>>By Katherine McCully, Guest Writer
I’ve been told that Sunday at Bonnaroo is where the men are separated from the boys. By Sunday afternoon, everyone is tired, hot, sunburned and desperately in need of a shower. Sunday morning, we saw three cars leaving, and someone was in tears in all three. It’s hard to make it all the way through Sunday. You have to “Roo” hard to get to that point, but I made it. I powered through and had the best day of the entire festival on Sunday.
Sunday morning I woke up around 7:30 and cleaned and wrote my Saturday recap while everyone else was still asleep. Once we had some breakfast, we realized one car’s battery had died. It took us two hours to fix a wire that connects the battery to the car with the help of a hippie dude named Eric, but we finally got it working. After that, we packed everything but our canopy up and headed into Centeroo for Fitz and the Tantrums. I’m bummed that I missed the Carolina Chocolate Drops, but getting the car started was more important.
Fitz and the Tantrums were great. Katelyn and I watched that show from far away laying in the grass under a tree. I’m convinced every concert is made better with some sort of napping involved.
My favorite Bonnaroo moments were the shows we listened to on a blanket in the shade. I don’t need to be front row; I don’t even need to see much. Just being there and enjoying the show is enough.
After Fitz, we met up with Baby Brother, who had gone to see A$AP Ferg, and we headed over to Washed Out. Washed Out was an amazing show. I only know a little about him, but I made a point to go, and it was definitely worth it.
After Washed Out, we headed over to see The Avett Brothers. I’ve seen them before at the Bridgestone, but Katelyn hadn’t, so we went for her. Still, I could not have been happier to be there. I love their music, and they put on an amazing show.
Jack White apparently rambled a lot between songs and other performers got political or preachy, but the Avett Brothers don’t do that. They seem like quiet, genuinely nice guys who just love playing music, and they seemed to feel privileged to be at Bonnaroo, especially the main “What” stage.
They thanked the fans several times throughout the set, and you could tell they were living out one of their dreams right in front of us and it was just really sweet. I was honored to be a part of that. I also loved the fact that they played acoustic versions of classic hymns. A nice hymn always gets to this little southern girl.
We decided not to go to Elton John. It’s a bummer, but there were a lot of reasons, the biggest being that we were tired and couldn’t handle any more crowds. We were also worried that if we stayed it would take us twice as long to get out. There’s also no way we could have gotten close enough to see anything. It just didn’t seem worth it.
We decided to end on the wonderful note that was the Avett Brothers and call it an end to Bonnaroo 2014, so we packed up our cars, had one last high-five and said farewell to the happiest place on Earth.
Thanks for going with me to the farm. I had an amazing experience, and I’m glad you got to join. Stay tuned for my overall impression of Bonnaroo.
