Take it from Snee: Bonaroo Book Report

This past weekend, I went deep undercover to investigate the unwashed underbelly of the patchoulingest music festival this side of Burning Man: Bonaroo.

So as not to arouse suspicion, I traveled in an assembled “hippie herd,” including a wife and another married couple. I disguised myself in a head bandanna and body odor.

What I uncovered shocked, entertained and disgusted me, often all at the same time. I witnessed both the glorious and ugliest sides of humanity. At times, I almost lost myself in the role, but after severe deprogramming with copious amounts of red meat, I return to bring you this report.

Friday

Although I intended to arrive Thursday evening, I had to endure four hours of stop and go traffic  in the shoulder of Interstate 24. My band of electric deadheads were registered in placed in Campsite District 8 early Friday morning.

Our particular plot became a sanctuary where I could gather my wits and drink myself back to normal. As part of this shadow area, I kept myself alert by waging the War on Animals: I raised my battle banner, and I set my tent up on a large ant colony.

Little did I realize that this act would serve as an analogy for living within the commune; as the ants and I shared my tent and sleeping bag, the surrounding campers and I began sharing food, tools and Porty-Potties.

After five hours of sleep, my cohorts and I infiltrated Centeroo, the events area. I quickly immersed myself in the hippie culture at The Other Stage. (The stages were cleverly named What Stage, Which Stage, This, That and The Other.) There I  encountered jam bands along with their cotillion of hackysackers and hulahoopers, though nary a hopscotcher was to be found.

I was overwhelmed by the communal listening and fell into a deep coma sometime between Dr. Dog’s three 20 minute songs.

When I came to, I treated my overdose with Tenacious D over at the What Stage.

Saturday

After Friday’s near-death experience, I retreated to familiar territory: comedy. I caught Jeffery Ross’ performance at the equally clever-named Comedy Tent. Little did I know that I would be even more thoroughly immersed into this performance than yesterday.

At first, Ross, who is the Friars’ Club Roastmaster General, roasted the other performers on stage and the Bonaroo organizers. Then, he called a celebrity out of the crowd.

When he called Christopher Mintz-Plasse, I got excited. If anyone is ripe for comedic insults, it’s the Jew Hunter.

Turns out it was f&%king McLovin.

Then he said he would roast the first 12 people to come up to the stage. At the prodding of my mock family, I was one of those 12.

Little by little, he burned through each of us in turn until I was next to him.

“Come over here, Aunt Jemima.” He was referring to my doo-rag. I grew nervous being on stage and participating in a repertoire with a comedy legend.

“How’s it going?” he asked, putting the mike in my face.

“Uh, good,” I said. As he moved the mike away, I kept rambling. He was forced to thrust it back at me. “Great, actually. It’s really great to be here.”

“Uh-huh. Who’s your favorite band?”

Oh god. Does he mean here this weekend or all-time? The mike had sat in front of me the whole time I thought about that.

“Van Halen?” Dear god, I asked it.

“I don’t think they’re here this weekend,” he said and moved on to the next guy in line.

And that was it. My first and hopefully not only time on stage with a full-on Friar and I gave him nothing to work with.

I think I saw some other bands that day, like Weezer, but could barely pay attention, replaying the millions of ways I could have better bantered in those two minutes. I barely managed to sing along with the entirety of Centeroo to “Buddy Holly.” (Actually, that was pretty awesome.)

Sunday

Sunday began with packing up the camp site. Everything we had lent out to ingratiate ourselves with tribe was returned.

Determined to forget about Saturday’s comedy fiasco, I went full punk rock and saw Against Me (meh) and closed out with Dropkick Murphys. (Christ, why couldn’t I have said them?)

I left with “Kiss Me, I’m S#@tfaced” stuck in my head. So, in a way, I learned that I’m not so different from the Bonaroo crowd, so long as we’re chanting that we’re “The Fightin’ 69th.”