Bon-a-ROOO Baby!

Two days in Nashville to get over the jetlag (Thank you Natalie for introducing me to Melatonin), check out the scene (thank you Shara for introducing me to Jonah and Jonah for introducing us to Gold Rush) and then in no time at all we were all packed up again ready to head to Manchester TN for the Bonnaroo festival.

Four days in a field in the middle of nowhere and 3 nights in a tent may not fill all of you out there with feelings of envy, in fact the idea of using a portal loo for that time period may remind some of you of bog duty in a field somewhere in Wales. However when you consider that during those 4 days you get to party your ass off, meet some really cool people and dance oh lord dance to everything from Latino funk to hard rock, you may get where I am coming from… ok maybe not.

Anyway, Our Bonnaroo experience began really the night before. We heard about a small pre-Bonnaroo party going on in Nashville and quickly signed ourselves up for the free gig, grabbed our local friend Jonah (The best thing in Nashville!) and headed over to check it out. The line-up was not exactly headlining acts, but as we watched the lead singer of Lez Zepplin (the lesbian cover band of Led Zepplin) our feet began itching for Bonnaroo and some food… wow we were hungry! Jonah asked where we would like to go and he did not hesitate when we said, “Somewhere not on the tourist trail.” Gold Rush.

Gold Rush is the kind of bar every town should have. A bar with a bartender called Patrick who knows everyone by name and drink, no waitresses, no non-sense just good old bar with good ole Southern style food. I highly recommend the Nachos (Shara a picture was taken in your honour. I hope to get it uploaded soon).

After we fed on decent food we headed back to the Comfort Inn motel that we had called home for 2 days and fell into a deep sleep.

Early in the morning, I have no idea what time it was, we received a call from Matt, our ride to Bonnaroo. Actually to call Matt our ride is really is selling him short… Matt our friend, our brother, our Captain arrived with two friends early in the morning, quickly showered and ate and stuffed we squished ourselves in the back of his Audi and headed towards Manchester.

The ride in theory should not have taken too long, but we were prepared to add a couple of hours on our journey to get into the Bonnaroo campground. We were actually told it could take up to 8 hours, but there was no way we were going to queue for that long! Initially we seemed to arrive a the exit and were so excited that there was no queue, however our excitement was short lived as we saw a State Trooper blocking off the road. We were further disheartened when we realised that we were being redirected 20 miles to turn around and come back from the East. Then as we came off the Interstate to turn around we saw that the entire right lane was one giant queue for Bonnaroo. There was no way we were waiting in that line! After a few softly English spoken words with Trooper Taylor (I think I remember his name correctly) we were informed that we could just overtake the entire queue and carry on, “Yeah hunny I don’t know what them people are doin’. You go on there suga… You go ahead and do whatever you want.” So never being one to go against a Trooper that is exactly what we did.

I think that after 10 miles of overtaking traffic headed in our direction, we began to feel somewhat guilty and then very nervous about what would happen when we finally got back into the line, so once we found a big enough gap between two camper vans we decided it was a good a time as any to rejoin the queue. Plus we all needed to pee so it was a good time to find a bush along the freeway.

Now, I don’t want to go too much into detail here as I still have a lot of Bonnaroo to get through and we are not even there in the story, but let me just say that getting out to pee, finding some nice people from New York to talk to along the way and thinking that the traffic is moving slow so you will be able to catch up with your car quickly is stupid. Lets just say we were stupid and as a result spent the next 2 miles running after the car, only to almost catch up with it before it sped off again… Now I know I have been training for a Marathon, but 2 miles in flip-flops is not fun!

Okay, so we arrive in Bonnaroo and a re secretly hugging ourselves for our traffic surfing as we ended up camping next to a group of guys who had got in the queue around 7.30am while we joined the line closer to 10.30am. And we could not have got a better spot; close, but not within smelling distance of the toilets, 3 minutes from Centaroo (where all the action happens) and 1 minute from the showers (used only once in the end… they were not as luxurious as we had anticipated them being).

Now whoever said we would be the only Jews in Manchester TN, clearly had never been to Bonnaroo before! They are everywhere! In fact there were few people we met who weren’t Jewish. The two groups of boys who camped near us were Jewish, the friendly dealer from Kentucky who was just around the corner from us had a “Get Chai” t-shirt and proudly announced that he was the only member of his family not to live in Israel!

