July 2017
As day 4 of Bonnaroo 2017 dawned warm and humid, four days on nearly nonstop celebration began to take its toll on exhausted concert goers. Some began to pack up their campsites and headed to the exits to get an early start on their long treks homeward. Many others just collapsed in any cool shady spot they could find for a long-delayed sleep.
One of the unique aspects of the Bonnaroo music festival is the much anticipated Superjam. The legendary jam has seen some of the most interesting mashups in modern music history over the years, some more than successful than others. Occasionally the sessions have gone on into the first rays of sunshine of the following morning.
By the afternoon of day 3 of Bonnaroo 2017, the festival began to heat up in every way possible. The temperature warmed up to the mid-80s, a more average level for summer in Tennessee, with climbing humidity. Lots of young exposed body parts bronzed in the summer sun as music fans stripped down to the bare essentials and sought relief from the afternoon sun in shady spots and air-conditioned venues like the cinema comedy tent. The beer tent was doing a brisk business selling microbrews from over 3o different breweries.
Never before had an audience seemed so intrigued by set break music than at GD50, when Circles Around the Sun began streaming through the sound system. The album, titled Interludes for the Dead, was a piece of music created specifically for that very occasion, the once in a lifetime reunion of the remaining members of the Grateful Dead.
I had the treat to head to Chicago from my northern Indiana home and catch the good ol’ Grateful Dead at Wrigley Field on July 1, 2017. I shouldn't say it was the Grateful Dead, though, as this entity, called Dead and Company, is a very different animal, containing three original members of the Dead (Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart) along with three other, quite accomplished musicians (John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti).
