It's Time to Talk About Bonnaroo 2021
Season 4, Episode 1 February 10, 2021 44m
New year, new season! Brad and Barry return to discuss Bonnaroo 2021: the feasibility and logistics of the festival returning in September. Brad drops some hints about which headliners he thinks will not be on the lineup, and who he thinks will be. Also, we announce the new merch shop! Head over to shop.thewhatpodcast.com and check out our shirts, koozie, and stickers for sale if you missed out on last year's Patreon rewards. Speaking of Patreon, we have all new tiers with all new merch this year to announce soon. Stay tuned for more from Season 4 of The What Podcast!
Photo Credit: David Bruce/iambonnaroo
Topic: Bonnaroo
Lord Taco
Hey, hey, hey, hey! How y'all feeling? Journey through the stories that define the artist playing Bonnaroo. Who are they? What are they? What will you see? The What? Which bands? This year? That Matter? With Brad Steiner and Barry Courter. A podcast for Bonnaroovians by Bonnaroovians. Hi, this is the What Podcast. I'm Brad. That's Barry. That's Lord Taco. Uh, I feel like I haven't seen you guys in forever. What's been happening? You guys look fresh. You look clean. You look, I mean, Barry, you look terrific. The hair is on it today. On point. Just got it cut yesterday. Really? Yeah. How you guys been? Anything, anything happened since we last talked? Literally nothing. I mean, I haven't really been doing anything. Been pretty quiet. Russ still on the bus. Look where I'm at. We got the bus running. It's back home from the shop. 100% back in service. When you get the bus running, how many miles do you think you put on in a year? I'd have to look that up. This year, not very many. Last year, not very many. Yeah. But you keep a log of it? Do you like a diary of your bus? Yeah, I've got a maintenance log. I've got a fuel up log, mileage. You got to keep track of that stuff. Man, it's so organized. You guys, so organized. We've got a lot of stuff to talk about today, by the way. Yeah, we do. I'm excited. Are you? Excited to be back talking. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know you have some news and it's... Well, we've got some news to share a little bit later on. We've got some personal podcast information to share. And I think that's probably where we should start. Mr. Barry Courter, you want to explain the insider podcast, what podcast family information we have? Yeah, let's do it. Well, first of all, we're still here. That's amazing. Yeah. We've went through a year without a festival and we still have a podcast. Yeah. It's incredible. If we fight more often about what in the world we would talk about, then we'd probably talk about anything else. It's literally just fighting. There's nothing to talk about. What are we supposed to say? Well, let's be clear. Russ and I are all for it. You're the one who says no. And I have to... Because you said we don't have anything to talk about and I have to remind you, you do fart jokes every day on the radio. Yeah. I mean, your bar is not... If that's what you want the podcast to become, I can very easily make that happen. Oh, I got it. So you have your standards when it comes to the podcast. I like it. Yeah. I try to give you guys my best. I try to give you my absolute best. I mean, I can talk to you about how upset I am that Ja Rule was giving financial advice on CNBC because who doesn't want financial advice from the Fyre Festival guy? I can talk to you about how if you need doses to be given to thousands of people in a stadium parking lot, then hire fish fans. I can talk to you about a bunch of stuff. For instance, Reddit and GameStop and how the GameStop nonsense has gotten completely out of control. If you want that kind of stuff, Barry, I can bring that to you or you can listen to alt923.com each afternoon at three o'clock. I think you made his point, Russ. What do you think? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Let's move on. Yeah. So the big news, as some of you guys who listen regularly know, we had some pretty cool t-shirts printed up with the famous Ken Weinstein, never not great quote, which he told us on this show. Those t-shirts are awesome. We have stickers, we have koozies and Lord Taco, the Lord of what? What did tweeting and communicating online? Did I say online? That's right. I got it right. Created a website for us and we're going to be selling that stuff. So you guys can please go visit shop.thewhatpodcast.com. We've got our shirts, we've got our koozies and we've got stickers. If you buy a shirt, you get a koozie and you get a sticker and we're donating a portion of all sales to the Bonnaroo Works Fund. So you'll be directly supporting the podcast. You'll be directly supporting Bonnaroo's charitable acts that they do there. So and you'll help clean out Barry's garage. Yeah, no kidding. We're selling CDs next after that. Look behind Barry. So