The Roo Experience 2010 June 10th-13th

About one year ago today, I was still in college, at my apartment, with several friends watching the Bonnaroo 2010 lineup being revealed. (might I add, through a stupid system where one band was revealed every 15 minutes) Other than the revealing system, my excitement about the festival had just begun. Neither me nor my friends had ever been to a big festival before(and I have lived in Austin for how many years?), so I'll admit, I didn't really think it was real when I said, "we're going to Bonnaroo". As the bands were being revealed, my emotions were on a rollercoaster per se, here a good band, there a band I had never heard of...there's the first Headliner... Regardless of the initial releasing of the lineup, I knew the festival would not dissapoint just from looking at past lineup's.

After we purchased Bonnaroo tickets, the realization that we were actually going to the festival started to sink in, but only a little. By Wednesday morning, June 9th about 5am is when we decided to head towards Manchester, TN in order to arrive the night before in Nashville, TN. Despite being rained on while loading up the truck while I was about half asleep, I was happy we were on the road. The truck was absolutely loaded down to where there were exactly 3 seats available. On the way out from Austin, we decided to grap my canopy which proved to be a life saver in the 100 degree heat during the festival days. I have no idea what we would of done without it because after about 8am, you can forget about staying in your tent, it practically turned into a sauna by 9. Each of us drove about 1/3 of the way  trudging through the horrible roads of the south while we listened to bands soon to be heard at the festival. When we arrived at our hotel in Nashville, I was so anxious i could barely fall asleep, but given the harsh 13-14 hour drive, I almost couldn't wake up.

After waking up, grabbing breakfast, and getting on the road around 8, we would soon arrive in Manchester around 9am, greeted by a bevey of cars...I remember feeling so anxious that i just wanted to start setting up my tent, and all this traffic seemed like a joke. All my research told us that if we arrived around the morning, (not the early not to late in the morning) we would get a great camp ground spot and wouldn't have to wait to long before entering the festival. Well, as some of us know, everything isn't black and white, and somtimes plans can hit the shitter, real quick. After coming to terms with the traffic, we gathered ourselves, turned on the Bonnaroo radio station and kept our spirits high by talking about how crazy this experience would be. There was so much traffic that people were literally stepping outside their cars to hang out while traffic was at a standstill. I remember seeing people outside of their cars, happy and crazy as can be as they were awaiting entrance to the festival. This made the wait a little better knowing we were all on level ground. After a little fun playing with the walky talkys, taking and alternate route, chatting outside our cars with fellow patrons about which bands we were looking forward to seeing, watching cows chase a dog in a field, starting, stopping, starting stopping, watching locals watch the long line of cars, we finally arrived at one of the several entrances.

7 hours passed by while we were waiting in the long line to get in...but little did we know our Bonnaroo expereince was just beginning.

Part 2 coming soon...

Bonnaroo food will be mentioned in my later posts...