moments of the show was when someone knocked a giant beach ball on stage Ted head butted it right back into the crowd. That really shows how into the concert experience he is, all about making the fans happy. I also want to give them props for complimenting the tent staff, he mentioned how impressed the band was with the ability to make their festival experience a good one.

After the show, we decided to go ride the Ferris Wheel and check out the view from above.  If you ever go to Bonnaroo this is something you must do. You get a really good view of just how MASSIVE everything is from up there. It is a typical carnival type wheel so if those scare you, avoid it.  After the ride we strolled around and listened in on several other sets including Robert Earl Keen, and Andrew Bird.  From the time we were at both, they sounded pretty good.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists	Lookout Tower from Ferris Wheel	Campground from Ferris Wheel
Centeroo from Ferris Wheel	I have no idea, this guy was there for a couple hours though	The Dirty Guv’Nahs

The plan for the afternoon/evening was to catch Snoop Dogg’s first song and the jet over to The Dirty Guv’nahs.  About 15 minutes after Snoop was scheduled to come one someone came on stage and said he was in his car on the way to the site.  We stayed long enough to hear “The Next Episode” and then went over to the Budweiser Troo Music Lounge to see a band I have become very fond of.

My like of The Dirty Guv’Nahs started with a Twitter follow from the band. Before this I had never even heard of them. I decided to check out their MySpace page and instantly loved the music. They are a rock/southern rock band from Knoxville. I really think these guys should/will be big freakin huge. They have an infectious sound that just makes the body move and almost forces you to sing along. They are one of the most passionate bands I have ever seen play. Lead singer James Trimble is awesome to watch, you can tell he (and the whole band) is passionate about their music. If you get anything out of this blog, I suggest you check them out. They played most of the songs off their debut self titled album (buy it on itunes).  My favorite of the set was “Brown Little Bird”. They also did a great cover of one of my favorite songs, the Rolling Stone’s “Loving Cup”. This was a good a version as I have ever heard, which is awesome because sound-wise I compare these guys to the stones. The Troo Music Lounge isn’t one of the main stages so at this particular time-slot (Snoop Dogg, Band of Horses, Neko Case, and Coheed & Cambria also playing) there wasn’t a big crowd in the beginning. The thing that impressed me was almost everyone who wondered through the area stopped and listened to the rest of the set. I had at least three people ask me who they were and say they sounded awesome. Toward the end of the show James jumped off stage and ran like a madman through the crowd, this just shows the energy these guys have, especially since it was pretty hot outside. Seriously, check them out.

After the Guv’Nah’s set we rushed back over to What Stage to get a spot for Phish. We ended up in the same spot as Friday night and had a nice conversation with the taper that was set up there. We sat down and waited the hour plus before Phish took the stage. I am not going to review the whole show, but I will talk about three amazing songs. Toward the end of the first set Trey stopped playing and told a story about going to his first concert and how energetic the band was and how much he loved the experience. He then introduced his “boyhood and still hero” Bruce Springsteen. When Bruce came out the crowd went into an uproar, cheering “Bruuuuuce”. Phish and Bruce played “Mustang Sally”, “Glory Days”, and “Bobby Jean”. All three songs were a hit, Bruce took over the stage almost directing Phish when to solo Trey and Bruce traded several fantastic solo parts back and forth. It really was a great experience and one that likely wouldn’t have happened anywhere except Bonnaroo.  After the Bruce sit in, the band left the stage. They came back on stage some time later and played a great second set, closing the show with “Suzy Greenburg” and a reprise of “Tweezer”. (You can buy/listen to the show here) After that, the music at Bonnaroo was over.

After the Phish show, we picked up some of the trash people left around us, threw it away, and headed back to camp. We heard cars leaving and people partying well into the night as we drifted off to sleep. On Monday we woke up, broke down camp, said goodbye to the campground neighbors and headed back to Belleville. Its crazy how fast the whole experience went by, it seemed like we were planning forever and it was over in an instant. We will do it again, and besides a few minor packing changes, we won’t change a thing. Sometimes it is nice to just get away and leave everything behind for a while.

