Bonaroo Day 1

Interspersed amongst the usual cultural ephemera will be a series of guest posts from music guru Keith Kozel, who will offer first hand analysis, hazy memories and other tidbits of knowledge stemming from this year's Bonnaroo. The first installment features a review of critically-acclaimed, Savannah-based rockers Baroness.

Bonnaroo Day 1: I picked up my friend Tara from a bus station on the way from Atlanta. We spent the next nine hours in the car. She had been living in New Jersey for the past few months so it gave us a chance to relax and catch up. When we finally made it to the farm in Manchester TN. it was 5:00pm. On the way in they confiscated my wood axe. I was pissed because I didn't even know it was in the trunk.  What the hell was I gonna do with a wood axe? 

 After setting up our camp, which was mercifully close to Centeroo, (the concert venue), we hustled through the gates and made it to the oddly named, "The Other Tent" just as our hometown rockers, Baroness hit the stage. Even if they are veterans of Coachella and European festival tours, I could sense their excitement to be on such an amazing bill. 

  At first it was just Peter and John onstage building a textured sound . The energy was rising to a slow boil as Alan climbed behind the drumkit, and last onstage was Summer adding a nearly subsonic rumble to the mix. The band never spoke a word, and the crowd was going nuts with excitement. The musical onslaught that followed wove a stoned heavy, psychedelic tapestry of emotion and sound. Brutal volcanic eruptions of sustained intensity and epic rivers of abstract sound and feedback gripped the moment and held the audience captive. The honed professionalism, honest feeling epic playing and sheer power that bAroness brought to the stage was awe inspiring. Heads banged, fists raised, bones vibrated.

The twin Guitar pyrotechnics of Baizley and Adams were worthy of any Viking Valhalla, but never kitschy or pretentious. Even when John unsheathed a white double necked guitar (it appeared to be a Gibson, but I couldn't see clearly), We all got the joke, but instead of cheezing it up we were delivered a thick complex journey into the realm of heavy Southern metal. Alternating between the glimmering twelve strings and the fuzzed out standard six. Rarely do such ripping solos and meaty dirges evoke both brutality and positive vibration. This show was world class, and I got chills when the first, last and only words addressed to the audience were, "We're Baroness, from Savannah, Georgia!"

Here is the setlist as I recall:

     1.Bullhead's Psalm

       2. The Sweetest Curse 

       3. Jake Leg      

       4.  Isak

       5.The Birthing

       6. Ogeechee Hymnal

       7.A Horse Called Golgotha

       8. War, Wisdom and Rhyme

       9. Swollen and Halo

       10.The Gnashing

       11.Grad (with double necked guitar)

  After such a long day I retired to camp, cooked dinner and listened to Blitzen trapper from my tent.  Gotta rest up for Day 2