Photo by Adam Brimer // Buy this photo
Guests cool off in the shade under a tree at the 10th Annual Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tenn., Thursday, June 9, 2011.
Crime reporter Hayes Hickman is covering Bonnaroo 2011 for the Knoxville News Sentinel.
MANCHESTER, Tenn. -- Four hours of wandering around the sprawling Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival and I haven't stopped once to listen to any music.
Now that I'm still and trying to describe some first impressions – sitting inside a media tent within a stone's throw of one of the main stages – the bass from a nearby soundcheck is about to knock me out of my folding chair.
Oh yeah, this is a music festival.
Which is to say, Bonnaroo offers plenty of distractions. Especially the first time.
After nine years of bogarting one of the plumbest assignments at the News Sentinel, entertainment writer Wayne Bledsoe and famed photog Saul Young decided they were burnt out on covering the Roo.
Looking to fill the void, the KNS editors have sent me, a thirty-something crime reporter who doesn't get much, to join earnest young photojournalist Adam Brimer and multimedia guru Jigsha Desai in covering this year. And the big, round 10th birthday year at that.
I don't make it out to concerts very often these days. Unless there's a shooting at Sundown in the City. But no one ever gets shot at Sundown.
Typically, my beat is air-conditioned late nights around the office, waiting for word of the next car crash, shooting or catastrophe, with the constant squawk of a police scanner on my hip. For the next few days, though, I'm trading it all for early-morning starts, and long days under a blazing summer heat, trying to find the weird and wonderful among a crowd of 80,000 people who are far too friendly for this kind of humidity.
I know, I think it's a great idea, too.
© 2011, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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Comments » 2
lspuhler writes:
I can't believe you haven't stopped to listen to music. Well, maybe I can! Hope you'll listen to some tomorrow.
bustervols writes:
That is a crime!
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