Diarrhea Planet

Diarrhea Planet's I'm Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams is a 2013 release I'm still meaning to catch up on. They're also a band that I've been told, again and again, demands to be seen live, one of the main selling points being the strangeness of the fact that they are essentially a punk band with four guitars. I went to check them out after seeing Mastodon, in the mood for more gut-punching guitar music, and was just as impressed as everyone said I'd be. They played one of Bonnaroo's bite-size stages, the Miller Lite New Music On Tap Tent, which looks more like the sort of place you'd film a band for some sort of radio show, with something like thirty people in the crowd. Well, there were a lot more people than that, crammed into a space far too small. (The Orwells apparently had a similar problem earlier, inciting enough rowdiness to have the plug pulled on them twice, which I'm told in turn incited a small riot.) There was a hilarious paradox to it, people perched wherever they could be within the tent, it all looking like a casual and passionate punk show flanked by corporate branding and hashtagged slogans. The band members themselves were totally obscured by those who had come to see them -- many of whom were local friends, since Diarrhea Planet formed in Nashville -- but they sounded great.

Cloud Nothings

I've been to a few Cloud Nothings shows this year, and they all had something in common -- the band basically only played songs from their new album Here And Nowhere Else. Which is fine, it's a good album, but those songs have a tendency to blur together when they don't have some older material breaking it up. So, they were as solid as ever, but with the luxury of a slightly longer set than either of those I saw at SXSW in March, they were also able to mix it up a bit more. This meant "Fall In" and "Stay Useless" appeared, but it also meant that I finally got to hear "Wasted Days" again, which I still think is far and away the best song Dylan Baldi has written. It seemed like they were going to close with that, and then they did an extra-slow-burn version of "No Future/No Past," inverting the opening one-two of Attack On Memory for an incredibly strong one-two closing to their set. If I have one qualm with Here And Nowhere Else, it's that it doesn't have that same dynamic quality that Attack On Memory displayed with those songs. With these songs back in the fold, Cloud Nothings' Bonnaroo performance was the most balanced and varied set I've seen them do this year, which also means it was the best.

BANKS

I missed out on BANKS last week at Governors Ball, heard great things, and was intent on checking out her set at Bonnaroo. She didn't disappoint, delivering what was easily the most entrancing performance I encountered on my first night at the festival. Playing underneath This Tent, BANKS had a somewhat intimate space, and filled it not only with a particularly fervent crowd considering she's yet to release her debut full-length, but also with pounding, pulsating synths for the fifty or so minutes she played. Of it all, "Before I Ever Met You" and "Waiting Game" were the clear standouts. She closed with the latter, giving it a live iteration that, magnified by a few sizes, managed to feel both ominous and infectious. The song thrummed in my head for the rest of the weekend, becoming one of the only things I wanted to listen to on my late night drives back to my hotel. BANKS' debut just moved a few slots up my list of albums to look forward to in the latter half of this year.

Danny Brown

I had seen Danny Brown once before his Friday Bonnaroo set, opening for Sleigh Bells back in November. At that concert, it seemed at least half the crowd was actually there to see him, and he was great, but it was still not entirely his show. Old was one of my favorite albums of 2013, but I think I'd underestimated just how intensely Brown is loved. He was one (of several) artists holding down one of the tent stages while seeming like his popularity demanded a much bigger space. So much so, in fact, that it got a little dark there in the beginning. People were so crammed in there that before Brown even took the stage, there was a steady stream of fans exiting over the barricade and out of the photo pit in front of the stage, looking they the mass behind them had been crushing them -- many of their faces were deep red, all looked like they were struggling to breathe, and a few even looked to be having panic attacks. And, again, this was while Brown's DJ was just playing a few songs to get everyone amped up. Brown took the stage around the time that the exodus started to trickle, but that also meant that a few people who found themselves over the wall didn't want to exit and go to the back of the crowd, and they wound up in heated, occasionally physical, arguments with the Bonnaroo staff members. Once Brown was actually onstage, the intensity of his performance and of the crowd's reaction didn't let up for the entirety of his set, but things at least looked like they got a bit safer. To be honest, it was a little unnerving to see the whole thing start that way, but once Brown was underway his set was unstoppable, with him channeling a frenetic, manic sense of energy the entire time. It was great to hear "25 Bucks" for the first time towards the end of the performance, and hearing him perform "Smokin & Drinkin" and "(Side B) Dope Song" will never get old.

