So…. this is where it all begins, in Manchester, Tennessee. Knife flew into Long Beach, California just over a week ago then we drove our ice cream truck, Newt, over 2000 miles to get to Bonnaroo. It’s hard to believe everything that’s happened in the last week, especially the last four days. I know Bruce Springsteen played (with the E Street band as well as three songs with Phish last night) and that we gave away somewhere around 2600 free ice creams but the rest of the details are a little fuzzy.
Bonnaroo is the best festival in the country and for the fourth straight year we were fortunate to be granted backstage access in the artist hospitality area to sling cream all weekend. It was our first big festival of the year (unless you include SXSW which is a whole nother animal) and all I could think of last night while the ice cream crew was all dancing near the soundboard during Phish was: it’s all downhill from here. Well… that’s not really true. One of my favorite sayings is “It’s Getting Better” and we’re going to be churning out Road Trippin’ with Ice Cream Man episodes twice a week for the remainder of summer. If things go as planned I’m certain we’ll find festivals, bbq joints, ice cream, roller coasters, and all kinds of other things that will make us feel as happy as we did last night while dancing.
If I tried to give you a full recap of what went down over those last few days I never would’ve made it to Knoxville, TN tonight where there was a swimming pool and a shower waiting for us. We came down to Tennessee with high hopes for capturing a handful of performances around the ice cream truck as well as some interview bits with bands and a lot of footage showing people what it was really like to be at the best festival in the country. We got to hang out with MGMT, White Rabbits, Chairlift, Delta Spirit, Elvis Perkins, Bobby Bare Jr. and an accordion player even jumped on the roof for our impromptu Grand Opening.
At most music festivals we give away ice cream at I get to see very little music because the truck is open til the sun goes down then the headliners are the only bands left to play. Bonnaroo is a completely different animal. After Bruce Springsteen finished at 12:30 on Saturday night (after a THREE hour set) Nine Inch Nails, Ben Harper and MGMT were all still going to play. I think the average time I got to bed was between four and five in the morning. Luckily there was some cloud cover in the morning to keep our sleeping quarters from becoming a furnace and forcing us to wake up much earlier than we’d want. Most bands play long sets too. Maybe not as long as Phish who played a total of over SEVEN hours (they headlined Friday and Sunday night) but you can expect your favorite ‘big’ band to at least rock out for two hours.
The dance party last night was the perfect capper for Bonnaroo and as it often happens, the morning after is the inverse. The hangover wasn’t all that bad but Newt’s battery had died because I left the keys in the ignition while rolling down the windows on Friday and the battery was so dead by the last morning that we tried to jump it two different ways with no luck. Something I was hoping would take only a few minutes ended up taking a few hours. Luckily once we got a new battery (and a 10mm socket) we were able to get off festival grounds. Knife took off to Nashville to pick up a computer for the video crew and I’m drinking some coffee and typing this up before driving two and a half hours to Knoxville.