the point is here is if you want to grab some of the gear that we still have, you're more than welcome to. And with all that being said, the reason why we've got more gear to come. We're going to load up the shop with a whole bunch of new merchandise and not just that, but some of that merchandise is going to be given to all new Patreon levels. That's right. We've got new Patreon levels that we're going to announce in the coming weeks. But first and foremost, get some of that 2020 gear moved and cleaned out so that we can give all fresh, new, brilliant, beautiful merchandise. Now, once it's gone, it's gone because then we'll have room for a new merch. So get it where you can. That's true. You want some product. So the t-shirts about the Never Not Great thing, just to clarify, we don't think that we're never not great. We're hardly great, but it's Bonnaroo that's never not great. It's that mentality that's never not great. We were useless half the time, but Bonnaroo, because Ken Weinstein said so, is never not great. And then you add pizza and you've got a magical combination. That's right. That's right. And they're great t-shirts. They really they wear well. They're comfortable. They look cool. You'd be the first kid on your block. So a little bit of actual festival news happened in the last couple of weeks. You have Coachella canceling and possibly moving to the fall, although I don't foresee that happening. You've got Hangout canceling and possibly moving to the fall. Don't think that's happening either. We got news here in New Orleans that Jazz Fest and Voodoo Fest will all be in October as well as French Quarter Fest. So if you want a festival world to exist, it's going to happen in the fall if it happens. Am I missing any other festival that came through and sort of pulled the plug? Summer Fest, which is really, I think it might be bigger numbers wise, though it's over three weekends in Wisconsin, Milwaukee. It's also old. I told you the other day it's been around. It's moved to the first three weekends in September. It announces around the same time as Hangout did. So this past week or so. So yes, it's going to be a busy fall if in fact everything that is supposed to happen is allowed to happen. Well, before I get into some of the information that I've gathered over the last few weeks, you tell me what your anticipation is, Barry. How do you feel? What are your thoughts and how we're going to look in the next three to six months? Oh, boy. I don't know. What's your gut tell you? Yeah, I think it's the same thing that we've sort of been saying is that when we start coming out, it's going to be small, it's going to be local, it's going to be regional. Definitely starting to hear some of that. But three months, I don't think we're there yet. Six months. Yeah, I think we're starting to. But I hesitate because it seems so contingent on this vaccine. And everyone wants to believe that's the magic pill. And we're already finding out that it's not exactly it's not available to everybody. There's still some question as to whether if you get the vaccine, does that mean you still can't give it the disease to someone else? Some people want to believe that that's true. And then now they're saying, well, we we did really test that. So we don't know. All right. So as a side note, and not to get too political here, but here's here's my guess. If you have a president that comes into office and his main goal, I mean, he ran on and his biggest priority in office in his first 100 days is to keep a promise of 100 million doses in 100 days. I can put every dollar that I have times two on the fact that that will happen. You're not going to get a new president in 100 days fail at his number one primary objective. Now, granted, they might make the number up, but they will get to that number. And it's going to make the public say, oh, we've got 100 million shots in 100 days, whether it's true or not, whether you're right, left and different, it doesn't matter. You're not going to get a president say, you know what, we failed on this agenda point. So it's going to ruin the entire rest of the term. Right. It's going to ruin the entire whatever you want to do next. Nobody will ever take you seriously again. So you will get 100 million doses in 100 days. It's the next 100 days. If you can get to 200 250 million doses by July 4th weekend, I really don't think that and I'm saying this as a human being, understanding how under other human beings operate, I don't see how the country with two thirds of it somehow vaccinated, you don't get the large swell of everything's fine now. Mentally, I think the country will say, well, we got two thirds. Let's just open everything up. And I don't know right or wrong. They're going to basically say to the rest of the country, too bad. Yeah. And I hate to say that, but I don't think that the country as a whole is going to look