Ep. 54 Festies Recap: Bonnaroo 2026

Bonnaroo 2026 is officially in the books.

This week, Sunny and Clark sit down with Vanessa and her fiancé, Ed, to hear all about their trip to The Farm. It was their first time tackling a major camping festival in the ambulance camper, and we're going to hear all about it. The good, the muddy, and the unforgettable!

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Transcript

Festies Welcome And Bonnaroo Basics

Vanessa 0:00

Hey Sunny.

Sunny 0:01

Yeah, Vanessa?

Vanessa 0:02

What do you call two best friends that love music festivals?

Sunny 0:05

Hmm, I guess you'd call them Festies. Hi guys.

Vanessa 0:45

Hello.

Sunny 0:46

Hey Festies, welcome back. Thank you for joining us. I'm Sunny.

Vanessa 0:50

I'm Vanessa. And with us today, we have Ed Duea.

Ed 0:57

Hi guys.

Vanessa 0:58

My fiance.

Ed 0:59

Happy to be back.

Sunny 1:01

Thanks for being here.

Clark 1:02

Thank you. You know what that means.

Sunny 1:04

We are recapping their favorite festival, Bonnaroo.

Vanessa 1:08

Woohoo! Happy Roo.

Sunny 1:10

They survived.

Clark 1:13

Yeah, they they made it back in one piece.

Vanessa 1:15

They survived. I think survived is a good way to put it.

Sunny 1:19

Oh no.

Ed 1:20

Oh my gosh. We might be getting old or something. Oh man. I think so.

Sunny 1:26

Quick refresher on Bonnaroo. It's a four-day festival in Manchester, Tennessee. It's been going since 2002. It happens on a 700-acre farm. Camping, music, art, heat, and uh, like we said, Vanessa and Ed just got back, so we're excited to hear all about it. Let's get into it.

Vanessa 1:49

Yeah, speaking of a 700-acre farm, I'll let you take this away.

Rolling In And Meeting The Landowner

Ed 1:54

Oh, yeah. Right when we pulled in, some old guy, he came up on uh like a two uh razor uh side by side. He was just checking out the uh everybody pulling in, and he liked our ambulance, but his name was Ed, and he was actually the owner of all the land. What? Oh wow, that's sick. Yeah, it was cool. He was really a nice guy.

Vanessa 2:19

Was he from Iowa? That's nice.

Ed 2:21

He had a property in Clinton, Iowa, or something. Yeah.

Clark 2:25

Oh my gosh.

Ed 2:26

Yeah, I told him two at two Eds are better than one. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, I was like, thanks for letting us uh use your farm.

Vanessa 2:36

Well, because you were like, how many uh rus have you been to? And he was like, 22 or something. We were like, Well, that's awesome. He was like, I own the land. I was like, Oh, okay.

Clark 2:47

That makes a lot more sense.

Sunny 2:49

Yeah, no big deal.

Clark 2:51

He's seen it all.

Sunny 2:52

Yeah, wow.

The Ambulance Camper First Test

Sunny 2:54

Okay, you mentioned the ambulance. For anyone who hasn't listened, can you give a quick overview of the ambulance?

Vanessa 3:00

Yeah, I mean, we have a box ambulance that we turned into a camper. This was our first time taking it to a music festival, and I would say it was pretty awesome. Hell yeah, great success.

Clark 3:16

Yeah.

Vanessa 3:17

Except for the A-Cine kind of using up too much juice, so we couldn't use it a whole bunch, but it was still nice because we were able to sleep in and stuff. Yeah. Unlike when you're tent camping, you know, you're waking up at 7 a.m. because the sun's beating down on you. So that was nice.

Clark 3:35

Especially uh in 2023 when we were all at Bonnaroo together and y'all ended up like underwater and y'all's tent when it was dumping on us that last day.

Sunny 3:47

So move it on up.

Clark 3:49

Yeah.

Sunny 3:49

Was it a showstopper?

Ed 3:51

Oh, yeah. Everybody was coming over, yeah, checking it out. That was like that's cool.

Vanessa 3:57

They almost didn't let us into like the GA camping. There was like kids just at the gate being like, Oh, this is considered an RV. You might have to go back, and we're like, No, it's not. They're in the one of them laughed so hard when we just like rejected them immediately. But it's not, I mean, what it's what is it considered?

Ed 4:19

It's on a van chassis.

Vanessa 4:22

We're like, it's a van, a soup-up van. It's pretty big, but uh the girl's like, Oh, uh, okay, just go to the gate and see what they say, I guess. No one did anything to us at the gate, right?

Ed 4:33

Yeah, yeah, they ended up letting us in. No big deal.

Vanessa 4:36

Yeah.

Sunny 4:37

And we got searched hard, but it was set the scene for us. What did the first hour look like getting on the farm?

Ed 4:45

Actually, we got into the line and we were the only one. There was no line.

Vanessa 4:50

And this was like Thursday at 10 a.m.

Ed 4:53

Yeah. So everyone there could could search the or Yeah, so they were ready to search.

Vanessa 4:59

Yeah.

Clark 5:01

The idea swarmed, y'all.

