»Brittany Hickey
Staff Writer
Bonnaroo – a June music and arts festival in Manchester, Tenn. – announced the 2013 lineup Feb. 19 with huge headliners and indie favorites alongside comedians and classic rockers.
The lineup features some unsurprising acts like folk powerhouse Mumford & Sons and The Lumineers who have been blowing up the charts for the last year with their lesser-known counterparts like Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros.
However, this year Bonnaroo shocked music fans by booking headliner Paul McCartney of The Beatles.
Also scheduled to appear are Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Wilco, R. Kelly, Daniel Tosh, Passion Pit, ZZ Top and “Weird Al” Yankovic, just to name a few. Altogether 150 performances will take place over the four-day event June 13-16.
According to the festival’s official website, it takes place on a 700-acre farm with multiple stages and festival-goers can stay in rented tents or RVs or bring their own, or stay in a nearby hotel. It is run by entertainment company Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment, a music promotion company.
Manchester is about two hours southeast of Clarksville and Bonnaroo has become a staple of local culture in addition to being a nationally recognized festival.
Dalton Akins, a junior broadcast media student and musician, isn’t going to Bonnaroo this year but knows what he is missing out on.
“I would love to have gotten a chance to see Paul McCartney and Mumford & Sons,” Akins said and added, “The band I was most excited about seeing on the lineup was ZZ Top, though.”
Billboard.com’s Ray Waddell discussed the lineup and said, “the 12th Bonnaroo is not only one of the most diverse lineups the festival has ever hosted, it is also in all likelihood the most expensive.”
Waddell goes on to explain that featuring a couple big-name bands to fuel ticket sales allows the producers to bring on acts that no one has heard of for fans to discover for the first time.
Most of the tickets are sold out, leaving only the most expensive ticket at $269.50. Or festival-goers can dish out $1449.50 for two VIP tickets that will get them a meal, better parking and bathroom options and access to the VIP lounges.
Also performing at Bonnaroo will be Alt-J, Billy Idol, Björk, Cat Power, Cults, Django Django, Dwight Yoakam, Japandroids, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Nas, Of Monsters and Men, The XX and Wu-Tang Clan.
