Whether it's your first Bonnaroo or you’re a music festival veteran, we welcome you to Inforoo.
Here you'll find info about artists, rumors, camping tips, and the infamous Roo Clues. Have a look around then create an account and join in the fun. See you at Bonnaroo!!
Jim and I just wanted dinner. We were the only ones going to Bonnaroo that year, just me and him. It was lovely. We surveyed the options on the little blue signs on the interstate: Burger King, Wendy's, McDonalds...Hardees! That's at least a little more local than the others...Sure, it was in kind of a nasty, all-grey-and-brown, nothing-alive type of semi-urban area, but it's just a Hardee's, right? As we entered the place looked a little desolate, but mostly like any other fast food place-- plastic seats, linoleum, giant blown up near-pornographic pictures of large hamburgers, the usual. The strange thing was that there were only two employees, a burger-flipper of about age seventeen, pimply and blonde, and a large woman who appeared to be the cashier. We ordered some burgers from her, then learned that she would bring them to us, so we sat down at a table and waited. We chatted kind of blandly about nothing really until she came back, greasy, huge burgers on little red trays. "Who'll be takin' the bill today?" she said. Oh, jeez, I don't know, we always split stuff... we both seemed to think at once. "I'll take it," we both said at almost the same time, but not exactly, so that it was mostly just a noise. She looked confused and handed off the receipt. "Well, I guess you're the [N-Word] today!" she said. What. We looked at each other in silence, hoping to will the woman away. She cruelly stared at our confusion until we knew that one of us would have to say something. "Th-thank you," Jim muttered. We ate our burgers in silence. My hands shook with fear and confusion. It was the fastest burger I have ever eaten, as some fight-or-flight response in my head was screaming fly! fly! get the Hell out of here before she destroys you both! I've never felt that uncomfortable in such a bland and public space before. As we climbed back into my little red Saturn, we started laughing nervously. It seemed the only way to get whatever strange energy that filled us out. I didn't know what to say for a while, only at the second traffic light til we hit interstate did I open my mouth. "What was with that lady?" I said. "I don't know, I blame the south." "But seriously, what if we hadn't been the only ones in there?" "She was just teasing us 'cause of our accents, Jess..." "Who uses that word in a family restaurant? When talking to a customer!" "Crazy ass bitches." We drove in silence for a while after that short conversation, and my brain thought so rapidly I could barely keep up. Was it some sort of joke? Did she know my head would basically explode hearing someone, especially someone who was staff, say that in a restaurant? Would the situation have changed at all if there were African Americans in the restaurant? What if we had a friend with us who wasn't white, would she still have said it? This lady didn't know that she currently represented the state of Virginia in my head, and I still can't get the feeling out of me that everyone there acts like this, especially to people they don't like. I feel like I should've done something more; should've not paid for the burger, should've written to Hardee's, but I just wanted to get out of there and back on the road. Getting to Bonnaroo that year was almost a prize; a place that despite its deep south location is immensely tolerant and full of love for anyone who steps through its gates.