Bonnaroo Rolls On With Alabama Shakes, Rüfüs Du Sol and More

Among the youngest artists on Bonnaroo’s lineup this year at 19, Waylon Wyatt brought small-town country twang to his mid-afternoon show Saturday at This Tent. He stomped around the stage, blasted riffs from his guitar and traded solos with his drummer and violinist during the crowd-pleasing set. He shifted between intimate, slow songs like “Leave It Alone,” upbeat fan favorites like “Everything Under the Sun” and a cover of Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather.” The crowd met his energy, alternating between gentle swaying and dancing that kicked up the dust from the dirt underfoot — dry for the moment at least.

“You’re probably way more than 800 [people here] right now, so that’s crazy,” said Wyatt, a native of Hackett, Ark. “You got more than my hometown in here.”

Trixie Mattel went to the stratosphere for Super Disco at That Tent, a sci-fi themed concept performance that she’s described as “a narrative where love and humanity prevail over greed and automation.” Those narratives are important now, especially in light of the possible AI art scandals following both RuPaul’s new film Stop! That! Train! and Bonnaroo itself. Mattel, dressed like a cross between Glinda the Good Witch and Jane Jetson, took this fraught issue and transformed it into cathartic fun — with cunty Furby dancers to boot. As she called out “Yes, you pieces of shit! Yes!!” gay couples in the audience started making out en masse, while others kept time with the beat with the percussive sounds of clacking fans.

Rock-and-pop five-piece The Runarounds made their TV debut during Season 3 of Outer Banks on Netflix, then became stars of their own storyline in The Runarounds on Prime Video. Outside the show, they’re very much a real band, and they made their latest appearance in Middle Tennessee Saturday at This Tent with a headbanging set that the crowd screamed along to.

“I had like a million things I wanted to say when I got up here,” frontman Will Lipton said. “And it’s all gone.”

The band members playfully engaged with the audience and each other throughout the set, and they often made each other laugh with dramatic showmanship. Songs like “Senior Year” and “Shoelaces” became call-and-responses with Bonnaroovians, and Lipton occasionally stepped down from the stage and leaned over the barricade for high-fives with the front row.

A sweaty mosh pit formed at Which Stage as Australian punks Amyl and the Sniffers pumped up the crowd with a high energy set. Rowdy onlookers headbanged to songs like “Security” from the band’s second album Comfort to Me as well as more recent tracks like “Chewing Gum” from 2024’s Cartoon Darkness. Sporting bright red lipstick and dramatic blue eyeshadow, frontwoman Amy Taylor delivered the raging lyrics along with political messages like “Fuck ICE” and expressed her support of the LGBTQ community. Taylor jumped around, spit on the stage and rocked out as beach balls bounced around the crowd during the dynamic performance, which came with peak shredding guitar from the band’s Declan Martens.

With a pickup truck parked onstage at That Tent, rising country songsmith Wyatt Flores let his Oklahoma roots shine through during his set. Flores began with “Don’t Wanna Say Goodnight,” a driving tune about infatuation from his 2024 debut Welcome to the Plains, but soon transitioned to new music from his follow-up Scared of Heights, due for release in late July. 

“How about we play some new music?” Flores shouted to the crowd. “I hope y’all like it!” Judging by the screams, the fans most certainly did — even when the tempos slowed down as ballads filtered into the set list. In multiple interviews this year, the widely traveled 24-year-old has spoken about wrestling with imposter syndrome. One can only hope the response to this powerhouse set at one of the biggest music festivals in the Southeast helps him feel validated in his skills.

What Stage’s lights went dark at approximately 6:45 p.m., and the crowd went wild as Alabama Shakes made their entrance onto a stage decked out in clouds — the cotton kind, not the fog-machine kind. After a lengthy hiatus, the rock ’n’ soul outfit made a surprise return last year and was firing on all cylinders when we last saw them at Ascend Amphitheater. New material has been trickling out slowly, but Saturday’s show was all about the interplay between band members (the Shakes are currently touring as a six-piece) and the fan favorites.

Dressed in a silky white choir robe, singer-guitarist and Nashville resident Brittany Howard opened the 15-song set with “Rise to the Sun” and mesmerized the crowd with the band’s signature tune “Hold On.” “Don’t Wanna Fight” had the crowd dancing and singing along with hands high in the air, and the group wrapped up with “Always Alright.”

“I got the time, and I got the microphone, and I hope you have a good time at this festival,” said Howard. “Make friends and leave everything outside behind.”

Rainbow Kitten Surprise returned to Bonnaroo for the first time since 2017 — following a planned 2023 appearance the band had to cancel and a 2025 appearance preempted by the rain-out — with a set bursting with alt-pop anthems.

Lead singer and band co-founder Ela Melo opened the hypnotizing performance with 2018’s “When It Lands.” As bubbles flew around the pit, amped up-fans made their own contribution to the atmosphere with beach balls and balloons. Melo, who spent much of the performance dancing and high-kicking, also jumped and motioned for the crowd to do the same during their banger “Dang.”