Vanessa 5:02

It was like, oh, this is so cool. And then one of the guys was like, Yeah, I'm gonna let you guys take that. Like, you guys searched this beast. It was fine. They only ended up taking a couple power tools, but we got them back. Oh no. We had to like pay for them to hold them.

Ed 5:19

They took my dualt impacts. I don't know why.

Sunny 5:22

Um at least they didn't make you just toss them.

Ed 5:25

Were you yeah, were you gonna use them for yeah, were you gonna use them for anything for setup? Not really. Really just had the one in case we got a flat tire, you know, and helped to change a tire with Yeah.

Vanessa 5:38

So then we got parked at like one of the farthest lots. Oh no, we were in Plaza 9, and like at the very end of the row. So there was like no, it was kind of nice because there was no foot traffic, but also like there was no foot traffic. So I had all these like trinkets that were like set out for people to grab, and nobody came by there.

Ed 6:00

So our neighbors did.

Vanessa 6:03

Or just our neighbors. We had these little kids like across from us who came by and like would grab candy and bracelets and stuff, but we were like the maybe fourth to last car in that row, so nobody was back there unless we were tucked away in the corner. They started filling from the back. No, I think everybody just showed up Wednesday. Oh, oh, oh, okay. It seemed like nobody was there getting I mean, people were getting there on Thursday, but we were like the last ones to trickle in. Oh wow. Oh man, they didn't allow Tuesday entry, so everyone was was getting in there as early as they could, which was Wednesday.

Clark 6:38

Well, since that's

Camp Setup And Instant Friendships

Clark 6:40

rough.

Sunny 6:40

Since it was your first time with the ambulance, how was the campsite set up?

Vanessa 6:44

Oh, it was quick and easy. Um, as soon as we got there, Ed just like popped up in a cold one and started introducing himself to our neighbors, and we were like helping them set out the guys behind us. Shout out to Chris, he was like by himself trying to set up this easy up, so we were you know helping him, and then the guys next to us didn't have an easy up. I felt bad because we I was gonna bring two. I told Ed to bring two. And only one made Ed, but it's okay.

Ed 7:12

My bad.

Vanessa 7:13

No, they they actually shout out to Mike and Caden and Larry. They actually had hammocks, so they set them up at the grove and they would just sleep there, which is sick as it's like way cooler over there in the trees and stuff.

Ed 7:25

So they were two campsites, they loved it.

Vanessa 7:30

So you made friends, yeah. We made friends, they were so nice, so awesome, really interesting. We didn't end up hanging out with them really inside till like the last day, which was the best day.

Ed 7:41

But yeah, they were really fun. They were first, their first Bonnaroo. I I think they really loved it. Yeah, they oh that's fun, yeah. That's cool.

Vanessa 7:48

They were like up till freaking sunrise. Every uh we were like the boring ones because they were doing everything. We had a bit of a slow start, like real sound.

Ed 8:02

We were just tired, but we gotta go. We gotta go on. Yeah.

Heat, Health, And Running On No Sleep

Sunny 8:06

Well, Vanessa, you had a hell of a week leading up to it. You're sick, you were coming back to the Bay Area. Were you still sick by the time you got to Bonnaroo?

Vanessa 8:14

A little bit, just my breathing was a little off. Just your breathing. Just my just my chest, you know. Yeah. Um, but I'm so glad that I had went to urgent care a couple days before and got some prednisome because my lungs were just like inflamed. I was so short of breath. And by the time we got there, it that had resolved a little bit, but I was still, it was still, it was hard. You always hear people say, like, oh, camping festivals are hard. I never used to think they were hard until this year. It was like very hard for some reason. It was just, it was so hot. We were so tired. We also like worked all day Wednesday, both of us, like 12 hour shifts. Then we drove at Wednesday night through the night to get there Thursday morning. So we were running on like no sleep, and so we set up, and it music didn't start till like four. So we finally went in at like four, four thirty, just dragging, you know. And then by the time Skrillix, the headliner, came on, we were like falling asleep standing up, so we left like early, but we still got to see Ben Staples, Fortet, and part of Skrillex. So do you feel the same way, Ed? Was it hard?

Ed 9:29

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I was just trying to wake up the first couple days, seemed like.

Vanessa 9:33

Yeah. Like I was like, Am I being boring? I was like, I'm being lame, aren't I? I was like, what is happening to us?

Sunny 9:47

Within one year, because last year you guys went balls to the walls on day one.

Vanessa 9:52

It was only one day. I mean we got to rest the night the day before. Oh, you rested on we got to sleep like a full night Wednesday night and then went in. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, still a great time, but oh my god, I felt a huge difference. I'm like, this is 33. I you turned 33 and it just like that's the magic number.

Sunny 10:15

Yeah.

Vanessa 10:15

Oh man.

Rain, Mud, And Redemption Roo Vibes

Sunny 10:17

Speaking of last year, so you guys only got one day at Bonnaroo last year. The weather shut it down. You had to leave early. But this year, were there a lot of people with that same story, and did that change the vibe at all?

Ed 10:28

Uh I don't know. I think people were nervous about it happening again. You know, there was a lot of rain and mud.

