Bonnaroo 2004 Music Festival CD Review
By Ryan "Shep" ShepardIt's been a long-standing argument that the true test of a band's greatness is how they stand up in a live performance. Plenty of tales have been told of artists who sound fantastic in a studio recording, only to suck at a monumental level when playing out. You can't cover up a bad performance.
The folks who put together the Bonnaroo Music Festival have recently released a live 2-disc set of some of the performances from their 2004 artist lineup, and I can say without exaggeration that not one performance is bad. Not one.
Overall, it's a great addition to have in one's collection. The tracks are more or less mixed together to sound like one continuous live gig, and with the way the artists are tracked -- both popular and "b-list" -- you don't mind listening to some artists you're not as big on. I've done that with mix CDs; you'll see off the bat that you've got to skip by some music you don't think you'd dig to get to the stuff you automatically would. This is different.
"This Disc" (which concertgoers will recognize as the same naming of the stages at the festival) starts off with Bob Dylan's "Down Along The Cove"; surprisingly upbeat for Bob, I thought. From there, it moves into "Trouble" by Dave Matthews & Friends, which seemed to me to be more guitar-laden and "freestyle" at the end by Trey Anastasio than what I'd heard during their tour of the winter months prior. That's not me complaining; it's me wishing they'd done it when I'd seen them live.
The rest of This Disc ends up being more artists that I haven't explored versus ones I have: previous to this listen, I'd heard none of Gillian Welch, Kings of Leon or Umphrey's Mcgee. I had, however, been familiar with Gov't Mule and The Black Keys -- and to hear them live just blew me away (and made me wish I'd caught them here in NYC when they'd played earlier in the year).