at 250 million doses by July 4th or 200 million doses by July 4th and care after that, if that makes sense. Yeah, no. And I agree. And I think that's part of why I hesitate. I mean, I think trying to predict it on February, whatever we want to, you know, this publishes as to what it will actually look like. I don't know yet, but I know that mentally, I think that is exactly what's going to happen. This many people are going to get the shot and feel like it's time. You know, we saw that over the holidays before the shots. Right. I definitely agree that that's where people's mindset is going to be. Now if we backslide, all bets are off. Yeah. I mean, you've got another strain coming. OK. So enough with the politics and the depressing part of it. Here's where, OK, first off, I think that I'll go with the informed piece that I am going to add my gut feeling to. I do not have this absolutely for sure, but I'm going to take a wild informed stab at tame Impala will not be a Bonnaroo and a band that we have oftentimes speculated on being a Bonnaroo will be there. I'll leave it at that. Now let's just say I'll be happy with it with the tame thing. You know, I'm reserving a little bit here because I think that tame. I know that everybody's going to want to do the festival dates first. The festival dates will be the first thing that come back because they're the biggest payday. You get more money by a mile, especially the mid tier and up bands for doing festivals. Then you do arena shows or club dates. So with that being said, they're going to try and make the first dates, the first festival dates happen. Secondly, the clubs, everything that I have heard are wide open come fall. They are operating as if come Labor Day, everything's going to be wide open. There's, I mean, I'm talking not even capacity limits. I mean that might change, but you've got, you have room after room after room on sometimes three and four deep holds for dates after Labor Day. And with that being said, the point that I'm making, and these are major artists that are buying these dates and holding these dates. So the anticipation is that things are going to be a sieve come Labor Day weekend. Now whether or not that continues, it's all back to Barry's point. Does the vaccine and the political will all change by summer? Now October, November, December is operating as if things are back to normal. And I hate to say it that way, but that's how they're going to operate. And to the point, the venues would need a, some sort of cover, some sort of legal cover. They don't know yet. The deals don't necessarily look the same as before, and they don't quite know how that's going to shake out. But as far as their culpability on somebody walking in and getting some sort of sickness from it, it won't be on them. And from everybody that I've heard from, they're not going to require vaccine cards. It's not going to be a show us your ID before you walk in. No, you're going to walk in. You're going to see a sign that says, you do this at your own risk. That's going to be about it. And it's going to, to what I was saying earlier, the political will slash idea of people just not caring anymore because two thirds of the population has had a vaccine. Yeah, the rest of the third is going to take the risk if they want to be a part of it. Now that's for small venues. I'm still not totally sure how that transfers to large scale events yet. Now you get, you get a 2000 seat venue, 1500 seat venue. That's one thing. I don't know if that translates to 80 K. I don't, I haven't been able to ascertain if one has to do with the other. And frankly, I don't even know what my gut says about it, but what I do know is the industry slash the venues are operating as if come Labor Day weekend. Everything is wide open. The holds are three, sometimes four deep. And these are not just middle of the road acts. These are major acts that are, you know, signing up for three, four dates in some cities. One other thing about the, the, the, the touring thing, it's going to be country first. And I sort of said that maybe a year ago that the kind of fans that country has, they're going to be the ones that are going to be more willing to go out. Well, that's totally come true. You've got Chris Stapleton absolutely doing a tour come May, June, and it's going to be country and amphitheater dates. First and foremost that, that get booked and that already have been booked. And those dates that were missed in 2020, they're the ones that are going to, and they're going to basically be the Petri dish, the test dummies, the crash test dummies of all of this. Let's see if you know what happens when we put large scale events like this together, medium scale events, I'm sorry, medium scale events together. Let's see how that goes and use the country audience to, you know, be our guinea pigs on this. So that's, that's, that's sort of the lay