With photo editing software on the fritz, pictures will have to wait until later — or they'll show up in print on June 27 for a special photo page from the festival.
First, I’d like to send thoughts to the family of Cody Conover of Kentucky. The 25-year-old died at the festival — no cause of death has been determined yet, according to a local TV station. It's sad news … Conover is the sixth death at the festival in six years.
It’s day three at Bonnaroo, and the dirt’s just getting thicker…
Another packed day of incredible music, but here’s what I’ve learned about the festival so far:
- When the sun comes up, your tent turns into an oven. No matter how late you get to bed, you’ll either wake up at 7 a.m. because it’s hot or later, in a pool of sweat.
-If you’re a guy, and wonder what you’d look like with facial hair – come to Bonnaroo. Cold water shaving isn’t fun – if you get to shower.
We were told early on Friday that, once again, Bonnaroo is sold out – 80,000 people. Therefore, on this weekend, Manchester becomes the sixth largest city in Tennessee. While the numbers don’t compute as you wander around the site during the day, it was clearly evident at last night’s main stage.
The Deal: The Davidson Community Players presents Hello Dolly! in the Duke Performance Hall at Davidson College.
A musical theater performance about matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi, who travels one day from Yonkers to New York back to Yonkers again on a journey filled with harmonious songs, disruption of the peace, and finally, new found love. Based on The Matchmaker by Thorton Wilder.
The Good: I found myself smiling so often last night that I’m going to have to change my mind about community theater. Community theater once evoked in me memories of bad actors competing for the limelight on cheap sets with parents and friends pretending afterwards that the show was good. The band was on it and in sync, the vocals were mostly excellent, the acting carried the narrative well, and the dancing was mesmerizing. Subtle thoughtfulness throughout, such as the big dipper in the set background, only added to the experience. Acrobatic children flipping across the stage were another impressive touch. Even the small things that did go wrong were remedied with class (sharp save on the falling set door, Barnaby and Minnie). I can only imagine it getting better after opening night.
Helicopters, portajohns, sunburns, beer, water, pot, tents, bad cell phone service – they all go hand-in-hand with Bonnaroo, it seems.
The first day started at around 5 p.m. for me as I pulled in to my camping site – in the middle of a field – and pitched a tent. After a celebratory beer after the hammering of stakes into what seemed like rocks, I made my way out into “Centeroo” – the heart of this four-day festival that takes place on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tenn.
The Deal: Real human bodies on display at Body Worlds, the new anatomy exhibit at Discovery Place.
This is intense. It's like Biology class, except way more hardcore. Basically, picture a body without its skin, with all (yes, ALL) of its inside parts expertly preserved. Oh, I should mention there's a horse, too.
The Good: You just don't see inside-out bodies every day. This exhibit gives you the chance to discover what everything really looks like in there — nothing like a diagram in your 9th grade textbook. In addition to healthy organs, you'll see what diseased ones look like too — tumored ovaries, a black lung and breast cancer. There is a section that displays fetuses at different stages of a pregnancy — one of which is still inside the mother.
The Bad: It's hard to forget that they're all real people and just check everything out and try to learn something. I had to spend some time just getting used to being around, well ... fleshless corpses. It comes in time.
The Verdict: Definitely check it out, especially if you like science. Or, if you don't — if you're just really, really weird.
Exhibit runs through Oct. 28
www.bodyworlds.com | www.discoveryplace.org
— Erin Sutton
As a diehard fan of MAD magazine during its heyday, I was elated to see that one of the extra features included in the new two-disc special edition DVD of the 1966 epic The Sand Pebbles was a reproduction of the MAD satire (“The Sam Pebbles”) that the venerable rag printed after the film’s original release. MAD has always been known for its humorous movie and television parodies, and this brainstorm on the part of the film’s DVD distributor, 20th Century Fox’s home entertainment branch, had me wishing that MAD movie parodies had always been included as extra disc features on hit titles.
Thus, on the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid DVD, we could have gotten “Botch Casually and the Somedunce Kid.” On Apocalypse Now, we could have witnessed “A Crock O’ Blip Now.” And on Star Wars, we could have chortled through “Star Roars” (featuring such characters as Ham Yoyo and Oldie Von Moldie).
And let’s not forget “Rockhead” on Rocky, “201 M. of a Space Idiocy” on 2001: A Space Odyssey, “Balmy and Clod” on Bonnie and Clyde, “Saturday Night Feeble” on Saturday Night Fever, and hundreds more.
Let’s hope that The Sand Pebbles DVD leads to a MAD future for the format.
It seems like the tide's turning away from abstinence-only education, at least across the country. Efforts to change North Carolina's curriculum, as written about here, stalled, but school systems elsewhere are waking up to the realities of denying teenagers information. Meanwhile, birth control advocates in North Carolina (sadly, contraception access has somehow become something to defend) have a report on the availability of Plan B access in North Carolina. I'll have the report here as soon as I get it.
Bi-Lo Center, Greenville, S.C.
June 5, 2007
The Deal: Two hours of Tool.
The Good: I had only seen Tool once before — on the second stage at Lollapalooza in the early 90s — so I was interested to catch one of my favorite bands in a bigger setting. From the opening notes to the final waves goodbye, the quartet simply blew me away. It's amazing how talented these four musicians/artists are to create such an aural painting with sound, lights and lasers. Maynard James Keenan was in fine form, though his actions and banter were toned down. He did end the show with, "We'd love to stick around, but we've got hotel porn to get back to. Priorities ... you know ... " His vocals were spot on and sounded simply incredible. Drummer Danny Carey didn't miss a beat and Justin Chancellor's bass work was hypnotizing, and Adam Jones made the smallest notes sound huge on the guitar. Plenty of favorites were left out as the set list focused on 10,000 Days, but I was far from disappointed.
The Bad: $6.50 for a bottle of beer is nearly as bad as $38 for a T-shirt. I didn't buy either.
The Verdict: One of the best shows I've seen in recent memory. I'm looking forward to their Bonnaroo set even more now.
In both last week’s blog and this week’s issue of Creative Loafing, I mentioned how the Main Library’s summer film series (being held at ImaginOn) opens this Sunday with a screening of the 1923 silent classic Safety Last!, starring the great comedian Harold Lloyd.
If watching Lloyd’s hilarious antics in the film leaves you thirsting for more (and, really, it should), consider buying (or at least renting) The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection, a magnificent box set released by New Line Home Entertainment back in 2005. This three-volume, seven-disc compilation includes 28 of Lloyd's most popular releases (both features and shorts) as well as a bounty of supplemental material.
Harold Lloyd in Safety Last!
WSNB
"Pass You By"
WSNB – We Sing Nasty Blues – is a quartet which includes members of Uncle Jam Band, Contagious Blues Band and Blues Kravin. They’ve been road dogs for years and play everything from smoke-filled bars to outdoor festivals. They’ve shared the stage with some blues greats and have more lined up in the future, including a show with Oteil Burbridge on June 7 at the Double Door.