Wow, I actually LOVED Bonnaroo

I never thought that I would say I loved Bonnaroo, but damn did I soak up every single second of it. I never quite understood why people would go to Bonnaroo, the Wal-Mart of festivals, when you could go to Wormtown Music Festival in Greenfield, MA or other small scale festivals that are offered every summer. There's something to be said about small festivals - every corner you turn, your bumping into a friend or making a new one that you know you'll see back at the main stage in an hour. On the complete other end of the spectrum is Bonnaroo. Over 100,000 people and a ticket price reaching up towards $300. And for what? Hour long walks from your campsite to the stage, which when you get there leaves you no views of the performance cause you can't get within 100 yards? Or clusterfucks of people walking between stages, waiting for food/bathrooms/showers or just forming a crowd on shakedown street? The good thing about it all is that you can find anything you want. I want music, boat loads of new people to meet and dance with, and the opportunity to walk into the sea of tents in search of the unknown. I love you Bonnaroo, I really do.

Ok, so we all know how it ended - Zach played 24 sets, totaling 147 songs, in 4 days and everyone absolutely ate it up! Now let's back track. Jeremy, Zach and I pondered taking the RV up to the festival, but decided to stick with our box truck since the RV is huge and so is the price of the parking passes for it. We got into Manchester, TN Wednesday night only to find out that the festival was on lock down and we couldn't get in until Thursday morning. We played in the Wal-Mart parking lot, got some Wendy's and chilled by the empty pool at the hotel, meeting some fellow Mainers and enjoying one another's company. In the morning I woke up to find two girls tenting out next to our room, so I invited them in. Turns out one of them, Samantha, goes to school with me at UMass and doesn't know it now, but will be joining my friends and I for TONS of music when we get back to the Northampton area. After finding out that we couldn't bring our box truck down to the vending area, the Wormtown van came to pick us up and shuffle two loads of gear, including our stranded girls, to the festival. It's kind of hard to explain what exactly we were doing at Bonnaroo. Zach wasn't on the Bonnaroo lineup, but was instead performing in a crowded vending/camping area right on main shakedown. We were staged under the Wormtown Trading Company tent which also saw two of my favorite acts perform - Jeff Bujak and Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad.

When we first got to the festival, it was pure madness. Not quite sure where we were setting up, how long we were staying there (we were originally going to perform all over the festival grounds), having people come ask questions, figuring out places to set up camp - all the while trying to make a show happen - was lots of fun. I like to juggle a thousand things at once and that's what we had to do. The first performance of the festival was around 4:00 PM on Thursday and was a great kickoff to the weekend. In Centeroo there were only three stages going, so having Zach perform outside in the camping area was great. Crowds started to form after only the first couple of songs and by the end of the first set there were upwards of 300 people at Zach's stage. Mark, Zach and I enjoyed a nice laugh after the first set, realizing that things were going to work out just fine. I broke off after the first set to explore Centeroo and see the general layout of the festival. I found myself at the Fuse tent making vinyl spin art - something that I will be implementing at my festivals in the future. It was what it sounds like - put a vinyl record in a box and let it spin and just pour paint on it. I like how it came out, and would much rather have vinyl art than a t-shirt any day.

Logistically, Bonnaroo is a small city and damn is it run perfectly. Everywhere I looked I was finding fresh new ideas for both art and vending, as well as staging areas, FOH, tour bus parking, recycling and speaker systems. Bonnaroo has been going on for a long time and it shows. We were lucky enough to come through the vending entrance, skipping over all the cars in line on the first day that stretched back over 20 miles on the interstate. Going through the vending entrance afforded me the opportunity to see some alternative ways to bring people into the festival, the roads they used, the parcels of land they leased, and the arrangement of parking. This was a great festival for me. I was able to sleep on main shakedown so the walk to Centeroo was 5 minutes at the longest, and was able to see an amazingly eclectic lineup of music as well as see how this monster of a festival is run.

We had a new arrival on the merch table in the form of Zach’s new CD. The slated release for Sunshine is July 28, but got 900 copies for a soft release at Bonnaroo. Since this was a guerilla-style marketing event, we weren’t getting paid and knew we had to focus on merchandise sales. Luckily enough for us and all those in attendance, we were recording every single set of music at the festival. 30 minutes after each set, there was a CD available for purchase to take home and spread around to your friends. These Zach Deputy Lives are the topic of much conversation in ZD camp. Trying to stay fresh, coming up with new, progressive ideas and figuring out ways to spread the music farther each time. We have lots of great ideas that you will all see soon enough.

On Thursday, Zach performed three sets before having to shut him down for the last time due to some large incoming storms. Jeremy and I had to breakdown and cover up the stage multiple times, leaving us absolutely exhausted after only day one. But c’mon, I’ve never too tired for some of that good ol’ drum and bass. So I grabbed some waters (taking a break from the Diet Pepsi for the festival) and beboped over to Centeroo for some late night action. As soon as I got there I bumped into one of my very good friends from Chicago, Abby, who I had stayed with after Summercamp as I waited to jump on tour with Zach in Cincinnati. Abby and I had a blast at the late night dance party. There were sofas and chairs, surrounded by Xboxes and lava lamps for those who were feeling tired, but for those who weren’t, the music went until 5 in the morning. The highlight of the late night for me was the silent disco next door, though. There was a large tent for the DJ and ragers, but everyone in attendance had headphones on. This was a lot of fun for those watching, as you just see people wiggling and then all of a sudden they break out screaming and clapping. There were no more headphones left when I got there, but that didn’t stop me from jumping on the crowd’s groove and dancing with some new friends for a little before it ended. I hope some of you got the chance to experience it.