Dr. Dog

Sometimes I just want to watch a classicist rock band do their thing really well, and Dr. Dog are perfect for that. For years now, I've had friends who have been telling me how great the band is live, but I've somehow always missed the chance to catch one of their shows. Even going in with this high praise in the back of my mind, Dr. Dog exceeded my expectations. They were the first band I saw on Friday, the second day of the festival and one already hanging with that stench of mud and human filth that usually crops up on a festival's final day. Dr. Dog were the perfectly ragged thing for it, every jam feeling born of the swampiness itself, first lingering in the thick humidity and then seeming to call on the storm clouds that threatened but never broke. Between the one-two opening of "These Days" and "That Old Black Hole," and an excellent closer with "Lonesome," the set felt Be The Void-dominated, which probably made me appreciate it more; it's my favorite of their records, which I believe ranks me in the minority amongst Dr. Dog fans, but whatever it's a great album. Every now and then I'll throw it on while walking around New York on a warm day, and up until now that was the extent of my devotion to Dr. Dog. After Friday, I've realized they're one of those bands where I like their albums, but hadn't seen the whole picture. They're ten times better live, and I can't wait to see them again.

Arctic Monkeys

Seven or eight years ago, I would've never imagined myself saying this, but I'm really impressed with how Arctic Monkeys have grown up. I'm an outlier here, but I was actually never that much of a fan of the band's early music, and far prefer the directions they've explored on their last two releases, and I'd definitely argue that the band's songwriting and Alex Turner's sense of melody have both grown by leaps and bounds as they close in on the decade mark of their career. But, also, these guys just have just come to exude an effortless sense of a a kind of bygone version of rockstar cool. Onstage, they're all calm and low-key confidence, deftly laying down one infectious, chunky groove after another. As expected (and, by me, appreciated) the set leaned heavily on material from last year's AM, with a few of the old favorites sprinkled in. The bratty spark of their earlier stuff has grown up a bit, songs like "Brianstorm" having acquired more of a sense of swagger and muscle that lets it sit comfortably alongside the thump of newer stuff like "Do I Wanna Know?" On another end of the Arctic Monkeys' current spectrum, "Fluorescent Adolescent" fit neatly in between "Knee Socks" and "One For The Road," two of the more R&B influenced AM tracks. The sun was in its most vicious mood of the weekend during Arctic Monkeys' set, and this version of the band thrived under it. There's just that right amount of sweat and grit in their sound now -- it's the kind of stuff that should play in the background when you leave a seedy bar in the desert and walk out into a glaring, biting, unforgiving morning.

Janelle Monae

Janelle Monae's set at Governor's Ball blew me away, and I wasn't going to pass up the chance to see her again a week later (with a slightly longer set time this time around, thankfully). Unsurprisingly give the degree of theatricality and choreography to Monae's show, the performance varied little from last week aside from the inclusion of one or two more songs. That didn't matter. Knowing what to expect only meant that I got to dig into a little bit more, developing more of a specific appreciation for the sequencing of her set, or different tricks deployed in this or that song. Similar to Governor's Ball, but knowing what to expect I got to dig into it all a little bit more. The first four songs of Monae's set ("Givin Em What They Love," into "Dance Apocalyptic," into "Sincerely, Jane," into "Q.U.E.E.N.") are amongst the best runs I've seen anyone put together in a set this year. It's an incredibly effective sequence in terms of getting you primed for something special, and Monae's set delivers on every level from there on out. I had chills through the whole performance.

Damon Albarn

This was my fourth time seeing Damon Albarn in three months, and I'm far from sick of it -- of course, this is partially attributable to him being one of my favorite artists, but also because I've been able to see the way he began playing new material from Everyday Robots before anyone had heard the thing or knew how to react to the songs, and the point he's arrived at, where he's weaving it far more effectively amongst other work spanning his career. Setlist-wise, this show wasn't all that different from Albarn's Irving Plaza show I included in last week's Governor's Ball recaps, or from the Fader Fort headlining set during SXSW. Like at Irving Plaza, Albarn displayed that he's learned a way to flesh out the Everyday Robots songs so that they function better in a festival setting. And, thankfully, like at Fader Fort, he's not averse to dropping in some crowd-pleasers, as a more stubborn person in his position (two beloved bands under his belt, and yet trying to promote a predominantly low-key new solo album that's tricky to reproduce live in the right way) might be tempted to be. This meant we got both "Feel Good, Inc." with De La Soul coming out, as well as "Clint Eastwood" with Del the Funky Homosapien (with whom Albarn had never actually played the song live until that same Fader Fort set in March). The special one for me this time around was when Albarn brought out the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble for a version of "Broken" (from Gorillaz' 2010 release Plastic Beach), a song he's only played a few times on his solo tour. He seemed to enjoy it, too, giving the horn players an extended middle section to do their thing over, while he sat on the drum riser, had a beer, and nodded his head along.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Conflicts are, naturally, a part of any festival, but Bonnaroo just got cruel on Saturday night. After Jack White had a big two hour chunk all to himself for an endless barrage of cartoonish classic rock-isms and faux-folksy-mystic banter, right afterwards you had the irreconcilable: Nick Cave vs. the Flaming Lips vs. Frank Ocean. Cave's Push The Sky Away was a late-breaking favorite of mine last year, but I was still on the fence. The Flaming Lips have had some embarrassing and tiring moments as of late, and they're never really not on tour, but their current stage setup is such an entrancing spectacle that I was eager to see it again. Frank Ocean is, of course, Frank Ocean -- even if I wasn't as into channelORANGE as many others, he feels like a person that you shouldn't miss out on. And as much as I liked Push The Sky Away, I wasn't sure if it was the kind of material that'd translate incredibly well to a late night set at Bonnaroo. Nick Cave is a legend, though, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

