Bonnaroo report: Day 1

After a long day of travel, we managed to make it here in one piece. We are staying in a hotel offsite, but there is a shuttle that picks us up here and takes us onto the grounds. It is nice to have a real bed and a shower, but if we do this again I wouldn't mind camping. Last night we spent most of the time just walking around and checking the place out. There are tons of booths selling clothing and jewelry. All kinds of food is available, including steak kabob pitas (see picture). I am going to assume those tomatoes are salmonella free. If this is my last blog, that was probably a bad assumption--I feel fine today though. The only band we paid a lot of attention to last night was The Sword. They are a new metal band from Austin who we were curious about. Overall I thought they were pretty good. Also, we watched some of the Lez Zeppelin set. Yes, that's Lez not Led. They are an all female Zeppelin tribute band from NYC. There is one more band from Austin that is playing tomorrow night called Ghostland Observatory. I think they play at 2 AM, so maybe we will still be up. Tonight's agenda involves Les Claypool, The Raconteurs, Willie Nelson, Chris Rock, and Metallica. I'm sure there are thousands of other people whose plans involve totally different bands. There are three stages and various other tents where things are going on 24 hours a day. I think there is something for everyone. They even have a movie tent where last night they were showing the NBA Finals among other things. For a festival of this magnitude, everything seems pretty well organized and surprisingly clean. We'll see what it looks like when the weekend is over.