Flashback to Summer - Bonnaroo 2009 Part I

I've been wanting to write about my experience at the Bonaroo Music and Arts Festival for a while now, and I figure this blog is a good venue. Keep in mind that I went to the festival back in June, and I was sleep deprived and under the influence of...well, one thing or another for virtually the entire weekend, so this may not be super accurate. Thankfully, my friend and co-Rooer Jeff also did a writeup much sooner than I did (weeks after rather than months after), so I have that to refer to, as well as the captions from the album on Facebook.

So, to start at the beginning. Way back in the summer of '08, I heard about Bonnaroo in passing because one of my WoW buddies, Max, was going and had been several times before. At the time, I didn't think much of it, although reading about it on the website it did sound cool. Fast forward to late January of '09. I had looked at the Bonnaroo site on a whim, and got it in my head that it might be a really fun time to go. A little later, I found out that Nine Inch Nails was playing the festival. Now, for those of you who don't know, I *love* NIN. I don't necessarily listen to them super often (particularly not these days), but NIN (along with a couple of other industrial acts - Assemblage 23, Orgy, Covenant and a few others) were a HUGE part of my last two years of high school. My junior year in particular I listened to little else...and in those days, I quite literally wore headphones ALL the time. There's actually a number of family pictures of me from those days in which I have a pair of headphones around my neck. I went through 3 portable CD players and two MP3 players in 4 years of high school...they took a lot of abuse, simply by virtue of being run and carried virtually ALL the time.
So anyway, the chance to see NIN for a second time (I also caught them here in Portland during the With Teeth supporting tour) was huge for me. And the more I looked at the setlist, the more I liked it - there was a chance to see the Beastie Boys, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Oakenfold, TV On the Radio, and a whole bunch of stuff I hadn't heard of (funny story, the only bands from that list I actually saw were NIN and TV on the Radio). So while I was bored at work one day, I started looking into what it would take to go...at that point, it didn't look good. Bonnaroo tickets don't come cheap (just a hair under $300) and plane tickets to TN were at least $400. I put the idea on the back burner, thinking that perhaps if I came into some money I could make it work, but otherwise I would probably have to shelve it.
A couple of days later, I was doing one of my usual raids and happened to start talking about Bonnaroo with Max at which point I mentioned in passing (ok, semi in passing) that I was hoping to go but didn't think I could afford it with the cost of transport. He was nice enough to offer me a ride down. After thinking for maybe an hour, I went "Waitaminute, you have a chance to go to THE music festival, and you're wishy-washying it? DO IT DUDE!). Ok, I can take a hint from myself. I bought a ticket.