Bonnaroo 2006 Day Two

It's impossible to sleep once sunrise hits at Bonnaroo. Our tent becomes so oppressively hot that I'm forced out of it at 6 a.m. to tear off my drenched clothing. I'm amused to see other campers doing the same. I'm not into this hippie "community" stuff, but at Bonnaroo I feel united with my fellow attendees in a brotherhood of filth and physical discomfort.

My first stop of the day is at the Other Tent to see Detroit soul legend Bettye Lavette. At noon, the Tennessee sun is already wielding its wrath, and people are sprawled out on the grass like wilted daises. Fortunately, Lavette has more energy than all of us callow youths combined, thrusting her hips and wailing in a voice that has lost none of its strength since she first appeared on the Motown scene more than 40 years ago. Before covering Joe Simon's "Your Time To Cry," she hammers the point home: "I recorded this tune before any of you were born." Her raspy alto is so vast and emotive that I get choked up. This woman is 60 years old and she brings the noise harder than any other artist I will see today.

As I cross the grounds to get to Seu Jorge's performance at This Tent, I'm beginning to realize that at a festival of this size, you've gotta get to the venues early if you want to be in the shade or have any sort of sightline. I learned this too late for Jorge. The tent is packed with bodies and I'm forced to stand outside in the 30-plus degree heat. I stay long enough to hear the sinewy, shirtless Brazilian perform his Portuguese cover of "Rebel Rebel." He brings out a full band to showcase his non-David Bowie-related work, and soon sweaty bodies are grinding to his salty island beats. I don't have time to dance, though, as it's time to catch Ben Folds at the very large Which Stage.

It's gratifying to finally catch an entire set from a Bonnaroo performer. Folds goes through a solid setlist of both solo songs, such as "Gone" and "Jesusland," to old Ben Folds Five favourite "One Angry Dwarf" and a gentle rendition of "Brick." Best of all, he breaks out his cover of Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit." You haven't lived until you've heard Ben Folds utter the line, "lickin' the protung." After this I'm informed by a helpful dreadlocked male that I have a terrible sunburn and I promptly pass out just outside the crowd that's gathering for Bright Eyes. As "Lover I Don't Have To Love" whines over me, I decide I've heard enough. It's time to get over to That Tent early for Cat Power.

I race back in time to hear California's Nickel Creek perform a fantastic cover of The Band's "The Weight," sweetly rendered with boy/girl harmonies and a thrumming violin. Then the Memphis Rhythm Band assemble onstage and swing into an instrumental number, featuring Al Green's former right-hand man, Maybon "Teenie" Hodges, and Booker T And The MGs drummer Steve Potts, as well as a string section and two back-up singers. Miss Chan Marshall makes a fashionably late entrance a song later, clad in sultry black. She goes immediately into "The Greatest" and the entire crowd becomes a swooning mass. Her sultry croon is note-perfect and makes me a little weak in the knees. Her actual stage performance, however, is a bit peculiar. She shifts from side to side, jabbing the air like a boxer, makes pinwheeling motions with her arms, and shimmies with a towel. It's kind of cute, but definitely at odds with the cooler-than-cool professionalism of her seasoned bandmates.

Then things get weirder. Cat Power sends the entire band offstage and plays a solo "set" of messy, distracted songs. "I have a real ugly relationship with these types of instruments," she admits as she sits down at her piano. So why didn't you keep your band of legendary professionals onstage to play the instruments, ya nutcase? Still, the music remains captivating enough that everyone is willing to forgive the famously erratic behaviour that seems to forever dog the live Cat Power experience.

Night falls and it's time for something completely different — an American-as-apple-pie set from Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. He's on the What Stage, which is roughly the size of Park Place in Barrie, Ontario. People have been assembled here for hours to wait for the man, so we get comfortably ensconced near the back of the field. Petty is dressed for the occasion in a red shirt and black blazer, but man, can someone feed the man a gyro? His face is a dead ringer for Skeletor's. The band don't pull any punches, though. The first hour of the set is a greatest hits primer, with "You Don't Know How It Feels," "Free Fallin'," "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and his cover of "I'm A Man." Everyone around us is drunk and singing every word. Then he does an introduction that we can't hear, and launches into "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around." A woman's voice chimes in, and I think to myself, "Wow, that woman really sounds a lot like Stevie Nicks," which is because she actually is Stevie Nicks. She sounds awesome, and later, as we hide in the air-conditioned splendor of the Yet Another (Comedy) Tent, The Daily Show's "youth correspondent," Demetri Martin, aptly points out that "she doesn't even look that fat."

And with that, the first two days of Bonnaroo come to an end. I'm dehydrated, sunburned and pretty much ready to die... and it's exhilarating.