of the land and what I've gleaned from the last couple of weeks. Well several things. I mean, we, we did say that back start of the summer that it would be the country acts and we saw that with a lot of the drive-ins. It was a lot of country acts, drive-in theaters, things like that. And I think they feel somewhat emboldened that those worked. They were able to perform from all I hear, except for a few instances, maybe they were pretty safe. You know, they seem to work. So that makes perfect sense. The one caveat is the, I'm hearing, and I don't know about you guys, but you know, for a long time you were hearing people say, do you really know anybody that's gotten the disease? And then the last five weeks, people aren't saying that anymore. Not only are they, do they know people, they know people who have died from it. So that, that would be the, the one sort of thing. If that continues, could put a delay, if not a hold on what you're talking about. I talked to, after you and I spoke and you told me this, I called our local theater people over at the Tivoli and auditorium, which is our 1,700 and 3,700 seat capacity venues. And they're hearing the same thing. Probably September, October, they're starting to book shows, booking shows beyond that even. They don't, we're a mid-market. So they're, you know, the idea of three and four holds per day. We don't have that. But what he did tell me, and I found this interesting, interesting is they're very hopeful that because the acts have not toured, which means they're not getting paid, their crew's not been getting paid, you know, all of that down the line, like we talked about since March that instead of doing 50 days on a tour, they might do 80, which would be good for a Chattanooga markets our size. And also because of our proximity to Atlanta and Nashville, maybe we'll get some of those shows that want to come out and do a test before they go to New Orleans or New York or whatever. So the point that I took from our conversation, you and me, and my conversation with the Tivoli folks is that finally there's real talk being had, real contracts, whether they're in pencil or not, or, you know, they're finally looking at it. Now my question is, they've been doing that all year. I mean, there's a lot of those two venues that I talked about, they didn't take some of the shows off of their online schedules, even for this past summer, just because they didn't want, you know, they wanted to hold out hope. So it sounds like I'm talking now to both sides, and I am because quite honestly, nobody really knows. That's because we've been working with a moving target for the last, you know, six to eight months. And this very well might be another moving target, but, you know, it does feel different. The conversation feels different. And you've got, you've got, when you say hold, let me try to explain if you don't know what a hold is. So Barry has a band, he calls Insert Venue and says, I want this date. Then Lord Taco calls and says he wants the same date. And then Brad calls and he wants that date too. Barry's one, Taco's two, Brad's three. Well, when Brad gets really serious and wants to start routing things, he's going to challenge Taco. And the venue is going to call Taco and say, well, do you really want it? If you really want it, then we need to see something in writing because Brad is pushing and he really wants the date. That's when Taco will either bow out and I will become two or he'll hold on to his spot thinking that Barry is going to back out. So Taco, based on my pressure, will then pressure Barry and challenge his date if he really wants it. So it is that jockeying for trying to get a certain date so a certain route can work. And that starts putting the pieces together as to how serious this becomes. And I guess the thing that I was more stunned by than anything is not just the talk and not just the holds, but it was the level of artists that I was hearing going back out on the road. I honestly, and this is where I got it wrong, I thought it was going to just be local bands at first. They were going to try and do small cap shows for some local and regional bands. That's not what it's going to be. These are major players doing major dates and I think that's the part that sort of took me by surprise more than anything. One in particular in New Orleans, I just can't tell you how big the show is going to be. You've got The Weeknd who just announced his entire world tour a couple weeks ago, which is absolutely going to happen. If you get a level like The Weeknd investing this kind of time, energy, resources into putting a tour together, yes, a lot of that work has already been done, but The Weeknd stepping out and saying, that's a big step. So yeah, it's a level of artists that sort of surprised me. Yeah, I mean, yes. I think also the point about the numbers of shows like Nick at the Tivoli told