Friday, June 8, 2012
Bonnaroo Bonnaroo 2012: Spurgeon's General Day One Round-Up [Brian Posehn, Pete Holmes, More]
Posted by Ashley Spurgeon on Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 12:34 PM
You know what's better than camping in an air-conditioned vehicle that has a fridge and a non-terrifying bathroom? Nothing. This is my kind of great outdoors (the indoors). Part of the Team Cream contingent joined forces to rent a camper for the long weekend, and aside from the hassle of pick-up and navigation, it's already paid for itself in comfort. Bonnaroo, Spurgeon-style.
The one show I was scheduled to attend on Thursday was a comedy show at night, which meant I had a whole glorious day to myself. I ended up not doing a damn thing with it. I spent more time waiting for EMA to start than I did actually watching the band — I was bored after exactly a song-and-a-half, and wandered away. I also made a half-hearted attempt to catch Yelawolf several hours later, but the massive crowd spilled out so far beyond the tent, seeing anything was an impossibility by the time I made it down there.
The Comedy Theatre, after dark? So very cold! Not that I, a noted indoor kid, am complaining, I'm just warning you in advance to bring a jacket. No, that's not a bummer. The bummer about the Comedy Theatre is there's still apparently no better way to enter than to line up and wait for a ticket a couple of hours before the show, wander off for a while, and then return to line up again for entrance. I understand that it's fair (and safer) to operate one of the few festival areas with a limited seating capacity on a first come, first served basis, but ultimately it ends up feeling like a lot of wasted time in direct heat.
The affable beer-clutching bro-comedy of Jeff Tate started the 10 p.m. set, and he performed a solid warm-up act regarding parents on Facebook as "cockblock snipers." San Franciscan Ali Wong was next, and she was filthy. Dirty sex jokes front to back, talking about bachelorette penis parties, D's in the M, D's in the B, dripping C out of your V, just the whole gamut.
Kyle Kinane was next, and I kind of fell in love with him? He pretty much instantaneously presented himself as the sort of person I like to be around, regaling the crowd with stories of drunken cab-ride escapades for fast food and the existential crisis one experiences when you're on a plane and see someone eating pancakes from a Foot Locker bag. He killed. Pete Holmes also killed, winning me over with his opening line, "I'm tired of festival." There was also a bit about dropping a dog, which looks really weird on paper but worked in execution.
Set headliner Brian Posehn asked what shitty band we were missing to hang out in the Comedy Theatre, which is a fair enough question. There's no tactful way to put this, but Posehn's weed-and-balls brand of stand-up reminded me a lot of friend and fellow Cream writer Sean Maloney when he's on a comedic tear. In fact, it was all so weirdly familiar, I decided I'd rather bail and laugh with my friends. But? If there had been no Posehn, and his allotted time spent to give an extra 15 minutes to Kinane and Holmes, I would have stayed.
EAVESDROPPED QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I'm a functional pothead. I work for Comcast."
NUMBER OF TIMES I WAS ABLE TO SUCCESSFULLY COORDINATE MEETING WITH MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Zero
TASTIEST MEAL OF THE DAY: Target-brand beef jerky (iron helps us play!)
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