Karsten Moran for The New York Times Animal Collective, above at Governors Ball last weekend, will perform at Bonnaroo on Friday.The twelfth edition of Bonnaroo started Thursday in Manchester, Tenn., on a field an hour outside of Nashville, and the campers have assembled; the first day of music, an easing-in slate of bands without major headliners, started a few hours ago. The full 80,000 or so festivalgoers won’t be in full effect until Friday.
It’s been said a lot, but it bears repeating one more time: this festival continues to move away from a core identity. First that core identity was jam bands, or at least bands that played songs that could last for half an hour, and the ongoing continuum of southern roots music â€" neo-bluegrass, folk-pop, et cetera. Then it seemed to move toward dubstep as young Deadheads and Phish followers found new allegiances within electronic dance music.
The jam-band business started declining in the mid-oughts, however, and the dubstep bubble seems about to burst. In reaction, Bonnaroo has become less special-interest-y and more like the other huge and moderately hip American kaleidoscopes of popular music, like Coachella, Outside Lands and Governors Ball, than ever before. The super-strummy Mumford and Sons played a breakthrough set here two years ago â€" the biggest and maybe longest show of their career by far â€" and conceivably could have remained a Bonnaroo band. But they’ve become too big for that; now they belong to everyone. Despite the recent hospitalization of their bassist Ted Dwane, they€™re performing here this year, along with the Lumineers, who appeal to a similar audience.
So are Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, Bjork, Wilco, R. Kelly, Wilco, Nas, the National, ZZ Top and Animal Collective â€" those are your headliners, pretty much. None of them are primarily jammy or mind-expanding; none of them (like Radiohead last year or My Morning Jacket in 2011) are guaranteed to, you know, take you to the totally epic place. I can imagine a sector of Bonnaroo fans staying home this year for that reason. Fine. I’m looking forward to the ZZ Top-Animal Collective combination Friday night.
But I can also imagine a new sector coming for other reasons. This year’s festival looks reflective of the Brooklyn-Canada-London axis of hipness (Solange, Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors, DIIV, Charli XCX, the xx, Japandroids, Purity Ring). It has respectable lineups of West African music and progressive bluegrass. It’s also done well by both new and old hip-hop acts this year â€" not just Kendrick Lamar, ASAP Rocky, Action Bronson, and the divisive Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, but also Nas and the Wu-Tang Clan.
And with that, I am off. More to come through the weekend in reports and pictures.