Vanessa 10:36

Yeah, it would rain every day, like a little bit every day, but it would it would just pass through. So maybe like 10 to 20 minutes of rain, and then that was it. But it definitely made the grounds really muddy. I can definitely see why they shut down last year. People were complaining, you know, people were complaining last year that they shut it down and that they should just let us be in the rain. Well, this was like nothing compared to last year, and it was such a muddy, sloppy mess at the main stage. So I can't even imagine what it would have been like last year. But, anyways, the Bonnaroovian spirit is always high no matter what, I think.

Clark 11:14

Yeah, people are people are gonna make it work, right?

Sunny 11:17

Make it work. Yeah, there's just a lot of social media posts saying the redemption rue really outdid itself and stuff like that. So I'm curious if you guys had that experience.

Vanessa 11:26

No, yeah, vibes were high. At one point on Sunday, we had to find Caleb, the Bonnaroo Yearbook guy, because one, he had my yearbook, two, I already bought one for this year, and so I had to sign it. So I was like trying to find him. It wasn't until Sunday when I was like, Okay, Centero is shut down right now. We need to go find him while he's probably at camp. So we went to go do that, and in the middle of that, it was like pouring, like downpour. We got our ponchos and started walking to where he was camped, and we were like, This is such a bad idea. It was pouring so bad, but we were like, We're just gonna embrace it. I'll kept saying, like, embrace the suck. This is our side quest. Embrace the suck. This is our side quest, we're gonna do it. And we ended up finding him after crossing rivers of oh my gosh, its shoes were soaked. I thankfully had rain boots. Oh my gosh. Yeah. At first we were like, why did we choose to do this right now? But then it ended up being really fun. And then we ran into our camp neighbors at the grove while we were headed back, so we walked back with them and then we're like, let's spend the whole day together. So that was that was fun, yeah.

Ed 12:41

Yeah, there was people doing uh slip and slides.

Vanessa 12:45

Yeah, I saw as soon as it started pouring and we were walking over there, we saw people setting up their tarps and doing slip and slides and stuff. Yeah, so I'm saying, like, they weren't gonna let a little rain. I was really nervous thinking that they would close and I wasn't gonna get to see Noah Conway. Oh Noah Kahan? Noah Kahan, yeah.

Clark 13:06

Well, I mean, they did they did shut down Center Roo for a little bit. Was that on Sunday, that last day? Yeah, yeah.

Vanessa 13:13

For a couple hours, and then they were like after everyone kept saying after 4 30, there's no rain, so we should be okay. I'm like, yeah, but think about all the mud in there.

Clark 13:23

Yeah. We were seeing all those posts within the the crowd, like the mud pits that suctioned, and then and then you were telling us in the in the group chat that it was like, yeah, like suctions to your yeah, I almost lost my shoes a couple times.

Vanessa 13:40

I had rain boots, so the last day I did use them, but they fucked up my legs too. So I'm glad I only wore them for one day.

Noah Kahan, Kesha, And Big Sets

Sunny 13:47

He made it to Noah Khan. How was he?

Vanessa 13:50

Amazing. He was really good. Awesome. And at one point he like came out and was behind the sound booth, and they were putting like mulch and ever and whatever else they could to like make it not so money, but it smelled so bad. It smelled like fucking cow shit. Oh no. And so when he came out there, he was like, Oh my god, it smells like shit out here. He's like, Are you guys just shutting on the ground? Like, what is wrong with you?

Clark 14:22

I know I'm good, but like, am I that good?

Vanessa 14:25

No, he was he was funny, he was a good time. Everybody was dancing, and he's like, I love seeing you all dance to really sad songs.

Sunny 14:33

Oh, yay, I'm glad I'm glad uh you made it to Noah Con.

Ed 14:36

Yeah, I don't know.

Sunny 14:36

Did you have a good time at Noakon?

Ed 14:38

Oh, of course. Yeah, you killed it. Good way to close out the festival. Who did we see before Noah Con that you loved? Kesho was awesome. Hell yeah, that's dope.

Vanessa 14:50

Ed did not know what Kesha looked like before this, and I think he's in love now.

Ed 14:57

This place about to blow. Uh-oh. Hell yeah.

Sunny 15:02

Did she do all her bangers?

Vanessa 15:04

Yeah, I think so. We did leave like 15 minutes early because we wanted to be there for all of Noakon. But she did, yeah, yeah. But yeah, she she killed it. Did you hear uh TikTok? I don't know if she opened with it or closed with it because she opened with it at the Super Jam. Like the slow version of it. So I think she might have either opened it or closed with it. I'm not sure. We missed it either way, but we did see it at the Super Jam.

Sunny 15:32

You made it to the Super Jam?

Vanessa 15:34

Yeah. Uh, only for a little bit. It was cool though. Yeah, it was really cool. She brought out um Mountain Grass Unit, Rainbow Kit and Surprise, they did the killers, Mr. Brightside.

Clark 15:44

I know Flip Turn was there for a bit.

Vanessa 15:46

And I think right after Flip Turn is was when we went over to Rainbow Kit and Surprise.

Clark 15:51

How'd you like Grizz ending with Rainbow Kit and Surprise come out? Yeah, yeah.

Vanessa 15:56

That was really cool.

Clark 15:57

We got to catch that on the on the stream. Yeah. Uh just barely. And it was it was really powerful.