After heavy rains that night, the Wormtown booth purchased a tractor trailer load of hay, which when stacked next to the stage provided a great vantage point of Zach. Zach performed six sets on Friday, none better than the bubble set. I’m not joking when I say this could go down in ZD history as one of the best sets ever performed. I’m really working hard to archive things so everyone can enjoy this music in the future. This set will get looked back upon and enjoyed for a very long time. An improv, Bubbles, opened the set followed by So Fine and Let’s Roll. I Wanna Know, The Way You Make Me Feel and When No One’s Looking followed before the house came down. A new tune, Fifth Street, was the climax of the show before I got my request of the always danceable Magic Carpet Ride > Sex Machine > Magic Carpet Ride sandwich. Good times!

Saturday was a day full of sunshine and dancing at the Wormtown tent. You could tell the buzz about Zach was being spread throughout the festival as the crowds were getting larger and larger. Since we didn’t have solidified set times, there were quite a few people that would linger around in hopes that the funky dance party would soon start. For those of you who purchased the entire 24 disc package, you will greatly enjoy some songs that you either won’t ever hear again or that will eventually evolve into songs that Zach keeps in his catalog. After the first couple sets and having people ask what the difference was between each disc, we decided that there would be no repeats throughout the weekend. Trying not to repeat any songs, Zach would sprinkle in some grooves that he was feeling – add some vocals and a couple solos and you have a well structured song. Some of my favorite moments throughout the festival were these deep grooves he was feeling, so my suggestion to you is buy the box set. After an overwhelming response, we are going to create a Bonnaroo Box Set with over 24 hours of music. As I type this I have my headphones on, combing over the stacks of CDs, making sure every song is titled and trying to dwindle it all down to 6-8 songs so we can create a podcast on the website for those of you who weren’t in attendance.

Back to Saturday night – the night that never ended. I had an hour to go see as many late nights as I could before Zach started up at 2:00 AM. I raged Nine Inch Nails for bit, and then headed over to moe. for 20 minutes. I decided to pass by Ben Harper and MGMT on my way back to shakedown because they weren’t sounding too hot. Zach played a nice, fatty late night which ended just shy of 7 in the morning. This night was epic for two reasons – the infamous Wormtown jello shot party and the Haystack Hoedown. Trapper was in the crowd passing out jello shots, putting Wormtown’s total of jello shots given out to over 290,000. Wormtown has been doing a good service for a long time! Being able to share this experience with Wormtown is something that is really hard to put into words. Duck, Trapper, Mark, Debbie, Jess, Long Hair and Jay have a GREAT time selling merch and dancing all the while. During Haystack Hoedown there wasn’t one person in the crowd or at the Wormtown booth standing still. The crowd had about 200 people in it and they stirred up one of the biggest frenzies I’ve seen. Hay flying everywhere, people screaming at the top of their lungs, Zach killing it – I was home. I couldn’t help but start laughing uncontrollably as I danced barefoot in the hay, dosie-doing with a cute little mama to my favorite form of funk performed by one of my good friends.



For those of you who don’t know me, I’m tall and like space, so I dance in the back. This is great for two reasons: 1.) dancing space and 2.) seeing people’s faces as they walk up. For those of you who have seen Zach, you understand what his music is all about. It’s warm, inviting music, connecting fans and friends. He has the wow factor. At Bonnaroo, I loved being able to dance in the back and watch people walk up from shakedown and see the “what the hell is this funkkky stuff?” on their faces. Then I have the privilege of telling them that he is performing all weekend long, recording every single second of music. After music ended, Jeremy, little Jean Cleary from New Hampshire and I finally got to explore the rest of the festival grounds. We took a nice long walk in search of pirate flags to steal. Before you get mad, this is common practice at festivals. If you have a pirate flag, you’re asking for it. The rules of the game are simple – if you have a flag, you must fly it and you must be ninja to steal it; if you fight over it, it loses its appeal. Jen, Jeremy and I walked around til 11 in the morning in search of pirate flags, spotted quite a few and strategized for the next night when we would take them. The Wormtown booth had three flags, we needed to defend them as well as gather more. Jeremy and I had a ball strategizing while looking at the flags, going all ninja style around the camps to see who sleeps where, in what direction and what the best plan of attack is. Sad thing is Zach played so late on Sunday that we didn’t get to steal the flags, but we’re just crafting our skills for all the other festivals we’ll be at this summer.

I just want to end this by putting out a big thank you to everyone. Thank you to Mark and everyone at Wormtown for making this happen as well as all the old and new fans for turning out. Thank you so much to the girls, Brit and Samantha, for helping out in any and every way possible; I’m glad our paths crossed. Also thank you so much to Gideon and Jason for your help, it doesn’t go unnoticed and we all greatly appreciate any help you can and do give. We are all one big happy family, seeing what needs to be done and doing it. Everyone surrounding us can see the big picture; a stable foundation created through grassroots style marketing and performance is the best way to build any career. You guys are all part of this and I’m so happy to be sharing it with all of you!