<3 Jack White <3

On Friday morning, I got up at 6 a.m. because it was already about 100 degrees in the tent, and there was no way I would be able to fall back asleep. I decided to get up and go right over to Centeroo--the area where all the music was--so I could check everything out. I was on my way to Centeroo when I ran into some guy who wanted me to take his pic--ha ha--and we walked around and chatted. 

Then I witnessed some sweet yoga and kung fu. Interesting stuff.

Anyway, I just sort of wandered around for most of the rest of the morning until I went to the media orientation in the press tent. Yay for free water and air conditioning. I was a bit freaked out because of all the impressive-looking people in the tent, and I know that I'm a big nobody, so I figured I'd just take advantage of everything as a learning experience.

After taking everything in during press orientation, I headed off to go see some music. I bumped into a cool guy from Nashville--Cody--and we chilled a lot throughout the rest of the festival and met up at press conferences. He had a mega-awesome voice recorder, full-size cassette tape and all, and he reminded me a bit of my dear friend George Szatko III. I'll mos def be looking him up if I ever go to Nashville.

So the first band I saw on Friday was The Fiery Furnaces. I hadn't really heard them before, but I thought they were pretty great. I stuck around and saw Minus the Bear after that, then went off to Stephen Marley because everyone was talking about him. I did some great people watching at that performance.

After that, I headed to the press tent. And that's when the incident with the porta potty happened. If you do not know this story yet, I will post the DN article that describes the situation when it is posted online.

Next, I went to scope out a spot for The Raconteurs concert. The moment I'd been waiting for. I could barely contain myself. It was a bit frustrating, though, because a lot of people in front of me were there early for Metallica, and I just wanted to get closer, but I knew once the music started, it wouldn't matter. I met several people around me who were just into The Raconteurs as I was, and one girl and I kept giving each other looks of glee and giggling every time Jack White would make sexy eyes and growl into the mic onstage. I was getting really amped for the show when the camera zoomed in on a digital clock that read 4:57, and immediately afterward I could see the guys in the band were approaching from the background. Yeah, I pretty much lost it. I think all the people around me were a bit taken aback by my enthusiasm during the concert. I was singing at the top of my lungs and enjoying myself like it was my last hour and a half of life. I was rocking out even though I couldn't really see the stage, and I ended up mostly watching the show on the screen because I couldn't see over the tall bigheads in front of me, but the people filming the concert were super talented, and the video on the screen fit the style of The Raconteurs really well. I think my favorite songs of the show were "The Switch and the Spur," "Level," "Consoler of the Lonely" and "Keep It Clean." I was also proud that Jack gave his shout-out to redheads in the last song of the encore. Well, if you consider the mention of a redhead a shout-out. Ha ha.

Dear Jack White: I'm a redhead, too. Love me. Natasha. P.S. I now have a crush on you also, Brendan Benson.

I guess I can't really think of anything else to describe my feelings about that show except that I was just having one of the best times of my life, and I've been watching videos of the performance on YouTube ever since. :) sigh.

Well, after I almost collapsed from exhaustion because I enjoyed myself a little too much at The Raconteurs, I ran off to go see M.I.A. I was so happy she made her appearance at Bonnaroo! I heard so many rumors that she wasn't going to be there, so I was so appreciative that I got to see her. She's adorable. Anyway, I don't believe all the rumors going around now that she retired from music at Bonnaroo. Yeah, she said it was her last show, but I've also had a heck of a lot of last days of school--ever since I was in kindergarten, in fact. I think it's the last show she's going to be doing on this tour, but she'll be back. But who knows. I have a sneaking suspicion that she pulled a Britney: you know, when BritBrit got with K-Fed, she mysteriously injured her knee while shooting a video and had to cancel her tour. Hmm, sound familiar? M.I.A. just got engaged to a guy, he's smokin', and now she's exhausted and can no longer tour. Who knows? I got to see her, so I'm not going to complain, but I just wonder if that's what happened.

The rest of the evening, I saw My Morning Jacket, Tiesto--which was CRAZY--and I saw a show by the performance artist group Unbearable Light Caberet. The members of that group kept me entertained for hours, and I especially liked the solo music performance of one of their members whose name escapes me now but who I will mention at a later time. The bummer was that during their performance, it began to rain. This led to Britney's tent flooding because we did such a crummy job of setting it up, and a lot of our stuff got soaked. So I slept in the RV that night next to Whitney, who quickly became a new friend. Ha ha.