We're Back!

Ugh... Fine!

A writer writes, so the High Horse Blog returns after a month-long hiatus. What was I doing for the past month? Well, for starters,

BONNAROO!!!


There's an unwritten rule that the name of the 4-day music festival in Manchester, Tennessee can't be said without blasting it at the top of your lungs in the same way that someone would say, "ROAD TRIP!!!" or "VEGAS, BABY, VEGAS!!!"

For those of you who might not be familiar, Bonnaroo (not written in all caps to maintain some semblance of professionalism) began nine years ago as an attempt to recreate the un-recreatable musical orgy of Woodstock '69. To do so, they cordon off about a square mile field in the middle of nowhere for people to come, camp out for a few days, and listen to dozens of the country's most diverse and popular music groups.

What will follow is a series of articles detailing each day at Bonnaroo - both the music that was seen and the experience as a whole.

We start with Day 1:

Having slept over in Cincinnati the night before (so as to make for a shorter drive to the campgrounds than from our native Chicago), we hit the road at about seven in the morning, the same time that the grounds opened. Our plan was to arrive in Manchester around one in the afternoon, and we braced ourselves for a three-to-four-hour wait in line before actually getting to the grounds.

When we finally arrived in Manchester, our jaws dropped at what we saw: an immense line of cars stretching further than we could see. We knew from our directions that we couldn't be more than fifteen miles away from the place, but it was going to be an almost literal standstill until we got in. Then, disaster struck. We realized we were running so low on gasoline that we would likely run out before getting into the grounds. Begrudgingly, we left the line for a quick fill-up.

Turning around, we hoped and prayed that there would be another route that we could take, that we wouldn't be forced to the back of a line that we'd already devoted an hour and a half to. Our prayers seemed to be answered when we were diverted onto a country back road where traffic was moving pretty steadily. But, alas, traffic was eventually snarled there as well, and we had no choice but to wait it out.

Our prediction of a three-to-four hour wait was shattered, and our patience was pushed to the limit. Time passed, the sun set, and we could only creep forward, inch by inch, towards our destination. Nothing to be done... nothing to be done...

We thought that we were headed towards a separate entrance to the grounds, but at the end of our backroad ordeal, we were diverted onto the same highway we had originally come from, a mere eight hours after we first got there. But by this time, we were elated to just be able to see the campgrounds. As we made our way to the check-in point, we could taste the sweet victory of escaping our four-wheeled prison. A young man and woman came over to inspect the car. They greeted us and peaked into the vehicle. We were worried and intrigued about how thorough an inspection would come - we were packed in pretty tightly and after an eight-hour wait, were not about to start rearranging anything.

"If we open the trunk," said the woman, "Will a ton of stuff fall out?"

"Probably," replied our driver who had, heroically, taken the wheel for the entire day (thanks again, bud).

"Ok. We'll let it go, then," she said.

On the other side of the car, the young man poked his head in and said, "I'll just hang out here and pretend to inspect you a little longer. What're you coming to see?"

Well, that was easy. The "authorities" were likely more irked by the car next to us where they found an air-handgun in the glove box. Or perhaps the car pulled over to the side where a load of marijuana had been discovered. You can do almost anything at Bonnaroo. Almost.

But we were in. We pulled the car through the entrance gate and saw a magnificent image: a sea of cars and tents as far as the eye could look. Row after row after row, an incalculable number vehicles and, ergo, an incalculable number of people. Estimates would later show that over 80,000 people were in that vast field (Bonnaroo takes place on a converted farm).

We were ushered through the mass to a small plot of grass. This would be our home for the next three days, and, eager as eager can be to escape the vehicle, we piled out of the car and quickly put up our makeshift camping area. Our claim confined to about a 20x10-yard area, we had just enough space to throw up two tents (one big and one small) and a rain tarp under which we kept a group of folding chairs. Despite how packed-in the campsites might seem when looked at from afar, my companions and I (we numbered 5 in total) never felt crunched for space.

By this time, it was about 11:00 pm. We had anticipated being unpacked and ready to rock by about 6:00 pm - the best laid plans of mice and men...

But, the beautiful thing about Bonnaroo is that there's almost always music to be seen, so after a quick snack at the campsite we headed off to the festival area. Our fear was that since we had gotten into the grounds so late, we would be located terribly far away from the stages, but turns out we got lucky. Our site was only about an 8-minute walk away, child's play for a car-less Chicagoan. When we got to the gate, there was yet another inspection to get through - our bags were checked, again not very thoroughly, and finally, we were in. BONNAROO!!!

