Monday, February 6, 2012
Bonnaroo Road to Bonnaroo 2012 Announces Dates and First Round Contenders
Posted by Adam Gold on Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 2:50 PM
While Bonnaroo promoters have still yet to announce the 2012 lineup for Middle Tennessee’s favorite music festival, BMI and Mercy Lounge are dropping some signif' Road to Bonnaroo deets today. The fourth installment of the local rock scene’s most musically and emotionally combustible multi-round battle of the bands competition — where, in three monthly 8 off 8th installments, 24 local artists vie for three high-stakes cafe stage slots at Bonnaroo — will take place on Feb. 27, March 26 and April 16 at Mercy Lounge. As in previous years, an “industry panel” comprised of local music journalists, bloggers and 8 off 8th hosts will go halvesies with an electorate of audience voters in determining each round’s winner.
Colorfeels, By Lightning!, Toy (Editor's Note: Toy? Who's Toy? What's the Toy story?), The Hollywood Kills, Quichenight, Laura Reed, Sam & Tre and Brandon Jazz and His Armed Forces round out the first set of contenders to face off in round one. While my money is on Sam & Tre, I’d say this is a pretty evenly matched host of festival-hungry hopefuls. It’s anyone’s game, yo. So say you?
In other Bonnaroo news, it looks like local rockers and rappers aren’t the only needy peeps the festival has helped out over the years. Last week ‘Roo promoters announced that, through its philanthropic division, The Bonnaroo Works Fund (BFW), the festival has donated more than $5 million to various local, regional and national charities over the course of its first 10 years. Among those charities are Doctors Without Borders, Head Count, MusicCares, Habitat for Humanity, Boys and Girls Club of America, the American Red Cross, Rock the Earth and The Sierra Club. The festival also contributed to Nashville Flood relief efforts. A portion of each ticket sold goes towards the BFW. Pretty cool, huh? Read more about it here.
My two cents? As a festival goer, I’d consider the festival paying Prince’s guarantee for an appearance this year a noble, Nobel-worthy humanitarian endeavor that I could commend like a motherfucker. A sexy motherfucker.
Lineups for Road to Bonnaroo rounds two and three (not to mention Bonnaroo itself) are still forthcoming. Follow RTB on Twitter (using #Rd2Bonnaroo) to keep up with all that.
... And just because, here's this:
Comments (13)
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Oh please, everyone knows this thing is a joke. The bands that deserve to win don't and the bands that do suck more shit than the porta-potty trucks at the festival itself. I'll root for Sam and Tre because they are actually pretty cool people, but otherwise, fuck off with this bullshit.
Chad, I love that the first page of your LMGTFY search reveals a Korean music project named Toy, a band from Delaware named Toy, music videos for several songs with "Toy" in the title, the "musical instruments" category of the Toys R Us website and no bands with any ties to Nashville. Although I imagine this was the intended result:
http://focusonthe615.com/tag/toy/
And Jordan, cynicism is great, we really love it. But I personally don't feel like The Features, Caitlin Rose, Uncle Skeleton and The Non-Comms, for instance, "suck more shit than the porta-potty trucks." Though that's colorful imagery and I respect the opinion.
samuel and trebert are fucking garbage. nothing like clueless party rap. i hope they break up.
I was too young to go to Woodstock and I'm too mature (old) to deal with the ordeals of Bonnaroo. I've never seen Prince, and now that you bring him up, I'm thinking he should be invited to test out the new Ryman floorboards with his 2 steppin moves...leavin some of those moves (as in the censored video) at home (in his bedroom).
laura, that's a great question. i run a local music site, breakonacloud, and have no clue how they pick. always wondered though.
@break and laura: the selection process works something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hQC3nkftrk
I wish that^ was how it was done. Forget playing music, I wanna see a band that is highly skilled at dangling from ropes.
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