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Originally had voted for 2014 because of that Saturday late night (Nick Cave, DARKSIDE, Frank Ocean) but after looking at the schedules I think 2013 wins it. 2013 has an incredible Sunday.
Switching the poll from worst to best in the last round almost caught me up.
Teddy Flair it might help a little to clear this up in the title even. I know this is typically how survivor games go, but I got accused of trying to trick people in the Radiohead-Kanye one.
2013 Björk, David Byrne & St. Vincent, The xx, The National, Kendrick Lamar, Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, Beach House, Boys Noize, Father John Misty, Holy Ghost!, Swans, Four Tet, Death Grips
2014 Kanye West, Frank Ocean, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Damon Albarn, Neutral Milk Hotel, James Blake, Little Dragon, DARKSIDE, Ty Segall, Omar Souleyman, Classixx
Neither of these would have cracked my top three or four Bonnaroo lineups. 2014 is more consistent top-to-bottom - if you take away the Paul McCartney wow factor, 2014 wins handily for me. But I'm a Beatles ho so 2013 it is.
Kanye's 2014 set wasn't the trainwreck of 2008 but it wasn't great either. Even allowing for the inevitable rant, I remember a lot of complaints from people who were further back that they didn't even know that the set had started because of the decision not utilize the screens. The set was fine. Loud, but I was in the pit so everything is loud.
Even if Macca's setlist is on rails at this point in his career, it was still a thirty-eight song, three and a half hour celebration and he never left the stage. He's a legend for a reason.
The edge definitely goes to Jack White over Jack Johnson, though props to Bonnaroo for pulling in a new headliner on like two days' notice and to Jack Johnson for pulling anything off.
Tom Petty gets the edge of Elton John. I was really looking forward to his set but Sir Elton seemed pretty frustrated that the audience wasn't as into it as he wanted and that soured me a bit. The set was fine but failing to seize the Lion King opportunity hurts. Petty is reliable, pulled out a handful of covers and - frankly - is now unable to be caught live.
They are both great lineups and the only two that ever challenged Coachella. You hater (jk).
i still remember when people here were acting like Bonnaroo's 2013 lineup was better than Coachella's.
They are neck and neck imo but I think that 13 Coachella lineup is one of the Goats. Thing I like about Bonnaroo 13 is that it still feels like it had it's own lane compared to Coachella. The lineup is a little goofy. Has a lot of fun throwback names. Shit like John McLaughlin flying way under the radar. Amazing Superjams and Late Night options. Even if its worse than that great Coach lineup, it had its own identity and points of differentiation as a festival where you could certainly understand someone choosing Roo with all financial circumstances being equal. 14, to me, was a little more down the middle and looked less like a bonnaroo and more like an oversized GovBall or a slightly worse Coachella with less electronic acts. But actually looking back at the 14 coach lineup - thing was not that great. Roo 14 and Roo 13 were probably both better than Coach 14.
Bonnaroo 2013 was my least favorite of any year I attended. It is probably the most rounded though. If one were booking a mock Bonnaroo, 2013 is a nice reference. It was still kinda boring all things considered.
i still remember when people here were acting like Bonnaroo's 2013 lineup was better than Coachella's.
They are neck and neck imo but I think that 13 Coachella lineup is one of the Goats. Thing I like about Bonnaroo 13 is that it still feels like it had it's own lane compared to Coachella. The lineup is a little goofy. Has a lot of fun throwback names. Shit like John McLaughlin flying way under the radar. Amazing Superjams and Late Night options. Even if its worse than that great Coach lineup, it had its own identity and points of differentiation as a festival where you could certainly understand someone choosing Roo with all financial circumstances being equal. 14, to me, was a little more down the middle and looked less like a bonnaroo and more like an oversized GovBall or a slightly worse Coachella with less electronic acts. But actually looking back at the 14 coach lineup - thing was not that great. Roo 14 and Roo 13 were probably both better than Coach 14.
