On a not-so-small farm 60 miles south of Nashville, Tenn., one of the country’s largest music festivals is ready to celebrate its fifth year of bringing music, art, food and general goodness to the world.
The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, which in the past has featured artists such as Modest Mouse, Alison Krauss, The Dave Matthews Band, The Dead, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Allman Brothers Band, The Roots and James Brown, will once again take place on the 700-acre farm June 16 to 18 in Manchester, Tenn.
The festival, which began in 2002, is famous for its wide scope of performers and features an eclectic mix of genres from hip-hop to electronica to jam bands, and the performances this year will not let audiences down, said Ken Weinstein, owner and president of Big Hassle Media.
Weinstein and Big Hassle are helping Superfly Productions and A.C. Entertainment, founders of Bonnaroo, publicize and arrange the festival this year.
Weinstein said this year they are expecting about 80,000 people, a number that has held constant almost every year since the festival began.
He said the number keeps everything manageable at the festival.
At this year’s festival, Radiohead, Beck, Tom Petty, Death Cab For Cutie, Matisyahu, My Morning Jacket and a slew of others have packed the lineup.
Weinstein said there will be one main stage as well as a second stage at the festival. There will also be two or three tent stages and a comedy tent, which Bonnaroo added this past year. All will feature various performances throughout the three-day music-slash-art-a-thon.
Nick Harmer, Death Cab for Cutie bassist, said his group is excited to play Bonnaroo.
“We’re just excited to be playing for people that are, you know, music enthusiasts,” Harmer said.
Harmer said that while his band has not yet begun to plan their setlist, they are looking forward to playing such a huge festival.
“We’ll do best, I think, to just sort of stick to what we do and add, sort of, add our flavor to what’s going on here,” Harmer said.
Harmer also said the nature of Bonnaroo is what makes it exciting for them as musicians. The changes in environment and situations out of their control add to the fun of such a large festival.
“A lot of those environmental factors kind of sculpt the sort of energy in the crowd and sculpt the performance of us,” Harmer said. “Those variables that you can’t really plan on, you know, really change things, even up to the last minute, so and that’s, you know, very exciting … I think that’s kind of what is exciting about some of this festival stuff for us, is that you don’t really get to plan a whole bunch out.”
Jim James, My Morning Jacket singer-guitarist, agreed that one of the best parts about Bonnaroo is its unpredictability.
“We’ve had nothing but fun in the past, and I don’t know, I just feel like kind of the fun thing about Bonnaroo is that you never really know what to expect,” James said. “I mean you know what to expect, but you never really know what’s going to go down, and, you know, what’s going to happen.”
Matisyahu, a Hasidic Jew and reggae performer, will be bringing his unique style of music to the stage at Bonnaroo for the second consecutive year.
Matisyahu said that as a festival veteran, he feels more prepared for the expectations.
“After a year of touring and a year of playing in festivals and stuff like that and an album and going gold and all that kind of stuff, I mean you feel more established,” Matisyahu said. “[You feel] sort of less like you have to prove yourself more or like you just have to, you know, make good music.”
Even with a captive audience of about 80,000, Matisyahu’s feelings about music and entertainment are the same.
“Well, I never look at my job as being an entertainer or as a performer even,” Matisyahu said. “Music to me is something that, like, if you trace back its roots around the world, you know, it’s something that’s been used for spiritual purposes for thousands of years.”
Matisyahu said that even the open fields of Tennessee don’t change the spirituality of his music.
“I mean it’s beautiful whether it’s raining or whether you’re in a night club in, you know, who knows where, in Kentucky somewhere, or whether you’re in Israel,” Matisyahu said. “That’s the great thing about music is that the music creates the environment.”
 
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