Nashville and Bonnaroo Setup

Hi everyone,
Yesterday we arrived in Nashville at noonish. After unloading our bags, Brian (FOH Mixer) and I decided to head out to a burger joint a few blocks away. On my way down to the lobby to meet Brian, a gentleman in the elevator was chatting me up in typical friendly Nashville fashion. It turns out to be Mentor Williams, a celebrated songwriter who penned, among other songs, "Drift Away" ("Gimme the beat boys save my soul...."). He told me his wife was country music legend Lynn Anderson, best known for "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden." I googled him, and found out his brother, Paul Williams, is in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Not only has Paul written "Just an Old Fashioned Loved Song," "Rainy Days and Mondays," "Rainbow Connection," and the theme to the Love Boat, but he also played Enos in the Smoky and he Bandit movies!

Local resident Jim Pitt, who booked the guest bands on both of Conan's TV shows (and is booking guest talent for this tour as well) put together a nice list of restaurants and things to do in the area. On this list, the place Brian and I chose, Rotier's, was said to have Nashville's best burger. And it was a damn good burger. When we left the restaurant, the sky burst into instantaneous torrential rain. There was no 30 seconds of sprinkling first, no warning at all. It was like a flash flood. We got back to the hotel finally, and there's Wynonna Judd in the lobby. Hello Nashville!

After returning to the hotel, drenched, I decided to take a nap. I was hoping to stave off the cold/flu thing that's been going around (and that I'm starting to get). I ended up sleeping for maybe six hours, waking up at 10pm. I got some room service delivered, and worked on the blog for a couple hours before retiring for the night.

Morning came waaay too fast. Fucking 5:30am bus call! A dozen of us headed out to the festival site to load in and setup. Because of all the rain we'd had the day before, the festival grounds were wet and muddy- think Woodstock. So we couldn't drive the semi full of gear to the stage: we had to unload it onto a dock on the other side of the grounds, then into small box trucks to deliver it to our stage in the comedy tent. We then had to drag our gear into the tent on sheets of plywood laid out over the mud. It turns out that festivals SUCK. But at least the gear's mostly setup.

Tomorrow we leave at 6am for the festival. I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for the smell of patchouli and malodorous hippy wannabes. Yes, I said "malodorous." Deal with it!