“We can discover the wonders of nature / Rolling in the rushes down by the riverside.”—“Sugar Magnolia,” Grateful Dead
“Fight fire with fire / Ending is near / Fight fire with fire / Bursting with fear / We shall die.”—“Fight Fire With Fire,” Metallica
Behold, one and all: The epic battle between the forces of darkness and light, predicted in the Book of Revelations, presaged by seers for centuries, rehearsed daily by millions on World of Warcraft, is upon us. The coming of the Apocalypse was foretold not by three 6s on a baby’s head, not by four pissed-off equestrians—not even by the success of Dancing With the Stars—but by four simple words: “Metallica to Play Bonnaroo.” You thought all those televangelists were a couple of rants shy of a Nashville Cream blogpost, and now you’ve come to the dreadful realization that they’re right—and the whole gruesome mess is starting right in Manchester, Tenn., your own backyard! Somewhere, Left Behind authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins are shouting, “It’s SHOWTIME!”
So are we going to lie down like lemmings? Head over the cliff like lambs? Get so panicked that we mix our metaphors? Is this the fulfillment of an inevitable prophecy, my friends, or is there still hope for humanity?
You naysayers can go down with a whimper, but we here at the Scene are offering what we feel is the last, best hope for the survival of mankind, a guide for hippie-metalhead diplomacy—think of it as one last chance for U.N. inspectors to cut a deal before the shock and awe begin. Please brothers and sisters, I beseech you....
HEAD-BANGING VS. HEADS BONGING: OK hippies, I understand you feel a sense of, “We were here first,” but no matter how much you feel we all need to, like, respect each other’s, like, space, once Metallica breaks into “Fade to Black,” heads will fly and limbs will flail, your plastic happy tube will be soaring overhead like an Air Force drone over Sadr City, and any chance of scoring a little free love will be squelched by your accidentally applied “eau de bongwater” cologne. Leave your shotties, your bubblers, your ice bongs and vaporizers back at the campsite. If you can’t make it through a set with just your dugout, you need to go back to jam-band 101. The metalheads were kind enough to shoot their meth in 110-degree port-o-potties—the least you can do is smoke up in the microbus.
MOSHERS VS. SPINNERS: Anyone who’s been to see both Iron Maiden and Widespread Panic knows the looming disaster that awaits. Just visualizing it is overloading my already toasty synapses like a Ticketmaster switchboard on the day Radiohead tickets go on sale. The geometry alone is terrifying: Hippies spinning around in ever-expanding circles, holding scarves like Olympic ribbon dancers, ruled by a combination of LSD, drumbeats and the Coriolis effect, interacting with moshers, whose angular movements—exacerbated by PBR, drop-D guitar riffs and a life of being misunderstood—resemble the Etch-a-Sketch drawings of a 4-year-old during a bumpy minivan ride. It’s like a linear particle collider, substituting humans for subatomic particles—an unprecedented experiment in macro-nuclear fission that could have catastrophic results. We haven’t solved this riddle, though a team of Cal Tech researchers are hard at work on a solution.
BIKER BOOTS VS. BIRKENSTOCKS: Of all the possible train wrecks, here’s the one that is most easily avoided. We can safely assume that the bulk of the hippie crowd will be sporting Tevas, Birkenstocks, Crocs or flip-flops, while many others will be completely sans chaussures. So metalheads, when you’re choosing between your Harley biker boots or your high-top wrestling shoes, go for the latter—let’s spare the medics in the first-aid tent an onslaught of broken metatarsals, so they can reserve their energies for dehydration victims, bad trips and patchouli allergy reactions.
BLACK VS. TIE-DYE: Let’s clear the air on this issue once and for all: According to an independent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center and confirmed by the Kaiser Family Foundation, even 65 percent of hippies agree that absolutely no one over the age of 6 looks good in tie-dye. Score one for the metalheads, who appreciate the understated power of basic black. Perhaps this groundbreaking Bonnaroo lineup is the perfect opportunity for granola kids and tree-huggers of all stripes to bury those hideous multicolored shirts and skirts once and for all. And don’t give me the excuse, “But I want my clothes to blow all my tripping friends’ minds”—if M.C. Escher could melt your brain in black-and-white, why can’t a T-shirt?
We’ve only addressed a few issues, but we hope we’ve inspired you to think up some creative solutions of your own to help prevent this potential quagmire from igniting Armageddon’s fuse, because once it’s lit, there’s no turning back. Who knows? Maybe the convergence of these opposing factions will spawn a new genre, turning death metal into life metal. (And hippies, if a guy who looks like Lemmy is about to plant a fist right in your kisser, hug him before he has the chance. Deep down inside, he’s only angry because he wants to be loved. Trust us—this works every time.)
Finally, to all you Bonnaroo veterans who fear Metallica spells doom for the happy vibes, let’s look to the voice of the late Jerry Garcia as a prayer for unity among longhairs of all kinds, and as a glimmer of hope in this dark night of the soul: “A friend of the devil is a friend of mine.” Godspeed.
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