me was I hadn't thought of that. Back to your point about routing, you and I talked about this a little bit the other day for people who don't know that. Try to picture a map and a manager. He's looking at a map trying to figure out how he can travel down the highway and do a show every single night within usually 90 minutes of each other. They want to do one in New Orleans and then drive an hour and a half and be ready for the next night. They don't want nights off and they don't want to drive eight hours one way and then come back seven. So they try to make as straight a line as they can. And so when you said that to me about the holds, my first reaction was that's really good and then I thought that's really complicated. Imagine as I think I said to you, Russ's band really wants New Orleans and gets it and then the next night the only one they can get because it's so complicated is in Milwaukee. That's a long drive. It's a long drive. It actually hit me. You know who would be interesting to talk to? We need to get a booking agent on the horn and talk about how that spaghetti gets unwound and put on the plate. I think that'd be fascinating to hear how a tour is really put together, especially in a time like this. I totally agree. Yeah, that's a good idea. Remind me of that. Don't let me forget that idea because we can make some calls. So the other thing just to throw it in because it's interesting, Nick who I talked to, they actually have three venues, the Tivoli and the auditorium and inside the auditorium is a 850 seat theater upstairs and he's talking and hopeful that not only would they get one show every night, they might get two, which again in a city our size, they do that every now and then but they don't do it a lot because it stresses them staff wise and also market wise. I mean, how many that's the other sort of question is. Yeah, there's only so many dollars that can be spent. Correct. It's correct. And we all are ready to get out and do, but can we afford to see every show that might be coming down the way in the fall? Yeah, and we talked about that. There's only going to be, there's going to be an appetite for all of it, but you can't eat everything on the menu. Right. Well, and the other thing back to your point about like festivals and the cards. First of all, I agree with you. I don't think the cards, the logistics of that are staggering. Plus, by the way, you were 19. Yeah. How many fake IDs I had at 19? Exactly. How easy just getting a fake ID was. Imagine getting a fake vaccine card. We could whip it up in 10 minutes. Well, that's right. And the other is, so I mean, I'm not going to drive as some of our guests have told us 17 hours, you know, and then be turned away because my card is not legit or I've got a slight fever or whatever the criteria is at that time. So I mean, would I even buy the ticket, you know, with the knowledge that I was going to have to drive 17 hours and hope that I don't get sick type of thing. So yeah, there's a lot still to be figured out. That's why I brought up the sort of political slash human reality at the beginning. You know, if you know, it's going to be on you as a human being, I think once we get to 200 million people with a shot in their arm, are you willing now to risk it? And at some point, you know, this is the government can only protect you so much, you know, that I hate to be, you know, too harsh about it. But you know, I think that you're going to have to start asking yourself if this is something that you want to do. Now it goes back to, you know, Bonnaroo come October, September when when the Bonnaroo date is is there and we're actually, you know, come August or July really looking at this is a real thing. I don't know yet. I don't know yet, and I can't say with confidence that I would feel totally OK about it. No. And that will be another guest that we will have. And I've reached out. They don't have any news. In fact, speaking of Ken, I talked to Ken knowing we were going to talk because I'm hearing the rumors that the lineup announcements are soon or some other announcements. And he said they don't know. He's never led me wrong yet. So if he doesn't know, I'm assuming nobody knows. But that is the other thing. What I was going to say is we haven't talked to the Bonnaroo people yet to find out what changes they will make. You know what I mean? We've joked about it before that going in the past was suspect because of porta potties and the FEMA showers and and all of that. Now with this reality, you know, even the people that weren't germophobes or squeamish or whatever before, I'm going to guess have to at least have it in the back of their mind. So so there's that to deal with also. So talk about going out of both sides of your mouth. Follow me for a second here. There was a part of me that believes that Bonnaroo is going to happen in September. Then there's a part of