Bonnaroo 2012: The Best Moments of Day 1

Standing side-stage watching Athens, Alabama’s blues-funk-soul-rock quartet Alabama Shakes tear it up, my Fuse co-worker Julie Kennedy turned to me and said, “Whoa. Um… they got big quick. I mean—they’re headlining Bonnaroo right now.” They were, closing out Thursday at That Stage. Talk about a career arc. They formed just in 2009 and dropped their debut 'Boys and Girls' in April. They’ve spent the months since playing fests and opening for Jack White. Bonnaroo approved and danced to those infectious, groovy nuggets of raw American music. —WILLIAM GOODMAN

At an overflowing This Tent, Danny Brown's nimble delivery and bizarre lyrics mesmerized and beguiled. On tracks like "Monopoly" and "Blunt After Blunt," the crowd could spit the rapper's tracks to him verbatim, as Brown's DJ repeatedly killed the music to let the crowd rock a cappella. Brown reciprocated the love after his set, jumping into the crowd, throwing t-shirts and hugging fans. It's this artist/crowd barrier breakdown that's emblematic of the whole festival. Every other artist, take note. —JASON NEWMAN

“You guys care if we get noisy and just freak the f*ck out?” asked Erika M. Anderson, the former singer of California noise-folk outfit Gowns, who went solo in 2010. The crowd’s reaction on the first afternoon of Bonnaroo: Please, go right ahead. The frontwoman and her three-piece band then proved to have mastered the ‘90s alt-rock formula of soft verses, loud choruses, and repeat. The glory moment came on “Marked,” from her striking second album 'Past Life Martyred Saints,' when she delivered the day’s most viciously romantic lyric: “I wish every time you touched me it left a mark.” Those are the sorts of lyrics you wish you thought of yourself. I wish I did. —WG

Typically festival food sucks, unless you just love chicken strips and cold pizza. But in recent years the selection has been on the upswing and this year Bonnaroo has a new addition sure to have foodies salivating in the Tennessee sun: the Food Truck Oasis. It’s exactly as it sounds—a grassy knoll between the That Stage and the Other Stage (yeah, it can get confusing) with 10 or 12 food trucks from across the country. It was the first stop for a few colleagues and I before seeing any music. Choosing what to east was tough, but I ultimately went with the hummus wrap—delicious—while the New York Times’ pop music critic Jon Pareles went with the shredded beef sliders. Pareles, Bonnaroo producer and Big Hassle honcho Ken Weinstein and I all shared a plate of fried cauliflower and rejoiced in the new addition. Yum. —WG

Some families go camping. Some go to Disney World or to the beach. Others go to Bonnaroo. Hey, the family that parties and rocks out together, stays together, right? As I walked through gridlock traffic, along the side of the road towards the festival grounds on the opening day to deliver boxes of supplies (they were heavy, too), this family offered me a ride in their RV. I hopped right in and found a very typical American family of four—a father in his early 40s (think an Alabama Tim Allen), his wife, their college-aged daughter and her boyfriend. They couldn’t wait for Bonnaroo: “We came last year and it was too much fun,” the boyfriend, Logan, told me. An interesting group—the mom loves rappers like Yelawolf and Lil Wayne, while the daughter and son love Radiohead. We parted ways but later ran into each other at the fest. It’s encounters like these that make any inconvenience (like carrying boxes) worth it at Bonnaroo. —WG

In Bonnaroo’s backstage bar area there’s a big flatscreen TV playing live video feeds of what’s happening outside onstage for journalists like myself to watch while we wait for our beer. Rough, I know. It was there that I met Orgone. “Wow. Is that happening right now?” asked the guy behind me. A few queries later and we realized that, yes, it was. Meet Los Angeles’ Orgone—they looked and sounded fantastic (thanks Bonnaroo techies!). I saw 10 members pumping up a ‘70s soul-funk sound and an African American woman hip-wiggling and singing like a young Erykah Badu. I should’ve been there… but I sort of was. —WG

Replete with traditional mariachi gear and instrumentation, Los Angeles hardcore band The Bronx played as their alter ego Mariachi El Bronx, who faithfully adhere to their Mexican music-loving persona. "We're trying to get three days in an hour," said frontman Matt Caughthran at That Tent Thursday afternoon. Caughthran showed the most onstage gratitude of any artist today, saying "thank you" and "beautiful thing" after every song to thunderous applause. Before "Slave Labor," the frontman dedicated the song to "all the motherf**kers who go all year round to jobs they hate and then come to Bonnaroo to get loose." Awesome. —JN

Billed as The Flavor Savers' Beard and Moustache Competition, I had no idea that I'd actually be getting a Chicago electro-rap quartet wearing gold lame tights and '80s rainbow-colored vests singing about moustaches and the various rides you can have with them. There were kicks, multiple crotch thrusts and elaborate, goofy choreography, with the crowd--some of whom were composed of uniquely bearded gentleman in the first few rows--nodded and danced in approval. Imagine FannyPack watching Take Me Home Tonight and you're almost there. —JN

“I came to Bonnaroo way before, and saw some great, great music,” said Yelawolf from the This Tent Thursday night. “But I came back representing Shady Records." The crowd, predictably, went wild for the rapper from rural Gadsden, Alabama. He’s a (relatively) local boy done good. The moment felt like a celebration of his arrival at rap’s premiere level, and the audience was a monster—one of the biggest I've seen at This Tent in my six years at the ‘Roo. He blasted into a super aggressive freestyle, sans beats, that recalled his label prez Eminem, a clear touchstone for the emcee. He repped his other White Boy Rapper roots, too: "This is the part of the show where we get to know each other,” he said. After removing his green Converse high-tops and dive-bombing offstage to crowd surf during Metallica’s “Master of Puppets,” he said, "Tragic news that we lost MCA,” followed by a three-song tribute, including a big sing-along to "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)." He brought the sentiment full-circle with a run through Eminem’s "The Way I Am." Hip hop’s newest Great White Hope has arrived. —WG

There's a tenuous line between confidence and douchebaggery every DJ must skirt. Be too much of a head-down, knob-twiddler and you're just background music; overemote and you risk being seen as cocky and self-righteous. LA dubstep DJ Mimosa perfectly found the balance during his late-night, genre-hopping set, which shifted between hip hop, drum n' bass, Miami booty bass and Mimosa's blend of warm synths and dark, ominous rhythms. Opening with Waka Flocka Flame's "Hard in da Piant," the DJ is as indebted to Flocka-type MCs as UK jungle DJs, acting as his own hypeman and, like any good DJ, becoming equal parts huckster and shaman. There's a sense of danger in the DJ's muscular, aggressive set that's atypical, yet somehow aligned with, the Bonnaroo vibe. —JN