This guys was wow-ing the crowd with his ball	Sunset through the crowd
Phish on stage – Sunday Night	We saw a lot of this, random guy passed out

Somehow in the last three posts I failed to mention what would become the staple of my diet for the weekend.  Bearly Edible’s grilled cheese sandwiches.  I have a hard time describing these delicious slices (pun intended) of heaven but trust me, they were amazing.  I believe I had 12 over the course of the weekend.  Almost every time I walked buy I would pick one up.  At only a dollar each they were the cheapest/most filling thing to eat at the festival.  The bread as perfectly grilled, whatever type of cheese they used was scrumptious, and the special seasoning they put on created what could be the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. If you are ever at a festival and see these guys, do yourself a favor and stop.  the staff was all super friendly, and the food was delicious.  I did not get a chance to try one but their pesto mozadillas also looked fantastic.

Back to the shows, the original line-up included a “Ilo and the Coral Reefer AllStars”.  The “Coral Reefers” being the name of Jimmy Buffett’s backing band.  I had no idea who Ilo was.  I can’t recall exactly when I heard the news, but at some point I heard Jimmy Buffett would be playing with these guys.  I am not a huge Buffett fan, but I had never seen him live and his simple, often whimsical songs have a way of growing on you so we decided to go.  I won’t go into all of the details of who Ilo is but the short version is that he was discovered by Buffett and several friends in a bar in Cape Verde and brought back to the states to record/play some music.

Buffett, as most people know, draws a certain kind of crowd.  His “parrotheads” all know and love his music.  I will go out on a limb and say that 97% of the people at the show were not parrotheads (myself included).  The show was enjoyable, although nothing particularly special for me.  He played several of his classics including “Margaritaville” and, “Cheeseburger in Paradise”.  A couple covers were thrown in “Scarlet Begonias” (Grateful Dead), and “Brown Eyed Girl” (most overplayed song ever?).  All of the songs seemed solid enough to me and most of the crowd got into them, dancing and doing the whole landshark thing when appropriate.  We didn’t have a great view of the stage because we wanted to stay in the shade but Ilo sounded good when he did his song(s).  Overall I am glad we stopped by to hear this set, although I doubt I will ever feel the need to see Buffett again (unless I don’t have to pay for tickets).

After the Buffett/Ilo/Coral Reefer show we decided to go do some more exploring. Did I mention there was a TON of other stuff to do besides see music?  We walked around and checked out all of the vendors.  The Superfly crew does an awesome job of pulling many different types/styles of vendors together.  There was everything you could think of.  You could make your own drum, buy jewelry made from guitar parts, buy pet clothes, check out a running store, look at and purchase concert posters and photos, and get a henna tattoo.  We spent around two hours just browsing through the different booths.  At 3pm we decided to walk by the Booker T and the DBT’s set and head back to camp to eat an early dinner and get back in time for the evening shows.  (Didn’t see enough of this show to say anything about it, show is here for streaming/downloading if you are interested.)

One of the other band’s I was most excited about seeing on the trip was the indie pop band from Athens, GA called “Of Montreal“.  I don’t have mush exposure to this group other than through their latest album Skeletal Lamping which, to me, is absolutely insane.  I still do not know what half the songs on the album even mean, but damn are they catchy.  These guys could be categorized as indie pop, or just plain crazy.  The show started out with a little sound trouble but quickly picked up speed and turned into about what I was expecting.  Great pop music and even better happenings on the stage.  The show ended with what is not the most happy song in the world, “The Past Is A Grotesque Animal”.  The set ended with one of the scantily clad performers on the stage crowd surfing clear out to the soundboard, various people in animal costumes fighting, guitars being destroyed, and general chaos.  Amazing energy, great songs, fun to watch.  I really dug this show.  I suspect they will be back at Bonnaroo at some point, maybe with late night set?

Crowd for Buffett, bobble heads in background

Drum Circle in Campground

Truck stuck in mud by camp, that’s me in the back.

After “Of Montreal” was done we booked it over to “What Stage” to see Wilco’s set.  If you have not seen Wilco live, you should.  Great band, and I am not just saying this because they started in Belleville.  Amazing guitar work and songs that are guaranteed to get your body moving.  If you aren’t familiar with them I suggest starting on either the album Sky Blue Sky or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, both are excellent albums and worth a listen or twenty.  Something pretty cool that happened during the set was the hot air balloon that floated overhead.  Having been in one I can say it would be awesome epic to see Bonnaroo from up there.

