Catching Up

As I mentioned in my last post, I went away for a little while. To Bonnaroo, a huge four-day music festival on a farm in Tennessee about 70 miles southeast of Nashville.

You camp out at this festival; so I spent about five days living in a tent in what is ostensibly the middle of nowhere, though with 80,000 other people (we temporarily became the sixth largest city in Tennessee during the festival.)

Which means there wasn’t really computer access, and certainly no television. Not that I wanted it – I was there to hang out with friends and see bands and have fun, not sit around watching TV or looking at a computer screen, which is what I do for a living.

But that also means that I was very disconnected from the sports world during this time. I couldn’t check ESPN.com, or any of the myriad blogs that I read. If there was a blockbuster NBA trade, or if Chad Pennington died at Jets mini-camp, or Barry Bonds broke the home run record then shot himself at home plate like that running back in The Last Boy Scout , I wouldn’t have known right away.

The only thing that I could have done was watch Game 4 of the NBA Finals. The festival had a tent set up where they were showing movies throughout the weekend, and they were going to show Game 4 and Game 5 (if necessary, which it wasn’t).

I could have gone to that tent to watch the game on Thursday night. I didn’t. I went to a different tent and saw The Black Angels, a psychedelic rock band from Texas, instead.

It was definitely the right call. The Black Angels played an incredible set (seriously, follow the above link and check the band out) that was one of the standouts for me for the whole festival. And I knew from watching the first three games of the finals that Game 4 wasn’t going to be anything resembling incredible. Even if Cleveland won, it would have been ugly, and delaying the inevitable. But they didn't, and the Spurs celebrated, and, yeah, whatever. Good for Tim Duncan, the Pete Sampras of basketball.

And, yeah, I missed a Yankees-Mets series, and what turned out to be an interesting US Open (though I’m no golf fan), and some other baseball stuff. But here’s what I didn’t miss:

- Tool completely blowing us away, including a song with guest Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine.

- Standing the equivalent of 20 rows away for The Police (I could see their faces; thanks to Sean Milano for finding the “secret entrance” to the pit area in front of the stage). From what I hear, this was one of their best sets during the reunion.

- Standing in the same spot for Wilco, a band that’s even better live than on record. You want to talk about talented musicians who know how to play with each other, mixing strong song writing with noise-rock improvisatory freak-outs, you’re talking about these guys.

- Getting just about moved to tears by Mavis Staples (of the legendary Staples Singers) as she sang “The Weight” (as she did in The Last Waltz) and realizing that I was not alone as I saw the girl standing in front of me weeping and smiling.

- Seeing solid sets by bands I really dig, like The National and the Black Keys

- Demetri Martin killing in the comedy tent

- Baking in the 90 degree plus sun as Wolfmother rocked our melting sweaty faces off

- Grooving until day break to Sasha and Digweed

And that’s not even everything.

The lesson here?

Well, mostly that this was a good time in the sports year to miss some time. It was really just a handful of baseball games, a golf tournament I don’t really care about, and a few news cycles that I could easily catch up on when I got back. Maybe I wouldn’t have been as happy had this been over a football weekend.

But I’d do it all again in a heartbeat, because live music is vital and visceral in a way that nothing else can really be. Even if to do it again I end up having to watch an actual good NBA Finals game in a tent with a bunch of sweaty hippies.

It's that worth it.