Bonnaroo

There are some who believe that music is as necessary to survival as oxygen and more enjoyable than sex. They exist - I’ve met them. I’ve seen them swim in the sound waves of any and every genre, deconstructing each song to its components and reducing it till its vibrato. I like to compare such people to wine lovers, as they seem to share their methodology. Music enthusiasts will stare fixedly as their ears drink the sound. Perhaps they will close their eyes and let the melody wash over them, swishing it around like an aged Merlot. They don’t just listen to music, they surrender control to their senses in order to experience it. These are neither groupies nor fanatics laced with tattoos; they are individuals who engage in wildly passionate love affairs with melodies and harmonies and chords and become too involved with it all to remember that the rest of the world exists. These people, in their hearts, live at Bonnaroo.

Music festivals like Bonnaroo have earned bad reputations. Naysayers often connote them as drug-dens, giving people an excuse to bask in hippiedom and flirt with hallucinogens. I won’t say it doesn’t happen. But the difference is in the perspective. I saw Bonnaroo this year. I dragged from the joint that came from nowhere and everywhere. I walked around shoeless, dressed only in buoyancy. I danced with myself, without judgment or criticism, and without the self-consciousness that I’ve grown so accustomed to. My five days in Tennessee don’t make me a hippie, and it might be the closest to will come to rebelling against society. But I learned that it’s not about “sticking it to the man” or seeing the world through a psychedelic lens. It’s about freeing yourself from the reins of the world. It’s about recognizing that reality is a machine composed of coils and cogs that churn out rules by which we are expected to live. But the most valuable thing I learned is that once you’re brave enough to take a little perspective, brave enough to leave behind the safety of familiar, you may find yourself feeling much more comfortable swimming in the unknown.

Upon my return I was often asked why I would attend in the first place. I don’t have an answer for that. But what I gained by the end of Bonnaroo justified my attendance. Bonnaroo had me in an element; one I am unaccustomed to but no less my own. It was liberating to wear a different sheath for once, and to allow myself to feel inspired through an unconventional medium. For the first time in a long time, I felt an uninterrupted relationship with myself. I was a muse and a symphony; I was a masterpiece and a song. And while the feeling was only temporary, nothing can deny the fact that I still felt it.