People still seem confused when I talk about Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band playing Bonnaroo.  I sort of agree with them, it doesn’t seem like as natural a fit as Phish or Wilco does but they were there and for the most part, they were great.  They were scheduled for a three and a half hour slot on the main stage Saturday night.  They were on stage pretty close to on time (from what i remember) and played right up till the end.  The Boss is someone else I have never seen in concert but I am glad I finally got the chance.  I respect their music although I can’t say I am a huge fan so I don’t know their catalog very deeply.  For my money, almost no group of musicians is a talented, comfortable, and charismatic on stage as these guys.  There are plenty of reviews of this show out there and they all say the same thing I thought, it started out slow and finished with a bang.  If you take a look at the set list there were a couple new songs and a long version of “Outlaw Pete”, or at least it seemed long.  One of the coolest parts of the show was the playing of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, this was based on a request from a sign in the crowd and as soon as Bruce mentioned it the crowd went nuts yelling “Santa”, really cool stuff. Before that point in the show it seemed like people were losing interest (at least around us), after that point the show changed and the crowd was right back in it, dancing, singing, and being merry.  It really was an awesome experience.

Setlist:
1. Badlands
2. No Surrender
3. My Lucky Day
4. Outlaw Pete
5. Out In The Street
6. Working On A Dream
7. Seeds
8. Johnny 99
9. Youngstown
10. Raise Your Hand
11. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (sign request)
12. Growin’ Up (sign request)
13. Thunder Road (sign request)
14. Waitin’ On A Sunny Day
15. The Promised Land
16. The River
17. Kingdom of Days
18. Radio Nowhere (w/Jay Weinberg on drums)
19. Lonesome Day
20. The Rising
21. Born To Run

Encores:
22 Hard Times
23. 10th Ave Freeze Out
24. Land Of Hope & Dreams
25. American Land
26. Rosalita
27. Glory Days
28. Dancing In The Dark

After Bruce was done we walked across Centeroo to see Ben Harper and the Relentless7.  This is a fairly new band for Ben and I really enjoyed the album.  I don’t know if it was where we were listening from but I had major issues getting into this set.  I just wasn’t digging it at all.  We ended up leaving after the third song.

I am glad we left because it enabled us to go see the band 90% of my friends said we should go see, NIN.  As I said before, I am not into really heavy stuff but Trent and the band put on one hell of a show.  It was nice to see part of it on what he(Trent Reznor) said would be the band’s last North American show ever.  I don’t know if I believe that or not but it doesn’t really matter.

After NIN, we watched a couple songs from MGMT (not enough to comment on) and decided we were exhausted and went back to camp to pass out.

All in all Saturday was pretty awesome.  Some great bands, good vibes, and great weather.  This is the day I decided I would definitely come back to Bonnaroo again.

Fountain shooting way up in the air	Fans before Bruce	Air balloon during Wilco
Matt and Lauren	At an area called the Art of Such and Such	Guy in crazy mask at Such and Such
Fountain lit up	Guy who was dancing next to us at Bruce passed out at NIN	Other Tent at night

Part three of our trip to Bonnaroo.

I want to start by apologizing to @im4evergrateful for forgetting to mention him in the last post.  He was a volunteer this year and was feeding us information (via Twitter) on Wednesday night about what was going on at the farm.  He was the worker in part two that told us tent only was almost full.  Thanks for all your help, we will have to meet up next time!

Friday morning we woke up at around 9:30am, mainly due to the sun beating down on the tent (heats up pretty quickly in the morning).  It had rained for a good portion of the night from what we could tell.  The “roads” were extra muddy and the grass was wet.  Luckily the tent/tarp combination held up and we were mostly dry, aside from the humidity that accumulated inside the tent which made everything feel damp, all in all a good night’s sleep.

We followed what would become our morning routine for the next two days.  Wake up, rush over to the porta-potties, brush teeth, baby wipe bath (surprisingly refreshing), and eat breakfast.  For this particular “breakfast” we made hot dogs and ate a couple granola bars.  Wasn’t as bad a combination as it sounds.  We sat around camp for an hour or so and made our way over to Centeroo to catch the first set of the day, Gomez.

