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Bonnaroo: Woodstock's second coming

Published:Thursday | June 10, 2010 | 12:00 AM
In this June 12, 2009 file photo, Bonnaroo fans gather to watch the Yeah Yeah Yeahs during the Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. - AP

NEW YORK (AP):

It's often joked that more people like to claim that they were at Woodstock in 1969 than were actually there.

For today's music mega festivals, such boasting is entirely plausible.

The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, which begins its ninth annual instalment today in Manchester, Tennessee, has - like many festivals - gradually let more of its experience seep out on the Internet.

This year's festival, more than any earlier, need not require a cross-country road trip or four days of camping in the mud. Much of the music at Bonnaroo will filter out through live streaming on YouTube, audio webcasting on NPR and television coverage on Fuse.

A web-minded vibe was set right from the start: This year's Bonnaroo line-up was announced through the individual websites, MySpace pages, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages of the performing acts. It took frantic Googling to uncover that the headliners would be Jay-Z, the Dave Matthews Band and Kings of Leon.

Nearly 100 acts, including Conan O'Brien's travelling comedy show, will be spread out over a multitude of stages and tents on the Tennessee farm owned by Superfly Productions and AC Entertainment, the organisers of Bonnaroo.

Preparing for thousands

More than 70,000 fans are expected to attend the festival, which runs through Sunday.

But perhaps as many, or more, will watch Jay-Z, the National, Norah Jones and many others at YouTube.com/bonnaroo. Thousands more might listen to the Dave Matthews Band, the Flaming Lips and others at NPR.org/music. And still more may catch up watching 'Live From Bonnaroo 2010' on Fuse, on June 17.

But the 'specialness' of the live, in-person experience is the most important characteristic of Bonnaroo and other major festivals. It can be delicate balancing how much to open up festival gates to the Internet, and how much to keep offline.

Fan videos will also be posted across blogs and YouTube, and tweets that will likely drive Bonnaroo to among the most popular topics on Twitter over the weekend.