me that understands the realities that festivals are going to be a lot harder to pull off than a show at the Joy Theatre in New Orleans. There's just way too much planning that has to go into it for so many months beforehand. And you have to be absolutely confident when you put a lineup out, when you put a ticket on sale date out that you can fulfill a lot of this because you know how much how many times you're going to ask somebody to go through these these things. So you buy the ticket, hear the lineup, get canceled. How many times that going to work? I mean, look at Hangout. I mean, good. Good for them. Lollapalooza, you think that Lollapalooza, all those needs to be happening now. You know, there there are festivals in August. They need to be putting tickets on sale now. They need to have a plan for, you know, website exposure, artist planning, hotel holds, you know, they need to have all of that government contracts. They need to have that right now. Can I get six months in advance? Sorry to interrupt, but you may be heading this way. But we've also told pointed out that a lot of people have been laid off. They're not working. That's right. And if you don't understand, I mean, it's a it's a three sixty five job to do one festival. I mean, Lord Taco might have a bus. Lord Taco might have a bus in the garage, but the bus needs an engine. They don't have the horsepower. They don't have the people that can pull a lot of this stuff off. A small venue can't you know, they can do that and they can pull in people pretty quickly. So there's a part of me that thinks that it's going to happen because the the environment's going to look different come September. But also there is, you know, months and months and months of planning that needs to be done before then that is going to be too confusing and too worrisome. Whereas you know, if the revivalists go on tour, it's going to be a little easier just to Taddy's, it's not easy, but it's a little easier to cancel a revivalist tour than it is to, you know, start the process and get the ball rolling of a festival and then pull the plug on it. So I just don't know. I really don't know. I think if he asked me two weeks ago if Montero was going to happen, I'd say yes. Things have just gotten better. And now I'm waffling on it a little bit like I'm going back and forth. And if I'm if I don't I don't know, I don't mean to say it that way. Let me put it this way, if I'm looking at the situation confusingly, I can't imagine what they're what they're anticipating. Well, with no staff, by the way, that's where I'm I don't see it being 80,000. I just I don't see how it can. I don't see how they can get the manpower together to do that. I don't think that's the case. They're not going to do it. I mean, you heard you heard players. Well, you heard Quay are say that Bonnaroo happens. I'm paraphrasing Bonnaroo happens one way. Yeah, all in or not. They're not going to do a half Bonnaroo. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I mean, what I was going to add to that is getting the manpower, getting 80,000 and there probably are 80,000 people that would do it. Like you mentioned, there are college kids out there, but also getting the bands. I think you and I again, when we talked on the phone the other day, we still don't know whether the European bands will travel if they can travel, that sort of thing. So there's a lot of moving parts, as we've said since March. I don't think not to pat ourselves on the back too much, but I don't think we've been far wrong on anything that we've predicted or shared with anybody. So just just to sort of put a put a fine point on it. The conversation you had, the conversation I had with industry people, the conversation that you and I had together definitely does feel like we've turned some sort of corner and the dialogue is different than it was. We'll see what happens. So yeah, that's a good point. I'm glad you reminded me of this. There's probably a skeptic out there that hears somebody say the industry is planning on the fall being wide open and saying, well, they're just so desperate that they would say this just to get something going. There's a possibility of that, and I think that that is a fair point to make. But I think that that point would have been more correct four to six weeks ago. And they were doing it. This feels real and actual different. This just feels different. This feels absolutely different than it did six weeks ago when the same people could have argued, yeah, we're going to be there in the fall. I think the fall is going to be fine. No, they are absolutely expecting the fall to be different. And I think that they would be stunned if they weren't running pretty much full capacity by October. What else is going on? Anything else that we missed? Anything else we missed through the day afternoon? No, we have some ideas, obviously, for guests. We