We settled in, made ourselves at home and got down and dirty at a few shows. I was initially surprised to see such a diverse crowd of people there. People of all ages, with and without children. At one show I saw a guy with his teenage son enjoying a gig together… I was blown away!

I would have to say overall we got the most out of our Bonnaroo experience. We saw a hell of a lot of music, but did not wear ourselves out too much in the process. And thank the lord we had the good sense to sleep through Kanye West! On behalf of all of us who attended Bonnaroo 2008, “Fuck Kanye West!” The guy made a whole hoo ha about changing his performance to 2.45am so everyone could go see his light show with naked astronauts and then the guy didn’t even get on until 4.30am… AFTER SUN RISE! What an arrogant ass! As Chris Rock said, “No-one has a bigger ego than Kanye West!” Chris you are the man!

So 4 days later we came back to Nashville to recharge batteries and are soon to be heading to the Great Smokies and becoming one with nature. Bonnaroo was a blast and I was so sad to say goodbye. Many fond memories I will carry always. And who knows… maybe one day I’ll go back with my kids and tell them how I partied Bonnaroo 2008.

25 hours

When we booked the flight, went through all the transfers we had to go through to get here, I never stopped to think how long it would take in total... 25 hours. 25 hours of my life spent on planes and in airport terminals and the irony is that only in the first 5 minutes we both giddily spoke about how much we loved flying, "I love everything about it! I would say it is my favourite part of the holiday!" Well after 25 hours travelling I would now have to say that it is a very overrated experience.

Yet, arriving into Nashville airport where the announcements are read by local celebrities who are so proud to be from Nashville, and a branch of Tootsies bar seems to sprawl itself out into the hallway with its live band strumming a country tune, there was this feeling of excitement that surged through me. This was not Israel, not England, not like anywhere I had been before. This was new and suddenly and probably for the first time I can remember I was looking forward, instead of being ashamed, at being a tourist. I have been perfecting my 'cutest' English accent ever since... Do you by any chance know where I might procure some tea? Thank you.

After checking into our motel, checking out the local pharmacy that seriously contains everything a person needs to live, and filling our bellies full of truly junkilicious junk food, we headed to bed and were gladly horizontal for the first time in 25 hours.

There are somethings I am not a fan of in the USA, I am sure I will list these many times along this trip, but I am definitely a fan of the bed in our room! So big I have no idea who I am sleeping next to and with the most comfortable pillows ever! Seriously I am not sure I want to leave this room... the only down side is the stench of smoke that lingers up from the carpet. Note to future Channah: Next time you book a motel room ask for non-smoking.

Waking up in the morning I was so gutted to find no breakfast would be served in bed, and then going downstairs to find eggs, something that resembled rubber that was apparently meat, waffles and lots and lots of bread was somewhat of a disappointment. I know, I was warned. Tennessee is not known for its great choice in fruit and non fried vegetables. So while we ate I closed my eyes and pretended for a moment that I was eating breakfast in an Israeli hotel with choices of salads and fish and 5 different types of eggs and a decent cup of coffee. I then opened my eyes swallowed my eggs on toast and smiled.

Our motel is situated about half an hour bus ride from Downtown Nashville. Probably less, but that was how long the friendliest bus driver in the world took to get there. Having no idea where we're going and relying souly on the Lonely Planet guide book, we decided that while in Nashville we should check out some sites and found ourselves walking towards the Country Music Hall of Fame. We thought it might be a cool thing to do for half an hour, but 2 hours later we came out fully educated in the origins of all that is Country and humming Dolly Parton's Jolene.

Just a piece of trivia to leave you with. Jolene was actually written by Dolly after a signing where a little 8 year old girl came to Dolly to have her sign the book/ CD she had. The little girl had beautiful red hair, green eyes and freckled skin and by Dolly's account was the most beautiful little thing she had ever seen. When Dolly asked the girl her name she said "My name is Jolene". "What a beautiful name," said Dolly,"Your dad must be called Joe so you're name after him?" and the little girl said, "No. I am just Jolene". Dolly thought the name was so beautiful that she decided then and there to write a song with the name as the title and told the girl that if she ever heard a song with the name in it she would know the song was written for her. Dolly told this story and at the end admitted with some regret in her voice, that she had never heard of anyone coming forward as the Jolene the song was written about. I feel your pain Dolly. I would like to see the girl with 'flaming locks of auburn hair and ivory skin and eyes of emerald green.'