[The following words and photos have been submitted by Synthesis contributer Karen Dunbar, who recently attended the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee.]

Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival
Manchester, TN
Thursday, June 12th – Sunday, June 15th

Bonnaroo isn’t just a music festival—it’s a mindset. This was the seventh year the tiny town of Manchester, Tennessee—a small, rural town 65 miles outside Nashville with a population of 9,500—was converged upon by 70,000 people. Arriving is a bit surreal; almost magically and suddenly the event explodes in front of you as you’re still driving through corn fields and family farms. The four days of Bonnaroo seem to meld together into an even more surreal, yet shared experience.
The event organizers seem to have thought of almost everything. Shuttles run from the airport on an almost continual basis as plane after plane empties music fans from all over the country. If you weren’t up to sitting in the hot sun watching one of the 158 bands, you could have your hair done, get a massage, go online or eat from a huge variety of choices, after you of course visited one of the many ATMs conveniently located throughout the festival. In the evening, the Silent Disco is better than many drugs: the aptly-named Ferris wheel offers a view of the entire site, and if timed properly offers the best views and sounds from either of two nearby stages. Speaking of drugs…Tennessee is an odd state. Possession of anything is still illegal, but if busted (and you don’t have a State sold tax sticker) you face tax evasion charges on top of the possession charge. Bonnaroo upholds all State laws. The price of this stamp is $3.50 per gram of pot and $50. per gram of cocaine. Bought anonymously, of course.

Almost every music genre was represented. You could watch Willie Nelson and then catch Metallica…on the same day. Dweezil Zappa performing his dad’s songs, Vampire Weekend, My Morning Jacket…the list went on forever. Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, Jack Johnson, the Raconteurs, The Coup, BB King followed by Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam ripped Kanye West a new one, and then watched as Kanye ripped himself one. (Kanye had a bit of a prima donna thing going; Eddie Vedder had a bit of an anti-Kanye thing going. Vedder’s fuck you to Kanye included beginning to promote Kanye’s performance and stopping mid-sentence, saying, “I just can’t do it,” then continuing to play for an additional 50 minutes and asking the crew for a slow load-out. Kanye’s stage needed three hours for production; he didn’t go on until 4:30 AM and only played an hour without a word of apology or explanation. Let’s just say the chant of “Kanye sucks” was a unifying theme through the remainder of the event, shouted at several sets during the rest of the weekend.

More after the jump (more…)

Beck, the Foo Fighters and Alison Krauss with Robert Plant will be among the headliners for this year’s Austin City Limits Festival. Also performing will be Silversun Pickups, festival mainstay Manu Chao, N.E.R.D., flavor-of-the-week Vampire Weekend, The Mars Volta, Gnarls Barkley and Conor Oberst with the Mystic Band. There are also a whole bunch more signed on the play the three day fest, but it’s early and I’m not going to list them all.

Bottom line is, if you think of a band you’d want to see live, you can probably find them here. Last year’s ACL brought in over $11.3 million and hosted over 225,000 people, ranking as the fourth largest festival in the world.
If you’re the environmentally conscious type — and who isn’t nowadays — you can counterbalance all the waste you and your fellow festival goers are going to create for just an extra $5 over your ticket price. BeGreen is asking those attending ACL and this year’s Lollapalooza to go green and purchase a BeGreen Fan Tag.

Each Fan Tag is equal to offsetting 500 kWh of energy usage and will be used to purchase renewable energy credits from sources, such as solar, wind and biomass. Purchasers receive a unique, double-sided BeGreen Fan Tag sticker that can be displayed at the event to show off their environmental consciousness.

“Music has always been a great outlet for drawing attention to social issues and spurring change. We are very excited to partner with the organizers of these two major musical festivals to raise environmental awareness and do our part for Mother Earth,” said Gillan Taddune, chief environmental officer of Green Mountain Energy Company. “By giving concert-goers, through the Fan Tag, easy ways to decrease their impact on the environment, these festivals are showing a true commitment to fighting global warming.”

Through a partnership with the events’ organizers, C3 Presents, BeGreen also worked with the Austin City Limits Festival and Lollapalooza to make the two events 100 percent carbon neutral in 2008. This purchase of carbon offsets made from clean technologies like renewable energy credits balances out all of the show’s electricity usage, generators, staff travel and office-based emissions.

If you go to Austin, please be nice to the locals. They’re really cool, and they have infinite patience when putting up with outsiders, even if they do enjoy talking about you when you’re gone.