have some ideas for show topics that I'm pretty excited about, that I'm very excited about that will involve listeners. Yeah, I'm excited about where we got going. Yeah, where this is going. I'm excited. Yeah. Whether or not what happens with Bono this year, the podcast will certainly continue. Yeah. Well, I mean, of course, I mean, I'm going to call you guys. I mean, it's not like I'm not going to look. I can't just sit here and talk to myself. I got to talk to you guys at some point, don't I? Yeah. Well, I mean, this house wants to hear me talk anymore. No, I'm ready, I'm ready to get back and talk to you guys on the regular and a lot more of our listeners and get into this thing. So let me ask you this, just a side question. If it was available to you in Bono, who happens upset in September and it was available to you that you got a hotel, would you do it instead of camping? Yeah. Well, that's a good question. I don't know. Camping is such a big part of the experience. It is, but it's also a different experience this year. Yeah. Well, by the way, I mean, that tacos got a moving hotel. I mean, he can just take a bus wherever he wants to. Barry is a little differently. I mean, he's he's part of the 65 and older crowd that should have already gotten his vaccine. I think not that old. It's a good question. And I mean, you can ask it a lot of different ways. What sort of changes would I hope to see? What sort of changes will I accept? You know, if they limit, I don't want to even try to speculate, but it would definitely be a different festival. And then I would have to ask myself, well, if I'm just going to see live music, would I rather be going to a venue or is it because they have a particular favorite band that I want to see? I think the question I'm actually asking is, are you willing to do Bonnaroo different just to go? Are you willing to do it in a way that doesn't feel normal to you just for the sake of going? And yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is for me. You know, and it's a it's a great question. And again, it goes back to I'm 57 miles away. It's a whole lot easier for me. And I'm in Chattanooga. Seven years old. I am 57 years old. And you're in New Orleans. You know what I mean? So if you can see the same band a mile from your house, and do you want to go? I mean, that's a good question. It's a really good question. You know, especially oh, by the way, yeah, the other thing is, you know, Jazz Fest is happening in October. Voodoo Fest is happening in October. French Quarter Fest is happening in October. If you think that New Orleans is the only town that is rearranging their schedule for the fall, every other town is doing it too. So boy, if I've got a packed fall and I've got Bonne Roux in September, you know, yeah, what is the appetite of doing all of this at once? By the way, is it true what I think I heard how they're going to do Mardi Gras, decorate the houses and stuff? Yeah, we've got it. We have an awesome idea going out every week. It's called yardy grow. They decorate the houses. There's even one person in particular. And I saw this the other day that will put a temporary wrap on your car and your car can be its own cardi grow float. So yeah, the house, the house thing is actually at first I thought it was really stupid. And I thought, oh, this is just going to be for rich people. But it's actually turned out to be really, really cool. The crews, the way that a lot of the parades work is they're all every every parade is operated by a specific crew. Like the crew of muses is the girl or the girls that throw the shoes that they decorate out from the float. So like the crew of muses get all of their people to decorate their houses. Now they have to incur the cost just like they have to incur the cost on on shoes. But more often than not, if you've got the money to pay a crew to be part of a crew, then you've got a few dollars to spend on making a house float. So the crews each one of them are organizing the different house floats, but they look great. That's a ton of fun. It's a way to like get outside and feel like you're still doing something. The problem is, and it came out yesterday, our mayor is, you know, she is simultaneously the most frustrating and angering person on the planet. And then at the same time, you're like, but man, she she really, really is keeping the city safe. Yesterday, she came out and shut down all of the bars in New Orleans from Friday to Tuesday, Tuesday. She's shutting down all the bars, all because Bourbon Street is making us look foolish. We've got a lot of tourists that come in and hang out on Bourbon Street and just are packed. It's packed down there on the weekends. Well, she's really screwing over the rest of the city by shutting down for five days, Barry, five days, a bar who's who's just now getting back to some sort of semblance of making money. Shutting