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  A hot weekend of dancing made for weary traveling home from the Bonnaroo 2006 Music Festival. - Photo by Adam Dubbin/TheSequitur.com
  Festival attendees faced tough choices

By 
TheSequitur.com Executive Editor
June 20, 2006

DALTON, Ga. -- Even 100 or so miles away from Manchester, Tenn., patrons at this north Georgia Cracker Barrel can tell exactly which of their fellow diners just departed the nation’s premier music festival.

A little tired, a lot disheveled and sporting feet dirtier than mud itself, these colorful twentysomethings are obviously enjoying their first hot, normally priced meal in days. I know I did.

Manchester’s Bonnaroo 2006 Music and Arts Festival was the fifth in an annual series of marathon concerts featuring artists and comedians from seemingly every genre the world over. Held last weekend, Bonnaroo drew at least 80,000 people to a 700-acre Tennessee farm for a hot, dusty weekend of non-stop entertainment.

More than 100 artists and events jockeyed for the attention of festivalgoers, each of whom was forced to choose from the many performances happening at any one time on nine stages, an air-conditioned cinema and an also-cooled comedy tent.

The cinema and comedy tent were hot spots Saturday afternoon, when the U.S. soccer team’s World Cup match and comedian Lewis Black offered some solace to sweltering attendees, hoping possibly more for respite from the middle Tennessee heat than a goal or funny barb at current events. Nevertheless, lines snaked throughout Centeroo, Bonnaroo’s venue compound housing the main events, while about a dozen soccer balls and twice as many hackey sacks and Frisbees soared overhead.

On Friday, headliners Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers roused the jam-packed crowd with the rocker’s classics, drawing tens of thousands to sing along to “American Girl” and even bringing Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks out as a surprise for the audience.  

The music played at Bonnaroo was as eclectic as the festival’s attendees.  From Grateful Dead spinoff Phil and Friends and the Hassidic reggae rapper Matisyahu to the gypsy freak show Balkan Beat Box and punk icons Sonic Youth, this year’s Bonnaroo actually did have something for everyone.  Unfortunately, finding the many performances was made no easier by event organizers, who again designated the primary stages What Stage, Which Stage, This Tent, That Tent and The Other Tent – a joke that got old faster than a hippie can smoke a joint.  

And while local law enforcement works to stem the tide of drugs into the festival, those joints and most other drugs were in abundance at Bonnaroo. According to Coffee County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Sandy McKinney, about the same number of Bonnaroo-related charges were filed this weekend as last year.  As of Monday, officers had arrested 73 people and issued about 100 citations, mostly for drug offenses.

But the festival wasn’t without tragedy, McKinney confirmed.  Joshua Overall, 21, was killed after stepping in front of bluegrass legend Ricky Scaggs’ tour bus on Interstate 24.  The Associated Press reports Overall climbed a fence separating the camping area from the highway then stepped into the travel lanes in front of the bus, which was carrying Scaggs away from Bonnaroo.