Bonnaroo Must Haves: Canceled Edition
at least we saw Insane Clown Posse
1. GOOD VIBES
So you probably heard that The Bonnaroo music festival was cancelled this year due to crazy rain. It was pretty bad I’m not gonna lie, but the news does make everything look worse than it actually is— this was a good testament to that. Despite the rain and a soggy campsite the vibes were still high. Everyone was in a good mode and making the best of the situation and finishing all of their drugs. Whether the vibes were chemically induced or natural it was overall still positive and there was a shared camaraderie in the dismal chaos.
night 3 sleepy delayed flight vibes
2. Ass out outfits
Didn’t do a what to wear piece here cuz who cares. Festival attire should be whatever you are comfortable in. Bonnaroo is not Coachella, so the looks are more feeling the music than here for Instagram. I got one hot festival girl outfit and we decided to go all out on the last night after we heard about the cancellation. Slay?.
There’s not a lot of opportunities to dress up like a dystopian sex worker or a character in Dune, so I say go for it.
After the cancellation, I convinced fellow writer and first-time festival friend Kiera to go on a Nashville side quest with me. She was hesitant but I kinda just went ahead and pushed our flight back for just a lillll bit more music. Overall glad we did. Witnessing the Bonnaroo spill over was wonderful. Girls in ass out glittery shorts and bras as shirts dawning Euphoria eye make up perusing in and out of bars on Broadway listening to Morgan Wallen amongst God-fearing bachelorette’s in cowboy hats. Awww, America is healing… jk lol
4. Garbage Bags and Ziplocs
While handy for keeping your muddy boots outside the tent and books and electronics safe (I ruined my copy of A Wrinkle in Time and lost my Airpods).
These bags are also great to store your sorrows away and remember your hungover ass is a just a small insignificant piece of garbage on this floating rock in the sky or whatever cosmic hippie shit they say. The vibes do die. I’ve been to festivals before that have not ended early and the veil is lifted on the last day. People, disoriented and tired, packing away their tents are not the same friend they were the night before. The party is over and the come down begins. The friend who you started a business with, made you realize you are just dust, the friend that changed your life man is now a distant stranger. The friend who you debated about whether or not bats can echo locate with whales goes back to their marketing job and you never see or hear from them again.
Are these relationships fake? Or is the nature of our current society -centered around capitalist beliefs- that encourages presenting a false ego in the means of gaining of something fake? Have we begun to fear vulnerability so much in a monitored surveillance state that we don’t take any risks when interacting with strangers? It’s hard to tell if we are pretending at these music festivals or if we have lifted the veil to our truest kindest self. Could we live in an open minded free love world like this every day? Giving and sharing with our friends? Laughing with strangers? Could it? Would it last? I dunno man.
3. DO NOT Bring your appendix
Post trip a lot of us got sick. We had weird flu like symptoms. It only lasted about a day that showed up in the morning but got severely worse at night. Being at an event with 80,000 people and spending one night in a rainy campsite is mad risky for gettin’ sicky vibes. So not a big surprise that two of us caught a case of the wet tent blues.
Saturday morning we all eventually went off our separate ways. Some of us flying back to Denver and some driving back to New Orleans. On our journey home we got an alarming text that our friend and fellow girl book writer and tarot reader for Bonnaroo, Taylor, had to go to the ER! OMG! What? why? how? The bread that got black moldy in 12 hours, the wet tent blues, the tequila (it couldn’t be), the definitely not illegal substances, or a Covid throwback? We were all freaking out. Turns out it was appendicitis and she got that bitch removed! On the spot! Who needs that thing anyways? Not this baddie. The vibes stayed positive despite the circumstances and the doctor gave her a sick battle scar. so Dune coded
I hate that it happened at all, but it made me realize that things really do happen for a reason. We were all so grateful we weren’t at the festival when her appendix decided to be a little bitch. Our friends happened to be near a hospital in Alabama, while traveling back to NoLa, and were in a much safer spot when Taylor the tarot reader went down. Sometimes the universe shows up in weird ways—even her rogue organ somehow knew the right time to throw in the towel.
That being said take your Vitamin C and electrolytes you dumb hoes.
5. Comfortable Shoes
You will walk a lot and being grounded is important. Having fun comes only after knowing where all your fucking friends are. If they take off in their comfortable shoes you also need comfortable shoes to go find their wandering trippy ass. Know your limits and know your location. Several people carried these totems which I hadn’t seen before. This was a brilliant way for all your friends to be able to find you and a lot of them were very creative.
When we first got to the festival our friend identified the stages as different states on the map and it was a brilliant way to remember that your campsite was in Montana.
I found random identifiers along the path to store in the part of my brain I hadn’t killed yet. For example, there were these yellow stickers on cars with big black number 2’s on them which from a distance looked like the Don’t Tread on Me Flag?
Wth… It helped us get home though when I saw them on the way back. You gotta trust your instincts, but not always. Your instincts are now part of a mycelium brain that is your group.
What should you actually bring to Bonnaroo, dunno check Pinterest maybe? wtf. I have no regrets going despite the rainy wet down and hope to make it back next year. I will invest in a slightly boojier tent and up my creature comforts a little. I just hope she plays “Hot to go” next year.
Happy roo!
- Jillian
Photo credit to Kiera @fromkierawithlove
Thanks for taking us VIP Taylor @what_are_the_wild_waves_saying
omg what if Frank Ocean was there with Tyler 😭