Vanessa 16:04

But yeah, that was cool because then we were like, oh, we could leave Rainbow Kit and Surprise early since we already saw the closer with Grizz.

Clark 16:11

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I can imagine.

Sunny 16:16

How did you not? Yeah.

Clark 16:17

Of course.

Sunny 16:18

I need to hear about Weird Owl.

Ed 16:20

Oh god, so awesome.

Sunny 16:22

Hell yeah.

Ed 16:23

So good.

Vanessa 16:24

I first remember I was gonna have a way bigger crowd. Or I guess we were in the VIP, so maybe it was a big crowd out there, actually. But in VIP it was a little empty, but it was just nice because we had space and we were close. So yeah. What stage was he on? At the witch stage. At like 1 a.m. after the headliner. So yeah.

Clark 16:46

I loved that he was so late. Like when I saw that on the on the schedule, I was telling Sonny it. I remember how much we enjoyed Wolfpeck's set that late. That late.

Vanessa 16:58

I think that was the latest we were out. Was that day?

Clark 17:02

Might have been.

Vanessa 17:03

Gotta do it for Weird Al.

Clark 17:04

I was gonna say, honestly, like that's that's dope. The latest day was to see Weird Alm is great.

Vanessa 17:11

And then we were like, should we go to Gorgon City? Like sunrise set.

Ed 17:16

Didn't have enough gas in the world.

Vanessa 17:17

We did not have enough gas for that. We like got back to camp. Our neighbors were like chilling uh at our campsite, and we like stayed up talking to them for a while, and then they were like, Okay, let's go back in. I was like, What? I like showered at our camp and then I got I was like walking back over to the inside, and Ed was like, Hey, do you hear the question? I was like, Well, he's like, Are we going to the sunrise set for Gorgod City? I just laughed out loud. I was like, no, thanks.

Clark 17:45

Hilarious.

Vanessa 17:46

Yeah, maybe if you would have caught me before my shower, but I literally just showered.

Ed 17:51

Yeah, but weird owl though, uh uh his band, they've been with I don't know, 30 years probably.

Sunny 17:58

They've been with him forever. Yeah, that's dope.

Ed 18:00

They just did costume changes, maybe 10 or 12 of them.

Vanessa 18:04

Yeah, in between costume changes, they played all his like iconic clips, videos, oh, like the in the interview. Sometimes I was like, this is going on for way too long. Like, are we just watching his movie now? Like, what is happening?

Sunny 18:23

Who think you are, Justin Bieber?

Vanessa 18:27

Yeah, but then he'd come out in like the fat suit for I'm fat, that Michael Jackson parody came out in like a big fat suit, and then came out dressed as the Amish for Amish Paradise.

Sunny 18:40

And um you saw a lot of music this weekend or last weekend?

Clark 18:44

Yeah, yeah. Do you have any that were like um not maybe not like a surprise, but like uh smaller artist that you guys happen to see that you went, oh yeah. Well, daily bread to see was sick.

Vanessa 18:58

Awesome. And like daily bread. Can you slowly but surely turning him? We're turning him in medium lover.

Ed 19:08

Well, I mean, he's kind of a rapper, more so thanks. Well, he's not the rapper, but he puts a lot of rap in his music. Yeah.

Vanessa 19:17

And I also wanted to see them because I think Lauren from SideQuest Grid had mentioned them as like her festies person, right? For the Festies lineup. And so she talked him up a lot, and I was like, okay, I I do would like to see Daily Bread. So I'm glad we got to see him. That was great.

Sunny 19:33

So we had Lauren and David of SideQuest Grid on the podcast a couple episodes ago. Did you get to see them?

Vanessa 19:40

We did run into them just by chance at Alabama Shakespeare. It was very quick.

Clark 19:46

Nice.

Vanessa 19:47

And I did want to go hang out with them during Rainbow Kitten Sprise. That's what we had said. We were gonna go meet up with them, but we saw them right before that, and then I wasn't feeling that well after that. No, so I was like, okay, I I think I need to we I think we went and watched them from the from the VIP just to have more space. But yeah, I wish that I got to hang out with them a little bit more. They were so nice. We shared we exchanged some candy and uh they had their cool totem side quest grid totem um down so that people could find them. Yeah, they were super nice.

Clark 20:21

Did you get to complete some stuff on the grid?

Vanessa 20:24

I did. We saw some tiny hand gangs, we found a Bonnaroo tattoo, we signed the yearbook. Um yeah, we did a few things and I handed them out. So my kit that I bought, my Bonnaroo box, it came with a bunch of little side quest grids. So I handed them out to like our camp neighbors. I handed one out to somebody in the crowd that stopped me and was like, It's my first Bonnaroo. Where did you get your little sprout? Like, where is everyone getting these from? Oh, well, I made this one. So I gave him a sprout and then I gave him a grid.

Ed 20:56

So that's that's great. That's awesome. Oh, I took one of the uh Festies um what do you call them? Clothes pins clothes pins and pinned it on the security guard when we're coming through. Nice heck yeah, that's so good.

Sunny 21:13

Yeah, oh yeah, the clothespins. I forgot you guys had those.

