Bonnaroo‘s Backseat

July 5, 2006

A revamped Bonnaroo Festival took place last weekend in Tennessee to mixed reviews from attendees, some of who liked the more mainstream/indie-rock changes to the traditionally jam-band lineup, and some who saw the genre-adding as an unwelcome means to an eventual Bonnaroo end.  It was the usual atmosphere as previous Bonnaroos, for the most part - gravel roads, plenty of dust and dirt, relentless heat alternating with mud-creating rain, pay showers, $4 bottles of water, lots of neo-hippies peddling various, er, substances, and far-flung crowded campsites - plus, of course, the longest jam band sets you’ll ever pay to see.
The stages were given such names as “What Stage,” “That Tent,” “This Tent,” and “The Other Stage,” which added to the overall confusion - and by the second day, Shakedown Street - Bonnaroo’s “main drag” - was lined with overstuffed aromatic trash bags and sunbaked vendors selling “organic earplugs” which, upon closer inspection, were... pebbles.  But it’s all tolerated to see the lineup of bands, which this year included Tom Petty, Phil Lesh, moe, Damian Marley, Cypress Hill, Stevie Nicks, Oysterhead, Son Volt, Rusted Root, The Neville Brothers, Dr. John, and Umphrey’s McGee plus those new-genre-to-Bonnaroo bands, which included Beck, Radiohead, Death Cab for Cutie, and Bright Eyes.  The highlight of the festival, though, was said to be the midnight Super Jam, which featured Trey Anastasio noodling endlessly with Mike Gordon, a treat for Phish fans who saw half of the band, at least, reunited at last...
 
Chris Cornell and Audioslave are set to drop their third album this fall;  dubbed Revelations, the disc will be prefaced by the single “Original Fire,” which is set to hit U.S. radio on July 18, with the album to follow a couple of months later on September 5 via Epic Records.  Also included on the album will be tracks “One and the Same,” “Broken City,” “Shape of Things to Come,” “Wide Awake,” “Until We Fall,” and “Moth” - an Audioslave tour is expected, but dates have yet to be announced...
 
Counting Crows, who are celebrating their 15th anniversary as a band, are prepping a new disc for release, too - with the first half said to be a lot more “rocking” than previous releases, the band is currently wrapping work on the second half, which they say will have more of a country/folk vibe.  The album will serve as the follow up to the band’s 2002 release, Hard Candy, and the Crows are previewing some of the new material on their current co-headlining tour with the Goo Goo Dolls, which just kicked off on June 21 in Washington state.  Fans not willing to wait for new Crows material in the meantime can purchase the stopgap live album New Amsterdam - Live at the Heineken Music Hall which was released last week and features the new Counting Crows song “Hazy”...
 
All-American Rejects are on the road, too, and will be through the end of this month, even though they’ve spent most of the past year on the tour bus.  They’re dedicated, those Rejects, and that effort is paying off, since their album, Move Along, is still on Billboard’s Top 200 even though it debuted almost a year ago.   They’ve got a slate of live shows lined up for this summer, including stops in Detroit (7/4), London, Ontario (7/13), Toronto (7/16), and Costa Mesa, California (7/26) - all of these dates are merely prefacing the band’s headlining tour that’s coming up this fall...
 
MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK:  Log in to www.purevolume.com/billytalent/ to check out video footage of Canadian punk-popsters Billy Talent in the studio working on their new album...

MINI BUZZ:
Velvet Revolver, yet another band currently at work on a new disc, will take a short break from recording their sophomore album to play a quick 4-date tour of the U.S. West Coast...
Moving slowly but surely, Portishead, who haven’t released a studio album since 1997, are finally back behind the boards and are working on new tunes complete with vocalist Beth Gibbons...
Modest Mouse are recording, too, specifically in Mississippi with producer Dennis Herring, who produced the band’s 2004 release, Good News for People Who Love Bad News...
The Pixies have a series of overseas live dates set up, including stops at the Benicassim Festival and at Zagreb Salata...
Pearl Jam has scheduled a July 20 live show to benefit charity; the concert will take place at Portland, Oregon’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall... 
And DJ Paul Oakenfold, whose new disc, A Lively Mind was out June 6, has added several dates to his upcoming U.S. tour..
 
New releases this week include these discs... ON CD:  Paula Cole’s Greatest Hits... Old 97’s The Best of Old 97’s... Diana Ross’ Blue... Pearl Jam’s Live at Easy Street EP... Black Helicopter’s Invisible Jet... and Lostprophets Liberation Transmission...  ON DVD: Various Artists: Sounds of the Underground Vol. 1... The Clarks’ Still Live... Former The Clash frontman Joe Strummer’s Let’s Rock Again... and Richard Thompson’s 1000 Years of Popular Music... and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock.
 
Questions, comments, rants, raves, suggestions about this column or your fave musicians?  Send ‘em to Kristi at modernrocker@gmail.com