Gomez is your typical indie/blues rock band.  Solid sound, nothing too special but worth a listen.  They have been together since the mid 90’s and are from England.  For an idea of what they are similar to, if you create a Pandora station based on them it plays artists like Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, Radiohead, and Wilco.  Gomez’s set was scheduled to start at 12:30pm on Which Stage (second largest stage).  When we got there around 12:15 a medium sized crowd had gathered to watch the show.  All in all they are a solid live band.  An excellent cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Bron-y-aur Stomp” and the band’s latest single “Airstream Driver”, and their first song “Revolutionary Kind” were the highlights of the show for me.  The music doesn’t induce crazy dancing but it is enough to get your body moving if you are so inclined.  There were quite a few tapers at the farm and this set was captured with good sound quality here.

The Gomez set was over at around 1:45.  After Gomez was over we did some more exploring of Centeroo before the next show Bela Fleck & Toumani Diabate.  I was continuously amazed at how much other stuff there was to do besides music.  There was a Garneir Fructis tent where you could get your hair washed, and Xbox tent where you could listen to a DJ and play Xbox, a MLD area where you could test your pitching skills or use a batting cage, a comedy tent, a movie tent, the silent disco, and much much more.  I really envy the organizational people that have to deal with the logistics of coordinating the festival.  It must be quite the nightmare.

At 3:30pm we made our way over to see Bela Fleck and Toumani Diabate.  If you aren’t familiar with Bela Fleck, he is a very talented banjo player.  His most famous band is Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Most of Bela’s work is instrumental and this set was no different.  Toumani Diabate plays a kora.  It was pretty hot at this point in the day so we picked a spot crammed in with others looking for shade.  We didn’t have a great view of the stage from where we were sitting but it was entirely possible to enjoy this combination without seeing them play.  The banjo and kora together made for a fantastic sound blending world music and Bela’s own bluegrass/folk/jazz fusion musical styles.  Not something I listen to every day but a delicious treat nonetheless. Hearing the duo do the theme from Deliverance was a treat.

After the Bela/Toumani set we rushed back to Which Stage to hear one of my most anticipated bands of the weekend, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  They are one of my favorite groups as of late.  The lead singer Karen Orzolek (call her Karen O to be one of the cool kids) has a great stage presence.  She is known for crazy antics on stage and unique outfits.  For this particular show show she was wearing a white baggy graphic top and yellow zebra skin leggings.  In the center of the stage for their set was a giant eyeball, pretty cool.  Their show was energetic and made me dance quite a bit.  Highlights were an acoustic version of “Maps”, Gold Lion, and Zero.  I really enjoyed their entire set.

After the Yeah Yeah Yeahs we were tired, hot, and hungry.  We decided to skip TV on the Radio and head back to camp to relax before the evening shows.  We had about two hours before the Beastie Boys would take the stage.  We grilled a couple filets and took a quick nap.  At 8pm I got in touch with @chinacat to find out where they were watching the beasties and Phish from.  By the time we got back into Centeroo (long line to get searched) the What Stage field was already packed.  We bobbed and weaved through the crowd to where @chinacat and her crew were hanging out.  They had scored a pretty awesome spot right next to the soundboard and VIP area against the rail.

Around 8:30pm the Beasties took the stage.  I am not going to go into detail on them as most everyone has some clue who they are.  I had never seen them live before and I really enjoyed this show.  There were moments when they flubbed lyrics and had to restart a song a couple of times but the classics were mixed in with their (mediocre) instrument playing.  Rapper Nas made an appearance during the show and mixed in nicely with the Beasties.  The highlights of the show for me were Intergalactic, Paul Revere, and Sabotage (even though this was messed up pretty bad a couple of times).  The music was thumping and everyone around us was into it and dancing away.  Great vibes with great people.  I want to add, my first thought when they got on stage was how old they looked.  I was thinking Touch of Grey commercial whenever the screens showed them up close.

After the Beasties were done there was over an hour break before the highlight of my weekend, Phish, took the stage.  Everyone in the crowd pretty much sat down and mingled during the break.  There are some really interesting (and chemically enhanced) people at Bonnaroo.  We met people from as far away as Washington state and as close as Nashville.  The people alone might make the trip worthwhile.