Ed 21:16

That's funny. Those are so fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa 21:19

He was like, we can get them once we pass them, we can like pwn one on them and they won't turn around.

Sunny 21:26

Anyone who doesn't know, my mom has started making clothes pins that say a compliment on one side, and then on the other side says listen to Festies Podcast, and we very sneakily pin them on people or not unsuspecting victims. Yeah. They didn't ask for this.

Clark 21:44

We clothes them. Yeah. Not not pin them or sprout them, clothes them.

VIP Reality Check And The Strokes

Sunny 21:50

Well, you mentioned VIP. How was VIP?

Clark 21:53

I mean, I don't know if I want to go back to GA. Right. Yeah. Especially when

Vanessa 22:00

The weather that y'all were having, I I can imagine it was so much nicer to be able to have the amenities that VIP has for except for because they moved the that tent to the main stage area, the VIP lounge was half the size of what it was before. But how did you feel about that tent being over at the main stage?

Ed 22:23

Yeah, I don't know. I didn't really like it.

Vanessa 22:25

I think it was a bad year for it, but it has the potential to be really fun. Can you explain that more? Yeah, so that tent it used to be over by the VIP lounge. Like you could watch performances from the VIP lounge there, but they moved it to the way back of the what stage, like at the main field.

Ed 22:48

Oh you could like directly face each other.

Vanessa 22:51

Yeah, so you could like watch the what stage and then just turn around and watch the that stage. But because of the mud, it was just a mud pit in there. So it definitely deterred us from seeing artists there. Um that's a bummer. Oh, that's tough. Yeah, but I yeah, if it's like beautiful and grassy, like that would be great. We did watch a few acts from the VIP mound because you could still hear it. It's not that loud, but you can still hear it. Yeah. Um I don't know. It has potential, I guess, but it just I don't think it was a great year for it.

Clark 23:25

Yeah, yeah. Like you can understand the reasoning and why they uh decided, you know, try are trying it out and stuff like that.

Vanessa 23:32

Yeah. When we were watching the strokes, there was, I don't know his name, the singer. He was like, We love this festival. This is like all the people that we wish we could play with. Like if this was our it's like everyone we would pick for this lineup or whatever, and he was like, So thanks for coming to my festival.

Clark 23:53

Then he goes, and then he goes, JK Mr.

Vanessa 23:57

Bonnaroo. He goes, John C. Bonnaroo.

Ed 24:04

I was more looking forward to his stand-up in between songs.

Vanessa 24:09

It's funny because our camp neighbors also thought that they sucked and that they were like assholes, and we were like, I don't know, we thought he was funny. We thought he was funny.

Ed 24:21

The strokes were I was they were good. I don't know. Yeah, they're a great band. I was not like I was surprised, but I was pleasantly surprised kind of.

Vanessa 24:35

But then he played like 15 to 20 minutes over his set. Oh yeah. He took requests and then he played like two songs over, and then he's like, Alright, we got time for two more. I was like, No, you don't. Lil John is the star now. Did you catch Lil John? Uh on our way out, yeah. Ed was like walking what walking across the field while I was like trying to get closer, and he was like, Oh, you're trying to get closer. I was like, You don't want to see Lil John. It was like so muddy, it was so muddy. I was like, Yeah, I guess not. It's like this is terrible.

Outer Roo Weirdness And Best Food Finds

Sunny 25:10

Did you do anything in Outer Roo?

unknown 25:12

No.

Vanessa 25:16

What? Sometimes when we'd be walking back to our campsite, there'd be some random stuff going on in there, and one night there was like these sword swallowers. I don't know, it was very weird, and it was like 2 30, 3 a.m. It was cool, but it was a little weird.

Ed 25:36

There was a big crowd. I don't know, there was like uh husband and wife that were like BDSM dressed up.

Vanessa 25:42

Yeah, they were dressed like BDSM. Scroll wear tits out, she had huge tits, and all she had was like little tassels on them or something, and it was awful.

Ed 25:52

It was awful. Yeah.

Vanessa 25:57

Worst part of the weekend.

Ed 25:58

Yeah, that was interesting.

Vanessa 26:01

It was a good I said weird, it was a good weird, something you don't see every day. Oh my gosh, and the broccoli, there was this broccoli stand, they were selling broccoli all sorts of ways. I don't know. But then in the corner of the truck, they had a little DJ booth. So, like on the very last night, people were like getting food and the DJ was playing, and there was just like a crowd of people dancing by the food trailer. Oh fun because like they wanted the night to end.

Clark 26:28

Yeah, all right. That's fun.

Sunny 26:30

Yeah, speaking of broccoli, how was the food?

Vanessa 26:34

It was good. We got spicy pie, which I think was my first time getting spicy. I can't remember eating it before, but it was so good. And we had it the first night during Fortet. We were waiting for Skrillex or during Skrillex, I don't know. But it was like it hit the spot. It was so good. Which is Vanessa's favorite food, but like good pizza, okay? Not like pizza hut pizza, not like round table. No, okay. You know what? Round table is our last honest pizza, okay?

Sunny 27:05

Which started in Benlo Park. Did you know that? I know.

Vanessa 27:08

I did not know that. That one by your house, that's the original. Yeah. Oh, that's the crazy one.

Clark 27:12

We haven't even gone there since we moved here.