Vibrant rainbow hues shone down on the crowd during fan favorite “Hide,” and fans in the pit swayed together while belting along to the song. “Happy Pride Month, y’all,” Melo said before dancing in unison with bassist Maddie Bouton.

The band wrapped up the night with arguably their best-known song, “It’s Called: Freefall.” Based on the crowd’s reaction — and the intimate vibe that ran throughout the entire set — RKS’ return to the Farm was worth the nine-year wait.

Over at The Other, U.K. electronic producer Sub Focus brought a little bit of the European rave scene to Bonnaroo, performing an upbeat, high-intensity set with a lot of drum-and-bass threads that felt almost primal. Ravers with sweaty hair and glitter-streaked faces bounced along to the beat hovering at 174 bpm, stomping platform shoes into the mud and getting down and dirty with the wet wubs coming from the speakers. The crowd moved their bodies in whatever ways felt right without much care for anyone else’s judgment, in a beautiful blurry blob of unity. Underneath the bright neon lights, a few fans hung at the back to catch their breath, lying in inflatable couches and soaking up the bass. Covered in light-up toys, they traded kandi bracelets, making connections with strangers and following the rave-community precept of PLUR (that’s “peace, love, unity and respect”).

As a precursor to Kesha’s solo performance Sunday night, the pop queen and Nashville native hosted Bonnaroo’s annual Superjam. Under Kesha’s reign, the set was called Superjâm Esotérica: The Alchemy of Pop, and it was a colorful dance party featuring a mix of musical acts performing some of pop music’s greatest hits. Joined by fellow Bonnaroo performer Mountain Grass Unit, Kesha started her set with a suite of bluegrass mashups, including a cover of Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar.” Keeping with the country trend, Margo Price soon joined the party for renditions of the Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” (during which Price played the role of Meg White on the kit). Other guest artists include Flipturn, Del Water Gap, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Boy Throb and even a feature from the beloved “Weird Al" Yankovic to sing Sia’s “Chandelier.” Grouplove came up for “Tongue Tied” and a cover of Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own.” To close out the set, all the guests came back out for Prince’s “Purple Rain,” when — as if by fate — a soft drizzle began to fall.

Emotions were high over at Which Stage, where tatted soul singer Teddy Swims poured his heart out to the crowd. Images of the R&B artist’s younger self intertwined with retro interviews from Donahue Today displayed on the screen as Swims’ soulful baritone voice began to belt out the words to his empowering song “The Door.” His warm, passionate vocals landed on the crowd like a weighted blanket, offering a sense of comfort and connection as he shared vulnerable anecdotes in between songs. 

“I was the last little name on the bottom row, and now I get to be on the main stage,” Swims said. “This festival means more to me than any other festival in the world. If I get a little emotional tonight, please help me out.”

That fateful rain that synced up with the end of the Superjam also was perfectly timed for Swims to talk about his struggles with mental health, setting the scene for the heavy piano chords of “Some Things I’ll Never Know.” Drizzle rattled on plastic ponchos as the crowd looked on, entranced.

Aussie-bred and U.S.-residing alternative dance trio Rüfüs Du Sol’s headline set at What Stage got thousands of fans jumping in the mud. The group started their set with their 2018 single “Underwater,” marking the first climactic beat drop with colored lasers and flashing lights. The audience sang in harmony with the emotional lyrics, their glow-in-the-dark or flashing accessories lighting up the field as they danced.

After other catalog staples like “Innerbloom” and “Music Is Better,” the band tossed drumsticks and other keepsakes to a crowd that continued cheering long after frontman Tyrone Lindqvist and company left the stage.

“This is definitely our second home,” said Lindqvist. “Thank you so much for making us feel so welcome.”

The thing about a “Weird Al" Yankovic set that starts at 12:40 a.m. is that eventually, everyone stops trying to look cool. Sure, some people went to Which Stage for the bit, or because the nearby Coca-Cola tent was one of few areas with unmuddy ground by early morning Sunday. But with a delirious amount of costume changes, Yankovic put on a show that got the audience to shed their inhibitions and sing along to “Amish Paradise.” His one-line Michael Stipe parody — “we all have cellphones, so come on, let’s get real” — is still hilarious, but it’s also taking on more meaning by the day. He led the crowd in a group performance, and got them to stop looking at their phones and start waving them as flashlights in the air. In a way, it was ’Roo at its most genuine.

Depending how you want to count it, Nashville-residing DJ Effin either had the last set of Saturday or one among Sunday’s earliest at Where Stage. There was an interesting mix in the crowd for his sunrise set, which ran from 5:45 to 6:30 a.m., as early birds with freshly brewed coffee in hand mingled with wide-eyed ravers soaking up the last sweet drops and beats. Known for his vintage mixes and melodic dubstep, Effin woke up the Farm with a set that felt healing. The colors of the sunrise blended with his dreamscape mixes, setting the tone for Bonnaroovians’ last day on the Farm this year.

Cover Stories

Festival Frenzy 2026: Your Bonnaroo Field Guide

• Stephen Trageser