Shortly after 11pm Phish took the stage.  I have been a Phish fan for a while but had never actually seen them live.  Anyone that tried to get tickets for the tour this year in St. Louis knows that it was almost impossible.  They were the main reason I wanted to make the trip down to the farm this year.  Phish had never played Bonnaroo before (even though the festival seems almost too natural a fit for them) and I was hoping they would make it special.  They did a pretty darn good job.

They opened their set with a classic “Chalk Dust Torture”.  This song has a way of pulling the audience in and making them start dancing.  I was happy to hear it live after listening to it on so many recordings.  The second song in the set was a new one called “Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan”.  This fit well after “Chalk Dust Torture” and started the show off on a good path.

While the band sounded good, they didn’t seem to “jam” quite as much as in their earlier days.  Some good jams were present but they seemed more rehearsed/structured.  I was glad to hear “Harry Hood”, “Free” (heard a couple from the tour this year and liked this version the best), “Wolfman’s Brother” (which I started singing randomly again today), and the closer “You Enjoy Myself” > “Wilson” > “You Enjoy Myself”.

Bottom line is that these guys may not be where they were in the middle to late 90’s but damn do they sound good.  They seemed comfortable back on the stage.  Trey was his normal rocking back and forth, mouth open self.  Fishman was wearing a dress, Gordon still has some crazy hair.  They even busted out the trampolines during “You Enjoy Myself.”  Not only did they seem comfortable on the stage, they seemed like they felt at home.  The set is available for purchase here. Or just let me know and I will get you a copy of the show from a taper (completely legal).

Saturday review, including Springsteen should be up tomorrow.

Friday Afternoon Sun	Bonnaroo Arch	Hula Hoopers
Paiting on Graffiti wall	Random crowd shot	Phish – What Stage
Phish – What Stage	Beastie Boys – What Stage	Giant Bobblehead

Bonnaroo Arch – 2009

First blog post ever, so be gentle.

For someone who loves music like I do, I jumped on the whole Bonnaroo band wagon a little late.  I first heard about the festival in 2006 and really wanted to go.  Due to my situation lack of money at the time I was unable to make it happen.  This is the first year I was able to go, and it was insanely awesome.

For those who don’t know Bonnaroo is a music festival help each year in a little town called Manchester Tennessee about an hour southeast of Nashville  Manchester is home to a 700 acre “farm” which is where the festival happens.  It’s the largest festival in North America and has showcased some of the most well known bands/music acts in the world since it started in 2002.

Lauren and I bought our tickets in February soon after they went on sale.  The next four months were busy with other activities including a trip to Nashville to see Dave Matthews Band (an obession I am sure I will write about at some point).  Besides my obsessive reading, we didn’t really do much real preparation until about two weeks before the festival.

I took the four month waiting period as a chance to get more acquainted with some of the acts that were scheduled to play.  My favorites going into to Bonnaroo were Phish, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Of Montreal, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, MGMT, The Dirty Guv’Nahs, and Ben Harper and the Relentless7.  I, at one point, had around six MP3 cds with only Bonnaroo acts filling them.  They were taking up every slot in the CD player of the car (no iPod hookup in the Caliber = lame).

Aftour four months of waiting, June was finally here.  Bonnaroo was scheduled for June 11th to the 14th.  The plan was to drive down to Nashville on the 10th, meet up with Tweep @chinacat (thanks to @versadave for posting that she was going too!) and share a hotel room for the night, and then book it down to Manchester early morning of the 11th.  The plan went almost flawlessly.  We met Sonya shortly after she got to the hotel and had a nice dinner at PMin Nashville, highly recommend it if you are ever in town.  Lauren and I woke up at 5:30am on the 11th and headed down to Manchester. 

Shakedown Street

We got off I-24 at around 6:45am and got in line to get in the farm.  It took us around two hours to get through the line, get the car searched and get to our camping spot.  We ended up getting really lucky with our camping spot.  We could walk to Centeroo where all the shows were in less than 10 minutes.  So sites are over an hour walk.  We were also located about 30 yards off of Shakedown Street, where many of the food and wares vendors are located.

Breakdown of the actual festival coming soon!