Vanessa 27:16

Yeah, we also had that chicken that we oh, the chicken that we talked about last year. So good.

Ed 27:21

Very good.

Vanessa 27:22

And then the Euro plate, that Greek like Euro plate that I had for breakfast. That was really good. And the empanadas, those were good. Oh yeah. Yeah, we had some good food. And a smoothie. Oh, the burgers. Oh my god. Okay, the last night there was like the last food stand once you get to like plaza nine, was this one guy doing like Philly cheesesteaks and burgers. And the wait was like 35 minutes because it was just this one guy doing them, you know. But they were so freaking good. It was like so worth the wait. I felt so bad for this guy though. But everybody was chill and nice. Everyone was like, You're a king. Like he's like just cooking it up, and he looked so chill, like he did not look rushed, feel like stressed, but he was he was doing his thing, he was just doing his thing, and they were so good, and he was nice, and everyone was nice, and everyone was like, I didn't feel bad for him at all.

Ed 28:24

I don't know. He was making 20-25 bucks a pop. Yeah, yeah.

Vanessa 28:29

I kind of felt bad for him, but people were gonna wait them out away. People, yeah, people didn't care to wait. It was so good.

Ed 28:35

Some baklava from the place next door. Oh, yeah. Homemade baklava.

Sunny 28:41

At landing in a bottle, there was someone walking around selling baklava. Like just another camper. Yes. Like, I was like, You're making all your money back, dude.

Clark 28:49

Yeah, it was it was really good, but it was kind of like that whole I don't know if uh we talked about it on the podcast of that whole saga of the baklava guy at Coachella. It was like this dude that drove cross country to make it down to Coachella, and he's like, I don't have a pass or anything. I'm trying to go down there. I got I got like eight trays of Bakava. I'm just gonna go sell it, uh, you know, walk around the campsites. And then people found him, and like posts were blowing up, like, yeah, we're partying with the baklava guy right now. And he's just like with them with his with his tray and his apron, and he's just that's and someone gave him a pass, I'm assuming. Yeah, yeah. Someone got him in too. Yeah, it was it was sick. Baklava saga. That's so funny. Yeah.

Highs, Lows, And Festival Community

Sunny 29:34

Do you have a high and a low for the weekend?

Vanessa 29:37

Hmm, I didn't even think about that. I know we were like laying down there at our campsite and with our camp neighbors, and I was like whispering to Ed, let's do highs and lows. Oh, we didn't end up doing them. We should have. That way they would have been great people to do it with, but have we explained that on the pod?

Sunny 29:54

I think we have. Okay, yeah. Just at the end of every night, if we're all together at a festival, we like to do a round of highs and lows and just say our best part of the day and our worst part of the day. Of the whole festival? Take your time.

Ed 30:12

Yeah. I think the I don't know. My high was probably during Kesha.

Vanessa 30:19

I love that so much.

Ed 30:21

It was awesome.

Vanessa 30:22

It's so funny because I tried to get him to listen to Kesha before the festival, and he's only ever heard the parody versions by Rocka Raka Ollie. So he would he'd be like, I only know these songs because of that guy. And so he would sing the parody versions and like wouldn't like take it seriously or listen to listen to her songs.

Clark 30:44

Vaughn is like, put some respect on her name.

Vanessa 30:46

Literally, and so he just got home right now, like a little bit ago, and he was started blasting Kesha in the living room. So funny. Did she do cannibal? Yeah, she did. She did cannibal and she did um which one is the song where she says, Oh, sleazy. Remember we did sleazy? Yeah, she didn't do the whole verses. I was so sad. Um that was like minus sunny's song back in the day.

Clark 31:13

Sleazy.

Vanessa 31:14

We talked, we'd we'd always say the line like, We take your drinks from the tables when you get up and leave them.

Sunny 31:23

We weren't even drinking at the time. I know. That's so funny. Uh okay, so that was your high.

Ed 31:30

Yeah. Low, probably, uh, I don't know. Some point when we were slogging through the mud.

Vanessa 31:37

Dickering, not really. Like, I think Saturday was our worst day. That would be my low.

Ed 31:43

We were just kind of like until we went to see Rufus. Was that Saturday?

Vanessa 31:48

No. Oh yeah, Rufus. Was Rufus Saturday? No, it was whenever Rainbow Kit and Surprise played. I think it was Friday. Friday was when we were kind of just like taking it out on each other. Not not getting along, but like kind of not getting along. Yeah. Pickering a little bit. We were like, are we miserable? Like, why are we even here? Like, why did we come back? Are we having fun? Are we even having fun? Like, um, oh man, but for very long. It was not for very long because once we just called it out, we were fine. That was um right before the night of the strokes. Oh, but I think that was probably my low that day, Friday. Friday during the day. And the high? My high was Noah Con for sure. Yeah. Oh yeah. When we're talking about, if we're talking about like music sets, but for the whole weekend, I loved meeting our camping neighbors, hanging out with our neighbors. Yeah, they were so they were so fun. And I just love that they got Ed to go to see Daily Bread. My team piping it up. He was like, Oh, if you like Riz, you're gonna love Daily Bread. Like, and he was just, you know, and he was like Ed's age, and they had the same jokes and movie references and all this stuff. So he was like, You're gonna love it. And I was like, Hell yeah, we're gonna go see Daily Bread.

