Recap Bonnaroo, June 13

Time is an extremely relative concept at Bonnaroo. During a bad set, a five-minute song may seem to drag on for half an hour. Conversely, an energetic three-hour performance—like Phish’s on Friday—might feel too short. Time spent waiting for a band to take the stage is always elongated, with minutes stretching into hours. By the third day of the festival, sleep deprivation added to this elasticity, turning time into an accordion that expands and contracts as music leaks out from the inside. Decider spent Saturday at the center of this tuneful time warp.

3:30 p.m.: Bon Iver
Some of the more interesting shows at Bonnaroo have been put on by "intimate" artists who find themselves playing outdoors to an audience of thousands. It’s got to be difficult for an artist prone to quiet, sometimes mournful songs to face a crowd that stretches for about 200 yards beyond the stage, but Bon Iver pulled it off. Openers “Creature Fear” and “Skinny Love” broke down into fairly heavy electric guitar riffs, with frontman Justin Vernon quickly working up a sweat. The band's ability to forge a close relationship with the audience during calmer pieces was just as captivating. On “For Emma,” a quartet of horns came out to lay a subtle, brassy foundation beneath the piece. The best moment was saved for last, though. On “The Wolves (Act I and II),” Vernon implored the audience to sing along with the song’s nostalgic fade-out verse, “What might have been lost.” For three solid minutes, the entire crowd chanted the line over and over, louder and louder, culminating in a unified scream that sucked everyone into the concert’s deceptively non-private realm.

5:15 p.m.: Of Montreal
Of Montreal is like an effeminate, more musically adept version of GWAR. Both bands perform in elaborate costumes and feature live puppet shows during their sets. People dressed as pigs and survivors of a nuclear holocaust danced around Of Montreal in some indecipherable drama. Ostensibly, there was a connection between the costumed dancers and the music, but it was hard to understand. Still, the band's set was pretty fantastic. The group's bass-heavy repertoire got the crowd moving, even in the 90-degree heat. Something about the syncopated rhythms mixed with singer Kevin Barnes’ whiny-but-fluid voice is infectious, impossible to ignore, and great for dancing.

9 p.m.: Bruce Springsteen
Is The Boss more like a Chevy or a Ford? Surely the comparison of Springsteen to a pick-up truck has been made before, but it’s so damn apt. He’s tough, rugged, dependable, and unmistakably American. He seemed an odd pick to headline this year’s Bonnaroo, which until recently was billed as a more hippie-leaning fest. Nevertheless, thousands of fans gathered on the lawn of the What Stage to see His Bruceness. The downside of his being so truck-like is that the set was a little predictable: songs sounded exactly like they’re supposed to sound, and Springsteen performed with a typically heavy dose of fist-pumping and high-fiving. Maybe no one wants Springsteen to change. Maybe we want him to deliver exactly what we expect from him with little deviation. His songs seem built from bricks rather than crafted from emotion. Likewise, his performance was a solid structure, something to appreciate in the way you might admire the Washington Monument or Mount Rushmore, a distinctly American edifice that even native tourists should experience at least once.

1 a.m.: Yeasayer
It was a short set that felt even shorter. Slated for just 45 minutes, Yeasayer made the most of its late-night slot, playing several fast-paced songs to a crowd full of fans covered in psychedelic body paint. They included a few slower songs, too, leaving some onlookers unsure of how to dance to the deliberately unsteady rhythms. It was clear that Yeasayer played exactly the kind of show they wanted to play, but the lulls were too immobilizing for a nocturnal crowd that just wanted to groove.