Filed Under: Sunburned, Confused, and Extremely High
I knew I was in trouble when the sunscreen started hissing.
It was somewhere between the parking lot and the third checkpoint, where a man dressed as a jellyfish asked if I had “transcended yet,” that I realized Bonnaroo ’25 was not a music festival. It was a multiday breakdown staged in a dust bowl and scored by Olivia Rodrigo scream-singing about betrayal into a wind tunnel of lasers.
The only thing my press credential granted me was suspicion. The teenagers clocked me instantly. They could smell the Gen X on me, like I’d just walked off a Reality Bites set and landed in a glitter cult. By the time I passed the wellness tent, which was offering ayahuasca mocktails, I was sweating regret and wearing a chemical sheen that would later be mistaken for enthusiasm.
I came to report. I came to “cover the scene.” Instead, I ended up chasing a rumor about a sponsored chill dome that turned out to be a broken Porta Potty filled with cotton candy vape smoke and someone named Skylar crying because their crystal wouldn’t “hold a charge.”
By the time I made it to What Stage, where Luke Combs was belting into the Tennessee ether like country trauma was a competition sport, I had lost my notepad, half my water supply, and most of my self-respect. A girl in a crocheted bikini handed me a mushroom and whispered, “This will help you remember how to love.” I thanked her. Then I forgot how to walk.
Hours vanished.
At one point, I watched a man propose to his girlfriend in front of what I thought was an ambient DJ set. Turned out it was just a blown generator humming against a fence while someone live-painted a phoenix in spray cheese. They kissed anyway. I cried.
I tried to interview a group of Gen Z kids near the kombucha truck, which was called FermEntropy and only accepted crypto. One of them told me their name was “Raisin.” Another asked if I had ever been sound-bathed. I said yes, once, in a dentist’s office. They floated away, laughing. I stayed, pretending to understand the music, which sounded like a swarm of microwaves arguing inside a kaleidoscope.
My phone died at 3 PM. I died shortly after.
By 6, I found myself stumbling between That Tent and This Tent, trying to locate the EDM act Dom Dolla, only to accidentally sit through what I thought was Tipper but was actually an experimental throat-singing duo sponsored by Monster Energy. The bass rearranged my ribcage. Someone handed me an electrolyte popsicle and screamed, “Justice is playing at The Other!” I had no idea what that meant.
I was vibrating with heatstroke and existential unease. SPF 50 had betrayed me. My skin was now the color of synthetic peaches. The sun was not a celestial body; it was an ancient god punishing me for once owning a Limp Bizkit CD.
At some point, I found refuge behind a food truck called Woke Tacos. I interviewed a shirtless man wearing nothing but a glitter kilt and a hospital wristband. He told me he used to work for DARPA but now microdoses psilocybin while managing a crypto farm in Maine. He said he comes to Bonnaroo every year to “reset the grid.” I nodded like that made sense and wrote “Possible Prophet?” in the dirt with a spoon.
I stumbled through Outeroo, the wooded section of the Farm, where the trees pulsed with LED veins and people whispered sweet nothings to fireflies. I got sucked into a glow circle that turned out to be a “body positivity drum rave.” I tried to leave, but someone smeared glitter on my chest and declared me “activated.”
Night fell like a concussion.
I crawled under what I thought was a shade tarp. It was actually a yoga mat commune. Someone mistook me for a shaman. I didn’t correct them. A woman named “Sploosh” offered me organic Pedialyte and told me I was glowing. I thanked her, even though I later realized the glow was just heat rash and fear.
Around 1 AM, I hallucinated an NFT sculpture garden that turned out to be a trash pile lit by glowsticks. I sat there for what felt like three hours listening to Vampire Weekend echo in the distance, thinking about how they once meant something and now just sounded like prep school ghosts.
Then came the drone show. Or maybe it was the CIA. I no longer trusted my senses. I followed a group of jugglers painted in Day-Glo to what I thought was a medical tent. It was a silent disco inside a repurposed septic tank blasting slowed-down Grateful Dead remixes.
Someone handed me a vape the size of a toaster and said, “This one hits different.” It did. It hit like betrayal. I coughed so hard I saw my past lives. My soul took an Uber to the First Aid booth and left me to rot.
At some point I passed what looked like a tribute memorial. A tree surrounded by candles and discarded bracelets. A sign read, “For Jonathan.” I stood there for five minutes trying to remember if Jonathan was a band or a sponsor. Only later did I realize it was for Jonathan Mayers, the co-founder of Bonnaroo. I whispered “thank you” to the wind and immediately tripped over a drunk kid dressed as a dragon.
Sometime before sunrise, I made it back to my car. I was crusted in dust, rashes, and cultural fatigue. My notebook was soaked in something sticky that smelled like wellness. The only thing I’d written down was “Is this Woodstock for influencers?” followed by a drawing of what might have been a vape truck on fire.
I slept in the backseat, hugging a bag of half-melted coconut water. My dreams were filled with face paint, auto-tuned trauma ballads, and someone shouting “Tyler is God!” into my subconscious.
The next morning, I limped out of the parking lot like a war survivor. My rental car smelled like regret and patchouli. The tollbooth attendant handed me a granola bar and wouldn’t make eye contact.
I didn’t write the article I came to write. I didn’t get interviews. I didn’t “cover the scene.”
But I lived.
And sometimes, that is the only headline that matters.
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