them down for five days is a fat Tuesday on the biggest day of the year, the day that they were trying to make their money back from the last three, four months. Yeah. You know, they've already ordered all the beer. They've already ordered all the drinks and then they week out. By the way, next weekend, you're all you're all shut down. It's horrendous. Absolutely horrendous. And it's set the city on fire. You know, but but here's the thing. Like people I love this city because it's so reflective of the Bonnaroo spirit. If I could tie it back to the podcast and that, you know, they're going to find a way. Yeah, the city will find a way to celebrate life and to be happy and to and to essentially party just like Bonnaroo. You know, that's why I brought it up. Why? That's why I brought it up. And I think that when I heard that, I thought that's a great idea. And you said what Jazz Fest last year, everybody turned on their radios and open their windows and one of the stations did a best type of thing. That's really cool. The Jazz Fest in place and then and to piggyback on that. And it's because they did such a great job of it. Our station did, you know, Voodoo Fest at home. You do Voodoo with you. So you know, we're figuring it out. We're figuring out as a medium. But more often than not, even the Bonnaroo community, when Bonnaroo didn't happen, look what happened, you know, with with Bonnaroovians and how they celebrated Bonnaroo weekend, you know, altogether. We did it. We did something. And yeah, and this city is a good reflection of it. I'm looking forward to talking to Jeff Cuellar. You mentioned and those guys, Brian and Stephen. And, you know, they've had time. They've had nothing but time to think about how to come out of this and what kind of cool things they can do and will do. So I definitely there's a different there's a there's a want and then there's a cost. Well, but the cost is going to be a problem because it turns out nobody's made any money in the last. No doubt. No doubt. No doubt. But I will say after what, 20 years of this, they usually come through with something pretty cool. I think that we should probably need to extend this any longer. But we would have already had a lineup by now. Yeah, we would have been long into season. Are we in season four? Would this be season four? We're in season four. Yeah. So we would long be into season four by now. You know, this we would February would come and we would almost have lineup additions by now. That's fascinating to me. And we still you know, if I know people want to say that a lineup is close to being dropped, I'm putting my money on. It's not even close. I put my money on lineup and ticket availability is going to come probably June. I don't I won't say when but sort of given the information you just got with all these bands and holds, I'd say you're right. I would say probably a lot of the bands would have reached out to Boneroo and they're they're number one and then they're trying to look at all the other places they can go from here. And but they're doing it with any other festival that's coming up to. Well, I think I mean, you mentioned Hangout, which we they're not going to do, but Summerfest and is going to be the same. They're all going to need acts. So it's well, I'll tell you this. Here's what I know. I know that I'll learn more about what the the festival landscape looks like over the next probably five to seven days. So when I when I learn that, I will, of course, share it with you as soon as I know it. All right. How about that? I'll make that promise. Cool. All right. Patreon levels. We get those this week to new Patreon levels. We're going to figure that out. Yeah, I think we can get that worked out. New gear, new Patreon levels, new website store. What podcast.com is that what it is a store.the webpodcast.com shop.thewhatpodcast.com shop. OK, shop.thewhatpodcast.com. You know, it turns out I should have been listening. Don't start now. Well, we'll have a link on the screen. We'll have links in the description. We'll tweet it out. We'll try to get the word out. And we're going to have a discount code for Patreons. If you want to buy a little extra merch or if you missed out, you can get a discount on the store. Good idea. Good idea. So thanks for running a small business over there in that bus. Trying to make some money. What else are you selling out there? Dryer doors? What are you selling? Yeah, I've probably got some stuff back here. Saco, Barry, I'm Brad. Thanks for joining us on the What Podcast. We'll talk to you soon. Hey, hey, hey, hey. How y'all feeling? Journey through the stories that define the artist playing Bungaroo. Who are they? What are they? What will you see? The Wanda-Bungaroo. The Wanda-Bungaroo. The Wanda-Bungaroo. The Wanda-Bungaroo. The what? Which bands? This year, That Matter. Yay. With Brad Steiner and Barry Courter.
Briston Maroney