Clark 33:06

Nice. We got him. Yeah, it was beautiful.

Vanessa 33:09

Yeah. And then we ended up giving them a ride to the airport on uh and wow, we went to Nashville and had pizza with them and then took them to the airport. So I love that. Yeah.

Clark 33:22

Oh, that's great.

Vanessa 33:23

Festies, and I gave them all hats.

Clark 33:25

Awesome. They're all festives now. They're all festives, yeah. Love it, love it.

Vanessa 33:30

Shout out to Dirty Mike and the boys. Nice, and Caden, his son, which is also awesome. And uh that's so cool. Yeah, and uh Larry, also great dude, and Chris and Graham. Shout out to them too. They were behind us.

Ed 33:48

We all had fun.

Vanessa 33:49

We all saw Tedesky Truckspan together. Oh my god, those two. Yeah, Tadeshi, yeah. Which that was awesome too. They were like blown top of the line. Yeah, they blew me away.

Sunny 34:00

And Alabama Shakespeare.

Vanessa 34:03

Oh, Youngblood. You liked Youngblood. I really liked him. I saw a lot of posts from Youngblood. Yeah, he was hot. I told Ed I was like, I didn't used to think he was hot, but after this performance, he's hot now. That's how Ed felt about Kesha. Jesse Murph. Yeah, yeah. Jesse Murph was great. I loved seeing Jesse Murph because the first year we saw her, she was like 17 four years ago. I feel like you've seen her grow through. I know it was so quick, because like I remember seeing her in 20 in 2022. She said she was 17. We were like, what the fuck? Like her voice is amazing, and she was just kind of like walking back and forth on the stage, you know, still new. And then this year, she came out in like this beautiful gown and like was so confident, like she's like twirling around, dancing on stage.

Clark 34:59

I was like, ah, she's so cute. Is she like a country artist? Like, what would you call her like genre-wise?

Vanessa 35:07

Yeah, I was asking Ed that too. I was like, was she like country rock? I don't know. Cause she's got she's got that like country twang to her voice, kind of. I think she's from Alabama, right? Yes, but she does like these like ballads, and like she's a powerhouse vocalist.

Clark 35:24

She was on uh the stream too, and I was telling Sunny, I was like, yo, her vocals were absolutely insane.

Vanessa 35:33

RB kind of with some rock country RB kind of I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I just keep saying genres. She's great, every genre. She's yeah, yeah, yeah. Her full, yeah, and then she had like a full band with her too that said yeah, and then at one point she brought up this guy from the crowd to paint him.

Ed 35:55

Took his shirt off.

Vanessa 35:56

Yeah, during I think Mercy was the song. I don't know, but she like that's awesome, drew a dick on his chest, but it was like so sexual, and the guy was like really leaning into it, and I was like, I felt so awkward. I was like, I should we be watching this? Like it was hot. Close your eyes, it was hot, he was loving it, he was loving it for sure, and but I was like, I think they need to get a room, like oh my god, it's steamy. I'm sad I Ali and AJ got ran rained out. I wanted to see them.

Clark 36:31

Oh bummer.

Vanessa 36:32

Not that we actually would have even seen them because we had a very slow start to every single one of our days. No, we really wanted to go in and see a little stranger, and I told Ed the night before, I was like, we can just go in, like, don't bring anything, just go in and see them and then come back to our campsite. Like, we don't have to stay there.

Clark 36:49

And that didn't happen. And then we Ed slept till like 1 30 that day.

Vanessa 36:53

He was they were on at like 1 45. It's okay. We had a long day.

Sunny 36:58

Yeah, I mean, it was probably so hard because just the walk to get to Centeru.

Ed 37:03

Yeah, it was probably a 20-minute walk.

Vanessa 37:05

No, it was like a 10-minute walk, 15-minute walk. But it was because I remember we left at one point we left camp at like the top of the hour, and we were in line by like 12, 12 minutes later. So I was like, that actually isn't that far of a walk, but it just seemed so far because of the heat and the heat and the weather. Yeah, damn heat. But honestly, thank god it rained a little bit every day because it kind of cooled things down.

Next Year Plans And Ambulance Upgrades

Sunny 37:29

Well, the big question are you guys planning to go back next year?

Vanessa 37:35

I don't know. I think if you would have asked me Friday, if you would have asked me Friday, I would have been like, I'd rather just live stream it. Yeah, that's great, it's crazy. But no, I think after after the whole weekend, yeah, I think we'll definitely be going back. If not every year, every other year. I don't know.

Ed 37:55

We'll see who's on the lineup, I guess. Yeah, you got that ambulance.

Vanessa 37:59

Honestly, the ambulance does make things very nice and convenient. Like we had ice cream every night when we got back to camp because we just had our freezer, you know, like that's sick. And that's so funny on the hottest day. We were able to sleep in more because our AC was working and that felt nice.

Ed 38:16

We gotta figure out our AC, but well, we have solar panels and batteries, but they can only do so much with the AC. Takes a lot of time.

Clark 38:24

Yeah, because that's yeah, that's a suck. That's definitely a power suck. Yeah, yeah.