We had made it in time to see The XX - Thursday was jam band day as the festival didn't want to waste headliners while people were still funneling in. The XX put on a solid show, and were a perfect band to unwind with after a long day in the car. But we could tell that though it was going to be a decent show, it would be unmemorable, and so we decided to see what else was out there.

What we found was Lotus, a badass group of jammers with one helluva light show. We had found our destination for the evening. The music was exciting, even as it put you into a trance. And as a prototypical stoner band, we weren't surprised to see a bevy of people lighting up in the middle of the field. After a loooong day, we were relieved to be able to rock out all of our frustration.

And that did it for day 1. We started with incredible optimism, descended into a seemingly never-ending melancholy, and ended up rallying back. But the roller coaster had worn us out, and all we could manage to do was stumble back to our campsite and soundly pass out...

Sports Saturday - The Call

Everyone is talking about it - even the non-baseball heathens.

I speak, of course, about Jim Joyce's blown call that cost pitcher Armando Galarraga baseball's holy grail: A perfect game. But I'm not going to hem and haw and rail against the lack of precision in umpiring - baseball is by nature an imperfect game where even the most basic elements (balls and strikes) are judgment calls with human error playing a big part. After playing the game for years and years, most ballplayers have an understanding for this imperfection and realize the futility of arguing calls. And ultimately, how often does one call by the umpire actually decide the fate of the game?

But, almost despite myself, I find myself annoyed by Bud Selig's decision not to overturn the call. There are three main reasons:

Firstly, the impact of the decision. It cost someone a perfect game, what would have been the 21st in MLB history. That's roughly one every 5-10 years, which might be surprising given the recent spate of PG's within the last month. This is basically the rarest event in baseball, one that brings even uncelebrated pitchers (like Galarraga) instant fame and immortality. Part of the beauty of baseball is the way individual moments can shine through the sea of unfeeling statistics to be remembered into posterity - Merkel's boner, Bobby Thompson's home run, Bill Buckner's epic cock-up (trademark), these moments are immortal despite careers that may not have made them so. And any perfect game pitcher gets to be a part of that immortality. Most bad calls can, at worst, decide an individual game, and while this is upsetting, it's just a different number in the W and L columns. Joyce's call decided immortality.

Secondly, Joyce acknowledged as soon as humanly possible that he had gotten the call wrong. I'm sure he wanted to reverse the call, but knew that it was impossible to do in the heat of the game without ruining the integrity of the umpires. It's one thing to accept the imperfection of baseball umpiring, and another to adhere stringently to it when all parties involved agree that a mistake was made.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the correct call would have automatically ended the game. In most cases, disputed calls happen in the middle of games, even in the middle of at-bats. These are impossible to retroactively change because by the changing of just one part of a game, one would be unable to tell how the rest of the events would be affected. Take, for instance, the dispute two years ago over C.C. Sabathia's botched no-hitter: a close play on a ground ball was ruled a hit, and not, as some believed, an error. This ended up being the only hit in the game, meaning that had it been ruled an error, the game would have been a no-hitter. But making the game a no-hitter would rely on assumptions. For instance, how could we be sure that if Sabathia knew for sure that he still had a no-hitter the pressure wouldn't get to him and force him to err later in the game?

Had the blown call occurred with even 1 out in the ninth inning, I would be completely against changing the call since we never know what would have happened on the next out under the new circumstances. But since the real call would have actually ended the game, there are absolutely no what-ifs to argue. We know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it would have been a perfect game, and therefore, it would be fair to retroactively change the call.

But while Galarraga's lost place in baseball lore is sad, the real travesty here is that this ordeal is surely to result in more instant replay in baseball. Generally, the human error in baseball is beautiful, and keeps the game more pastoral and relaxed than the rigidly ruled game of football where replay is commonplace. And wouldn't instant replay ultimately weaken the umpires' authority, the very thing that Selig's decision is meant to protect?

Joyce and Galarraga have handled this whole situation admirably, and as gentlemen. They behaved with tact from the moment the error occurred up through when they shook hands as they exchanged lineup cards the day after. Bud Selig is the only one who isn't with the program - by so stringently adhering to the dogma of baseball, he is ultimately weakening the rule of law in the sport. Selfishly, he has let Jim Joyce bare all of the wrath of the fans, and refused to make a controversial but just decision that would have relieved some of that burden. Sure, it would have brought criticism to his doorstep, but Jesus-like, he should have taken the sin upon himself to save the men involved. That's, to me, the commissioner's job.

