On our drive from New York City to Tennessee we pulled off to the shoulder of a steaming Virginia highway for two wayfaring strangers advertising the above-pictured sign. And though they had misspelled the name of their holy land, though they soon revealed themselves to be crawling with ticks–repeatedly requesting the window be put down for their disposal–we drove them 500 miles and appreciated the colorful company.

Despite oppressive humidity, copious sweat, and debilitating chaffing of the inner thighs,  Bonnaroo was certifiably, mind-blowingly terrific.

To start it off, Rolling Stone listed Frontier Ruckus amongst their Essential Sets to see at the festival. That was quite nice of them.

Our set was an ecstatic event for us. We were thrilled to see so many people packed into the Troo Music Lounge to watch us with great energetic attention. It was overheated and sweat-soaked and holy. One of our favorite sets in recent memory.

Right after the show we  met up with the folks from Paste Magazine and sang a few songs for them amid the passing festival-goers: behold.

After that, we made our way over to the festival’s first-ever Beard and Mustache Competition, where Davey, Zach, and Brian were soon to enter the running. (I had regrettably just done away with an at-best decent mustache and so was nonetheless rendered useless). There we did a short and sweaty interview with bonnaroo.com.

On Friday we milled about wide-eyed and purposeful. Little errands here and there. Friendly people to meet, a few questions to answer. One fun thing we were invited to partake in was this series where they’d golf-cart an artist way out to the middle of the campgrounds where the sunburned bodies roamed to do secret performances amid the tents, trash cans, and porta-potties. It felt very akin to our street busking, only on the dust-streets of a sacred, communal sort of Hooverville. During our shadeless yet rewarding display there, a one Adam Kuhns was among the crowd that stopped to listen and discover, capturing this photograph:

That evening we were thrilled to catch the performance of our friend and label-mate Samantha Crain. Davey and I even played/sang on her song Santa Fe, as we do on her new ablum that just came out, You (Understood). Speaking of that album, it’s fantastic and you should buy it! We’ll be hitting the road with Samantha for a string of dates coming up.

The whole Bonnaroo experience felt wonderfully fleshy, lusty, pink and red, mud-floored, sun-baked. My forehead is peeling in thin flakes of white. Hope to return.

--Matthew