 Wolfmother :: Bonnaroo 2007 by Rod Snyder |
Sunday
Total music dorks dream of days like this.
 John Butler :: Bonnaroo 2007 by Rod Snyder |
While the John Butler Trio did their Pearl Jam meets Ben Harper thing on the big stage, Mavis Staples did old Pops proud with her sizzling band under The Other Tent. Starting with "Eyes On The Prize" from her stellar new Ry Cooder produced album, We'll Never Turn Back, they immediately injected some much-needed gospel powered soul into the final furlong. They quickly followed with two inspired covers – Buffalo Springfield's eerily timely "For What It's Worth" and a smashing "The Weight" where she reminded us the Staple Singers played The Last Waltz. Her reminiscences and seasoned moxie added flavor to every number, which she sung in a deep river voice capable of touching everyone within earshot. Staples announced, "I don't know what took us so long but this is our first Bonnaroo. I guarantee it will not be our last." Our cheers shook the support beams.
 Charlie Louvin :: Bonnaroo 2007 by Rod Snyder |
A hop and a skip away one of the fathers of country music, 79-year old Charlie Louvin, showed us how it's done really old school style. Backed by total pro Nashville pickers, Louvin has mellowed wonderfully, the brimstone of his '50s gospel replaced by a tongue softened by laughter and tears, life uncut spoken in plain, beautiful phrases. Even his rambling, geography-laden band introductions were charming as hell. The man who once released a record with his brother titled Satan Is Real turned his attention to Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone" and cuts from his past that once inspired Gram Parsons. It was fun to watch the hipsters' looks of smiling recognition when Louvin sang "Cash On The Barrelhead." One caught a whiff of how Gram must have felt coming face-to-face with the Louvin Brothers. He introduced Byrds favorite "Christian Life" saying, "This might step on some toes but sometimes that helps us. Most of the Louvin Brothers songs have morality at the top and this one's no different." Charlie Louvin turns 80 on July 7 with a citywide party in Nashville. Be sure to lift a glass to him that day.
 Ralph Stanley :: Bonnaroo 2007 by Rod Snyder |
Wolfmother, in all their AC/DC, Sabbath biting glory, were a hot shock to the system after Louvin. They provided the heaviness all the folks in Tool shirts were craving, and there were a lot of Tool shirts wandering around. While I think their sputtering punk-pop stuff like "Apple Tree" is more interesting than their homage to sweaty '70s hard rock, there was no denying their live presence, which courted folks lustily. The same listener embracing gusto also applied to The Decemberists and Feist, both of which made live indie rock come across as far more exciting than it initially sounds on paper this Sunday.
Back in the classics department, Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys wore almost matching suits during their traditional bluegrass seminar. Always fun to watch guys with "haircuts you can set your watch to" as Grandpa Simpson once put it. They picked with a homespun, generational purity that keeps a long tradition alive and intact. A Phish kid in front yelled out for "Man of Constant Sorrow," Stanley's striking contribution to the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, and Stanley shot back, "He's not here yet but he'll make an appearance later."
 Wilco :: Bonnaroo 2007 by Rod Snyder |
The man who put the O Brother soundtrack together, T-Bone Burnett, played before Stanley with a group that included the king of studio drummers, Jim Keltner, and NYC downtown jazz master and former Tom Waits sideman, guitarist Marc Ribot. Surprisingly noisy, Burnett focused on his own work, which was often a unique update of gospel music that embraced chaos and static in addition to melody. He got a good chunk of the audience chanting, "We're marching up to Zion, the beautiful city of God." Introducing "a happy song" called "The Rat Age" from the score he wrote for Sam Sheppard's play Truth And Crime, Burnett said, "We've made mistakes. We confess them. We're proud of them. Wait, that's another sin [laughs]." They sauntered through Burnett's older country rock originals and choice versions of Dylan's "Isis" and Clifton Chenier's "Bon Ton Roulet," which he suggested as America's new national anthem. There's simply not enough good things to say about this set.
Just ask Wilco's Nels Cline and Glenn Kotche, who watched most of T-Bone's performance. The one-two punch of Wilco and RatDog on the massive What Stage made for a three-hour stretch of just about perfect rock. Say what you will about either band but if you like them then they gave you everything you could want. I could hold different things up to the light, but the truth is both presented their best face, playing with great spirit and skill on well-chosen setlists. Following RatDog's increasingly slinky take on Grateful Dead music, one did catch a little '70s Dead feel to some of Wilco's Sky Blue Sky selections that hadn't been obvious before. 'Nuff said.
 The White Stripes :: Bonnaroo 2007 by Rod Snyder |
Caught the tail end, in several senses, of sensitive popsters Elvis Perkins In Dearland. Perkins sings in a boy-man voice like early Bright Eyes and writes about strong feelings and strange thoughts. Clap Your Hands' Alec Ounsworth joined them on a new one called "Doomsday," that opened with a slightly drunk second line of blurting horns and clanking percussion. However, the band was upstaged for many by a thin, lovely sprite who stripped to her polka dotted panties and worked a Hula-Hoop like it was an Olympic tryout. Much of the applause on the right side was for her when they finished.
Blunt force power was the operating principle behind both The White Stripes and North Mississippi Allstars. One had to choose which tough, blues guitar workout they wanted to whip them around. Some ping-ponged between stages, catching sonic bumpers like a dirty pinball, others just stared in exhausted, silenced pleasure. The mean old sun finally dropping behind the hills, everyone breathed a little easier. The hard minded approaches of both bands did a lot to revive spirits, too. Meg White remains a comely simian with percussion Tourette's syndrome but Jack White was mesmerizing, cool and easy to watch. Neither band deviated much from their signature sound, and both offered up fan favorites without hesitation. Each is a tributary of the blues, taken in strikingly different directions. It was actually fun to steadily move between their worlds, letting one's own definitions of what constitutes the blues drop by the wayside in the process.
 Widespread Panic :: Bonnaroo 2007 by Rod Snyder |
Widespread Panic capped off the festivities, playing like men with something to prove, namely that they're one of the sturdiest, finest rock bands of our times. The addition of Jimmy Herring on lead guitar has really flipped their collective wig. Playing one extra long set instead of the usual two fit this newfound headlong energy. To pause would have risked losing the momentum built by each piece. WSP struck me as real musicians playing at the top of their game – mature, confident but still anxious to break fresh ground. The sequence starting with "Fairies Wear Boots" (another Sabbath cover) and winding through "Space Wrangler," a percussion solo, "Don't Wanna Lose You" and "Henry Parsons Died" was a weekend highlight, as good a progression and performance as any band has played this year. Like last year's Phil Lesh & Friends closer, Widespread put just the right punctuation on everything, sending us off with sublime covers of John Lennon's "Crippled Inside" and the Talking Heads' "Heaven." Even with our nostrils caked with dust like a pharaoh's tomb, our bodies dried out and weary, one still felt like they'd gotten into that bar in Heaven, toasting another year of incongruous, incomparable Bonnaroo entertainments.
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