Sunny 38:28

Well, and if you get there on Wednesday, you'll be a lot closer too. So we just have to figure that out.

Vanessa 38:33

Yeah, maybe we'll look into RV camping so that we can get power and just run the AC at all times.

Clark 38:38

Oh yeah.

Ed 38:39

But oh yeah, do you have a plug for that where you can if I am next to an outlet, I can just plug it in, run it on shore power. Yeah, nice. That's sick.

Sunny 38:49

Oh, I'm glad you guys had a good time.

Clark 38:51

Yeah, it sounds like it was great.

Vanessa 38:53

We did. We did eventually end up having a good time. No, I'm just kidding. It was a good time, it was a it was a good time. It was so I was telling Ed too, it was so cool to see like everybody wanting to learn how to do the flow stars. Because uh you know, normally you'll see people in there that are like experts, right? Like working their flow star or like yeah doing the little like LED fiber optic light whips things that yeah, and and like it's like people that know what the fuck they're doing. They were selling the stars inside at some of the little posts and stuff, and I saw so many people like trying to learn how to do it. I was like, I feel like I've never seen that before.

Ed 39:36

That's fun. Like they were throwing a pizza dough up in the air.

Vanessa 39:38

Yeah, and kept calling in the pizzas. I kept hearing him say that, and I was like, What is he talking about? Eventually, you're like, he's like flow stars. I was like, Oh, the flow stars.

Sunny 39:48

That's so funny. There is a meetup at lining in a bottle. There is a meetup at lining in a bottle.

Clark 39:53

I should have been more adamant about making sure I did that. So many side quests, so little time.

Vanessa 39:59

Yeah, yeah, we didn't do nearly enough side quests. I don't know that I'll ever be a full-on side quest girly.

Ed 40:06

Yeah, not enough time for all that.

Vanessa 40:09

Oh, yeah, I know. Not if you want to see music. I know. Right. Oh, we also I forgot to mention we forgot we also went to the uh the live what podcast taping.

Ed 40:20

Oh yes, it's just cool. Oh yeah.

Vanessa 40:22

It was cool, it was mostly uh what seeing like a crowd of people trying to sign the Bonnaroo yearbook. Oh yeah. Oh, it was in the same area. Well, he just went to it and everyone recognized him.

Ed 40:34

Uh I bet it was 50 people deep trying to get sign that yearbook.

Vanessa 40:38

Right, while while the podcast, live podcast is going on. We also saw the squeegee guy from 2025. Do you guys remember seeing that guy?

Clark 40:48

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah.

unknown 40:49

I don't remember.

Vanessa 40:51

When it was like rained out and it was flooded, there was a guy out there with like a pool noodle and a squeegee attached to it, and he was like squeegee.

Ed 40:59

Trying to squeegee the road off.

unknown 41:02

Right.

Vanessa 41:02

But there's a video of him going like, give me 10 minutes, I'll have this thing bone dry. But he was on the wet podcast too.

Sunny 41:10

Any takeaways from this year specifically?

Ed 41:14

I don't know. I mean, they said they were gonna uh uh have less uh attendance, but I don't know. It didn't really seem like there was you don't think uh it still seemed pretty full. I don't know.

Vanessa 41:24

No, it seemed less crowded to me, but I don't know.

Ed 41:28

Were we at the same festival?

Vanessa 41:30

Were we did you even have fun? I don't think we had fun. Yeah, no, I think we'll go back for sure. You're gonna go back to the thing.

Clark 41:40

Are you guys gonna come with us?

Vanessa 41:41

Yeah, are you guys gonna come ever come again?

Clark 41:42

Yeah, I I definitely want to go again.

Sunny 41:45

I'm not paying.

Clark 41:47

But it's yeah, it's I don't pay for them anymore. Flying out there and doing that part Well, we could get you set up now. Yeah, I was gonna say, since y'all were like stationed out there.

Ed 41:59

Exactly.

Vanessa 42:00

It's still a 12-hour drive, but yeah.

Ed 42:03

Yeah. Well, at least we're driving.

Vanessa 42:06

Yeah. Well, we can't wait to have you back.

Sunny 42:09

Oh, I saw your video of the fountain. You got in the fountain.

Ed 42:12

Oh yeah, for a little bit. It was a quick quick cool-offs. It was so hot. Yeah, it was perfect.

Sunny 42:18

Bonnaroo has a big like uh like a splash pad area. Yeah. I'm glad you got you got you got in there.

Vanessa 42:29

Me too. Yeah. Okay, I think that's it.

Sunny 42:33

That's it. Yeah. You want to close this out, Vanessa? Sure. Uh thanks for joining us, Ed, too. Of course. Thanks for having me. Always happy to have you.

Ed 42:42

Festi for life.

Vanessa 42:44

Hey. Always a pleasure, baby. All right, festies.

Final Takeaways And How To Support

Vanessa 42:49

Thank you so much for listening to our Bonnaroo 2026 recap. If you like this episode, please share it with your friends. Encourage them to go to Bonnaroo. It's a great time, we promise. Please follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Festies Podcast and leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and we'll catch you in the next one. Bye. Bye.

Ed 43:12

Bye.