A trip to the Symphony

While it's nice sitting comfortably in my house all day sipping beer and listening to whatever I feel like hearing at the moment on Grooveshark.com (greatest. website. ever.), last night I had the occasion to hear my first world class symphonic performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

My hometown of Cincinnati is not without its own orchestra, but the Chicago Symphony is quite a step above, arguably one of the top orchestras in the entire world. It's a special treat to be able to see such a fine show of musical talent, and in some ways, amazing that I've waited until now to do so.

As I await attending the Bonnaroo Music Festival next week, perhaps the polar opposite musical experience of the CSO, I find myself pondering the significance of actually attending a symphony. Certainly, the programme was not the only draw - after all, I'd heard most of, if not all of the pieces before (Beethoven's 8th Symphony, the Overture to Beethoven's Fidelio, and for the finale, Beethoven's immortal 5th Symphony), and done by world class orchestras in their own right (perhaps I'd even heard a recording of the CSO doing some of the works). And surely, the recordings must have been a better sound quality after going through the rigor of a studio editing session.

But as I sat in a seat and awaited the start of the evening, I realized that I was about to not just hear music, but to experience it. The conductor or principal violin player comes onto the stage and the audience gives unsolicited applause, before even a note of music has been played. It's as if they are clapping not for the music itself, but as acknowledgement of the lifetime of practice and study spent in preparation for this one moment.

That's the key to what I took away from my trip to the symphony. I expect that next week, when I go to Bonnaroo, despite a massively larger audience, and hundreds of thousands of dollars being poured into creating elaborate light shows, costumes, and stagings, the emphasis will not really be on the music. People will be cheering for the musicians, but at the same time holding beer bottles and toking on reefers. This doesn't compare to the near-holiness that symphonic audiences seem to put on what they listen to. Symphony halls are like cathedrals, and audiences have a stringent adherence to etiquette, even refraining from coughing until the end of a movement so as not to spoil the melody (it's amazing fun to see how the auditorium turns into a hospital ward between movements as patrons try to cram their coughing into a minimal five-to-ten-second space). This seeming stuffiness may be why classical music is so unpopular amongst younger, diverse audiences, but it's also what makes the symphonic experience so special. Here is perhaps the one instance where a person is asked to just listen to and respect the music being played. It's not like having music on in the background while you have a good conversation, or even like attending a rock concert where your concentration is more on the party than the sound (not that there's anything wrong with that).

What the symphony does is command that those who attend study the music attentively, listen for subtle colorings and counter-melodies and transitions that add complexity to music. And in this way, one comes to better appreciate all music in general. While one can still enjoy modern music like, say, Jurassic 5 based on the catchiness of the beats and the flow of the rhymes, being able to latch onto nuances in the rhythms or appreciate a solid composition makes it a transcendent experience, and for me, the entrance into that kind of appreciation came from classical music. It's a mistake to think that all music is not interconnected. Old audiences who dismiss rap as an "other" and young audiences who blindly dismiss classical music as boring, are both missing worlds of musical experiences that inevitably enrich the soul (now we're really getting high-falutin').

The key is forcing oneself to really pay attention to what you are listening to. Symphonies acknowledge that you can't really appreciate what you're listening to unless you are just listening to it. To be sure, there's a non-auditory element of performance to a symphony - it's exciting and mesmerizing to see all the bows moving to and fro in unison, or to watch a conductor as he calls for a particular kind of coloring to the notes played - but for the most part, it is nothing more than an acknowledgement of the importance of music to our lives. There's something beautiful and primal about that.

As a seller of classical music subscriptions, I often encounter old ladies who are frustrated by the informality with which some people attend the symphony. For them, polo shirts, khaki shorts, and Birkenstocks have no place in their musical Church. To many people, that might seem uptight and ridiculous, but one can't argue that they have some founding in their sadness at the decay of an experience that, for them, is holy. And you also can't argue that deep, deep appreciation for the classics brings some sort of Enlightenment to their lives, in the same way that deep appreciation of rock or techno or jazz does to others. Music is a universal language and I would argue that a trip to the symphony helps one learn to speak it.