This was the best decision I've made in a long time, and it took me about a song and a half to realize that. With White's set running way long over on the What Stage, Cave came out to a thin gathering (though it'd slowly grow over time), and immediately commented on it: "There's not that many people here," before putting a semi-positive spin on it. "We have the cream of the crop. Fuck those other motherfuckers!" and then, sardonically, "We're going to do this quickly so we can go see Skrillex." My moment of clarity followed soon after, during the set's second song -- a scorching rendition of Push The Sky Away highlight "Jubilee Street." That's one of my favorite songs to walk around listening to in New York, due to the gorgeous and methodical way it builds. Live, it's something entirely different, unleashed into faster and harder territory than Cave ever allowed on his last record. Cave took the final lines of the studio version and repeated them over and over into a hypnotic mantra -- "I'm transforming, I'm vibrating, look at me now!" he roared, somehow grasping at a new intensity with each time. With some distance from the night itself, I'm now pretty sure it was one of the most incredible things I've seen anyone do in concert, ever. And this was the second song in.

Cave spent much of the set standing directly over the crowd's heads, balancing on a small walkway from the stage and the edge of the barricade. He looked like a man possessed, his hair lank and eyes furious and distant, sweat pouring from his body, and sounds practically inhuman emitted from his wraithlike form. He and the Bad Seeds were raising some dark spirits of Americana that night -- that line in "Higgs Boson Blues" about Miley Cyrus floating in a pool was doubly haunting when flanked by older songs boiling with rage and catharsis. The dude isn't even American and he does the whole elemental dark American poet thing in a way that made Jack White's earlier shtick look all the more embarrassing.

Periodically -- or, really, throughout -- Cave was overcome. He let himself fall onto the outstretched hands of those directly in front of him. He convulsed. Every now and then, he did this seductively evil come-hither motion with his hand, beckoning the most diehard fans closer and closer to the stage, closer into his orbit. It was the middle of the night, and he owned the space, even when distant strains of Skrillex's superjam crept through the quieter moments. I've rarely seen a performer this extreme, this overwhelming. This wasn't exactly a rock show. It was an act of sorcery.

Kanye West

Having seen Kanye twice before, I didn't know which version to expect at Bonnaroo. The first time had been at Lollapalooza in '08, and he was in full pop-star form at the time, touring Graduation and cramming a relentless succession of hits into a seven- or eight-song run right at the end of his set, like one massive celebratory victory lap for him and the crowd alike. It was one of the most inspiring and uplifting shows I've ever been to. Then there was the second one, last year in Brooklyn, on the Yeezus tour. That, too, was one of the best concerts I've ever been to, but it was a much different animal -- grandiose, dark, theatrical, and yet still creeping toward the light by the end with a similar, if truncated and "Goldigger"-averse, run of hits.

The version of Kanye that showed up at Bonnaroo, perhaps fittingly, was somewhere in between the two, or perhaps he just carried his various selves with him all at once. The setup was far more stripped-down -- just Kanye, a DJ, Mike Dean playing some keys and guitar, and a giant rectangle hanging behind them, covered in screens that began the show all blaring out a single, violent shade of red as Kanye came out and began with "Black Skinhead." In a way, it was actually far more fitting to the aesthetic of Yeezus than the Yeezus tour itself had been -- it was raw, caustic, stripped-down, Kanye a singular power perched over the crowd wearing that mask. For most of the rest of the set, there was a feed of him up on the rectangle, but it was done in some sort of ghost image, so that he'd be a glaring silver or white against similarly accosting backdrop colors.

But this wasn't going to be a night like those Yeezus shows. Coming out just a touch late and finishing just a touch early, Kanye played just four songs from Yeezus (vs. the entirety of it, as he had been doing), instead giving the people a healthy dose of what they want, coming out swinging with a slew of Cruel Summer bangers before flitting through a significant amount of his hits -- again, still sans "Gold Digger." Then he gave people a whole lot of what they didn't want too, naturally going on his rambling, twisting speeches that would swing wildly from self-aggrandizement to self-deprecation. That's all part of Kanye West, and it's all part of his show. Sure, it's a bit tedious when it goes on for twenty minutes during "Runaway," but the stuff is crucial to the fabric of what he does now.

It didn't bug me much. Kanye is our most vital pop star currently working, and he's one of my favorite artists to see live. The show had me totally, completely engrossed throughout -- equally earning and demanding total absorption. I had gone in fully expecting it to be the best thing I saw this weekend -- or, really, one of the best things I'll see this year or any other -- and I wasn't wrong.