One thing you know if you’ve been reading about Bonnaroo 2011 is this: it has been HOT.

Not just regular hot, but quite possibly hotter overall than any previous installment of Bonnaroo. I spent the day chasing shade, water, and occasional air conditioning while many festival goers simply withstood the heat by dancing in the fountain or riding the water slide. The heat started up this morning (as it did every day of the festival) shortly after 8 am and continued intensely until 7:30 at night. Even basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was on hand to introduce & perform a Q&A for the film On The Shoulders of Giants, was seen needing to sit down in a cool, air-conditioned tent just to get a breather from the monstrous glare of the mid-day solar beat down.

To that end, I decided that today would be a great day to check out the Comedy Tent at Bonnaroo where I (and fans who withstood the heat for 2 1/2 hours in line) were treated to a hilarious show from Donald Glover with his special guest Bill Bailey. I had never heard of Bailey before, nor had many others in the crowd who were a wowed by his comic sensibilities as they were with the musical ability he brought into the act, playing keyboards and a series of bike horns as part of his jokes. Following directly after Bailey, Glover’s performance, possibly informed by the heat or the early hour, wavered between adults only suggestive humor (explaining how people expect “the guy from ‘Community’ and hear about sex) and a few trains of thought that occasionally rode the crowd to nowhere. All could be forgiven, though: Glover opened up his game as he delivered a solid show to a loving audience who proffered a standing ovation at the end.

Afterwards, I was able to walk just a few feet from the Comedy Tent to This Tent where a sea of fans gathered to watch an energized Chiddy Bang. In addition to playing occasionally revamped versions of songs that appeared on their first three mixtapes, Chiddy laid a few new songs on the crowd & proudly announced an August or September release for their long-awaited debut full-length Breakfast.

After a brief siesta, I wandered out to see Mumford & Sons at the Which Stage, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the onslaught of humanity that awaited. Last year, Mumford played one of the tents at Bonnaroo while this year, the festival grounds seemed they could barely contain their fans. If I had to guess, I would say that at least 45,000 of Bonnaroo’s 80,000 festival goers gathered for the band’s set, leaving nearly no place to walk, sit or lie down for 1/8th of a mile. As much as I love Mumford & Sons, I was grateful to have just seen them at Beale Street Music Festival. I counted this blessing and headed back to This Tent.

Though I’ve probably seen !!! (Chk-Chk-Chk) 8 or 9 times in my life, I’ve occasioned to write them off as a fluke or an anomaly, even knowing how much I like them and after releasing several very successful and well-liked pioneering dance punk albums in the 00′s. I’m pretty sure that nothing could have prepared me or the audience for Nic Offer’s blasting cap performance that took him through the crowd twice, around the whole of the stages, photo pit and fronts of speakers. Every person in the crowd danced along with him as he cheerlead, pimped and captained his way through a series of the band’s hits and even an explosive reinterpretation of Prince’s “Extra Loveable” that torched the place. This was by far the most energetic !!! performance I’ve ever seen and is one of my best of the fest.

The real highlight of the festival for many was the reunited Rock And Roll Hall of Fame members Buffalo Springfield, featuring the original members Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay. Despite the fact that early in the set the crowd chanted over and over again “Turn it up! Turn it up!”, the volume remained quiet and steady, though completely audible throughout the set. Almost as soon as the music started, the temperature cooled, lightning came across the sky & a brief shower (just enough to let you know it had happened) gave everyone a welcome relief from the hot temps of the day. Up on stage, the band went through nearly every Buffalo Springfield “hit” song with a passion and reckless abandon — “Expecting To Fly”, “Burned”, “For What It’s Worth” and an emotionally-stirring performance of “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing”. Neil Young proved, as he always seems to, that he sees himself as the barely destructible force of nature he has become, and both Stephen Stills and Richie Furay imbued their legendary status as icons of rock and roll with a new life to the thousands of people there to witness the show. The band ended with what is arguably Neil Young’s most famous song, “Rockin’ In The Free World”, sending a clear message to everyone who was in attendance: this is no mere reunion. Where others have lost their nerve or skills, there is now unquestionable proof that Buffalo Springfield has done nothing but improve with time.

Let me start with Eminem by saying I am not a fan of his music. I deeply respect his contribution to hip hop, his skill in what he does and his talent, but I don’t catch myself listening to his records over and over again. With that said, I decided to check him off my bucket list & give him a listen. While his appearance made sense & he came out and delivered an extremely energetic performance, something about the performance felt (as it had the night before with Lil’ Wayne) kind of phoned in, as if fulfilling an obligation rather than performing was the task.. The backdrop of the stage show was a series of images on a giant LED panel that rotated between songs until he got to the greatest hits portion of his show, where everything became a collage of his most loved videos. Even with the help of an appearance from new Shady Records signee Royce Da 5’9″, the performance reached its apex before the show ended. I’m hoping to have another shot to see him live & maybe I’ll be able to better compare the two performances.

It’s somewhat criminal that I missed Dr. John with The Original Meters and Allen Touissant performing “Desitively Bonnaroo”, but I would have needed to clone myself to see everything I planned on. Exhausted, physically drained, I resigned myself to ending the night, and my festival, by witnessing Girl Talk. An artist whose reputation built firmly and strongly as a result of his appearances at Bonnaroo, Girl Talk comes across like just any other guy. Hearing Gregg Gillis scream at the crowd and get them pumping, it sometimes seems like Girl Talk is still at it’s core simply an extremely well-crafted alter ego that Gillis’ brilliant mind fueled to fruition in an effortless fashion.

To watch the crowd of kids dancing, singing along to reworkings of songs spanning the last 40 years of popular music, it’s easy to feel like the movement to treat music as found art finally won the culture wars it started in the 1980′s with artists like Steinski and Double Dee. Ultimately, Girl Talk has perfected the live act to a point where even people who probably claim not to like what he does could easily be caught singing along during his set. And really, when you’re out there in that sea of kids all clamoring for some kind of salvation through music, the Girl Talk as Superman to Gillis’ Clark Kent embodies the duality that party goers, often dressed in costumes and makeup, try to embrace in themselves at every Girl Talk show and every year at Bonnaroo.

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