Coachella 14 wasn’t great overall (although OutKast alone drove the highest resale values they’ve ever had), but it’s also unfair to compare the Roo 14 lineup directly. A lot of the Roo big names were acts that had played Coachella in the previous two years, or were also there in 14 (VW, Phoenix, Skrillex, Arctic Monkey, Frank Ocean, Nick Cave, Kaskade, NMH, Disclosure, Darkside). This is a big part of the reason I was pretty meh on the 14 lineup when it came out, it was a lot of acts I’d seen recently. But it has aged very well.
They are neck and neck imo but I think that 13 Coachella lineup is one of the Goats. Thing I like about Bonnaroo 13 is that it still feels like it had it's own lane compared to Coachella. The lineup is a little goofy. Has a lot of fun throwback names. Shit like John McLaughlin flying way under the radar. Amazing Superjams and Late Night options. Even if its worse than that great Coach lineup, it had its own identity and points of differentiation as a festival where you could certainly understand someone choosing Roo with all financial circumstances being equal. 14, to me, was a little more down the middle and looked less like a bonnaroo and more like an oversized GovBall or a slightly worse Coachella with less electronic acts. But actually looking back at the 14 coach lineup - thing was not that great. Roo 14 and Roo 13 were probably both better than Coach 14.
Coachella 14 wasn’t great overall (although OutKast alone drove the highest resale values they’ve ever had), but it’s also unfair to compare the Roo 14 lineup directly. A lot of the Roo big names were acts that had played Coachella in the previous two years, or were also there in 14 (VW, Phoenix, Skrillex, Arctic Monkey, Frank Ocean, Nick Cave, Kaskade, NMH, Disclosure, Darkside). This is a big part of the reason I was pretty meh on the 14 lineup when it came out, it was a lot of acts I’d seen recently. But it has aged very well.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Bonnaroo 2014 looks way better in hindsight. At the time, it just seemed like they were finally getting all the acts that had already played other festivals.
Also Coachella 2014 wasn't my favorite, but a lineup that goes Outkast - the Knife - the Replacements is pretty fucking wild
Coachella 14 wasn’t great overall (although OutKast alone drove the highest resale values they’ve ever had), but it’s also unfair to compare the Roo 14 lineup directly. A lot of the Roo big names were acts that had played Coachella in the previous two years, or were also there in 14 (VW, Phoenix, Skrillex, Arctic Monkey, Frank Ocean, Nick Cave, Kaskade, NMH, Disclosure, Darkside). This is a big part of the reason I was pretty meh on the 14 lineup when it came out, it was a lot of acts I’d seen recently. But it has aged very well.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Bonnaroo 2014 looks way better in hindsight. At the time, it just seemed like they were finally getting all the acts that had already played other festivals.
Also Coachella 2014 wasn't my favorite, but a lineup that goes Outkast - the Knife - the Replacements is pretty fucking wild
After those three its pretty clearly Bonnaroo that year though.
I think another way to put this is that if you saw the list of names for both fests 10 years from now, 13 is the one where you will be able to tell it was a Bonnaroo lineup and there was no chance that ACL, Coachella or Lolla would have tried or even aimed to book it. Its so fucking Bonnaroo and Im telling you 2014 is GovBall with a bigger budget.
GovBall in 2014 had Outkast, Jack White, Phoenix, Vampire Weekend, Skrillex, Disclosure, Damon Albarn, James Blake, Broken Bells, Janelle Monae, Naked and Famous, Chance the Rapper, Deafheaven.
Again, I think 14 is a phenomenal lineup, but if you only had one lineup to give an alien 50 years from now to show them what Bonnaroo was all about. Show them how wacky yet great a fully realized Bonnaroo lineup could be, you give them 2009 or 2013.
I don't really look at 2013 and think "that's so Bonnaroo" either tbh. The top line could pretty easily be ACL or Lolla or Govs, aside from maybe Pretty Lights.
This isn't anything to do with the lineups, not part of my argument, but getting to watch some of the World Cup on Kalliope during any downtime in the day was fun. Good times. NBA Finals too. I vividly remember getting there Thursday after the Sun had already set and seeing Timmy's big mug with everything else going on and just being like "this is so crazy".
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