My favorite festival just got even more interesting. Through the years, Bonnaroo’s been doing a real nice job booking great female artists with Patti Smith, Erykah Badu, Ani DiFranco, Neko Case, Mavis Staples, Catpower (this is a very short list), and the addition of The Gossip is a damn nice one — check this footage of Glasto’007, as well as URB writer and shooter DG Loral’s filming of Annie Clark, Erykah Badu, Neko Case and Ani DiFranco at Bonnaroo 2009, for a proper glimpse at some of the ladies that have graced Bonnaroo . URB cover star Beth Ditto appeared with Perez Hilton for our September/October 2007 and in editorial meetings I passionately made the case for Beth Ditto to appear naked on our cover, long before NME did and before LOVE mag copied NME, but the gossip according to Hilton as cover co-star won out, but I digress. Suffice to say, this show is going to be fully devastating. And, oh yeah, festival stalwarts Umphrey’s McGee, Galactic and Ween have also been added, which for me is a nice and grounding, familiar and appreciably trad touch, as festival audiences constantly morph.

Music for the masses — Beth jumps the stage at Glasto007, audience singing every damn word

Hell, this bit above, and my own opinion that gossip is as bad as violence, has my atheist — make that pantheist — secular humanist self quoting the bible, or rather, quoting someone quoting the bible which in itself, is really just someone else’s words:

  A woman was gossiping with her friend about a
  man whom they hardly knew. The next day she was immediately seized with an
  overwhelming sense of guilt, so she went to confession.
  She got the old parish priest and she told him
  the whole thing. Is gossiping a sin? she asked the old man. Have I done something wrong? Yes,
  the priest answered her. Yes, you have blamed false witness on your neighbor. You played
  fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily
  ashamed. So, the woman said she was sorry, and asked for
  forgiveness. Not so fast, says the priest. I want you to go home,
  take a pillow upon your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return
  here to me. So, the woman went home: took a pillow off her bed, a
  knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to her roof, and
  stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as
  instructed. Did you cut the pillow with a knife? he says. Yes,
  Father. And what were the results? Feathers, she said.
  Feathers? he repeated. Feathers; everywhere. Now I
  want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out
  onto the wind, Well, she said, it cant be done. I dont know
  where they went. They were scatterd too far to be retrieved.
  And that, said the priest, is gossip!

URB writer and shooter Derori Gila Loral's capture of some of the ladies at Bonnaroo '09

The mighty Erykah Badu at the mighty Roo



Ani DiFranco laughs about press conferences



The many shades of Neko Case at Bonnaroo -- really beautiful performance



Two clips from Annie Clark, Bonnaroo 2009



"Shreddin' Annie!" screams iron-lung dude in the front -- damn right

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