Episode 84: Bonnaroo Festival – 6/14/2008

We’re back at the festival circuit for this episode! From Pinkpop 2000’s incredibly speedy sprint of a set, we change the landscape a little by bringing in the jammy atmosphere from the 2008 Bonnaroo show. Joining us to share his experiences is patron and friend of the podcast Mike Packard who was one of 80,000 that waited hours to get to see the band play.

The curation of this set list was next to perfect, you had your hit songs that you’d expect from any set, but versions of Better Man, Black and Porch hover round 10 minutes long with the latter including one of Ed’s most impassioned speeches about making change. Along with hits and songs that give you energetic festival vibes, they busted a few songs out for the serious collectors. Lost Dog opener All Night makes it’s first ever live appearance on this show, as well as a full version of W.M.A. that hadn’t been performed in that fashion since 1995.

We’ll also get to talk about the Kanye West controversy that came out of this show. His elaborate stage construction that took 2 hours to rig added in with his narcissistic demeanor threatening the show promoter to put him on stage at a time where no one else was playing. So Pearl Jam took advantage of the timeslot and played for an hour longer than allotted. Kanye’s response? Well, it was the beginning of a massive downward spiral that we hear at LO4L don’t give a rats ass about!