BONNAROO ROCKS DEEP INTO THE NIGHT
The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., packed a ton of sounds into Day 3 of the four-day festival — and the shows ran late into the night, thanks to a thunderstorm that closed the festival grounds for an hour. Here are a few of our favorite moments from Saturday:
1 PEARL JAM ROCKS TO THE WEE HOURS
Thanks to a rain delay, Pearl Jam played the latest headlining set of the weekend, and it also will likely go down as the loudest. The band was a staggeringly energetic force. Even songs everyone recognized and loved — Jeremy,
Evenflow, Better Man — weren’t quite the songs you remember from the albums. They were sharper, faster, leaner and meaner, and very much alive and inspired. That’s not something you always find with a rock band in its 26th year.
2 HAIM PAYS TRIBUTE TO PRINCE
“It feels so good to be in Tennessee right now, y’all,” Haim bassist Este Haim told fans as the sun set over the festival’s Which Stage. The sibling dance-rock trio treated the audience to a cover of Prince’s I Would Die 4 U. That was fun, but it was even better seeing songs from their breakout album, Days Are Gone, truly come alive.
Those cool recordings don’t quite convey all the charisma, confidence and fun the three sisters have when they share the stage, whether they’re shredding on guitars or busting a move — or doing both at the same time.
3 MACKLEMORE
KEEPS HIS COOL
Hats off to Macklemore for getting tens of thousands of people to evacuate Bonnaroo calmly when looming thunderstorms put the festival on hold for an hour.
When the show resumed, he and musical mastermind Ryan Lewis didn’t miss a step.
“A little lightning can never stop the music,” Macklemore said when they re-emerged. “Let’s go!”
He also brought out another rap star who loves coming to Bonnaroo: Chance the Rapper, in one of several surprise appearances he made at the festival over the weekend.
4 JASON
MRAZ’S LAST-MINUTE APPEARANCE
He has been a star for more than a decade, but Jason Mraz remains a work in progress. That’s not a critique: He said it himself in a brand-new song he tried out at Bonnaroo.
“I’m a work in progress/ I got a few pages left,” he sang over his acoustic guitar, his only accompaniment at the solo show. “I’m still writing this self-titled track.” And while the pop tune had a few blank spots — “I haven’t written this part yet,” he sang at one point — it also boasted several ridiculously intricate verses that Mraz already knew by heart.
“This is a halfway poem/ half rapped off the dome/ halfstoned/ half recorded half-assed on my phone.”
In that same spirit, Mraz’s Bonnaroo gig was a spur of the moment event, too. He was just added to the festival bill Saturday.