Friday, June 15th: We started our second day at Bonnaroo by watching our friends just call it a night as we were rising to apply sunscreen, have a stiff drink, and walk towards Centeroo.

It was a difficult decision choosing the Brazilian Girls over Tortoise, but seeing that I’d never seen the former, I hoped my decision was wise. Their set actually turned out to be the biggest surprise of the festival for me. Of course a lot of that has to do with the almost no expectations, but I had forgotten how great the grooves are on Talk To La Bomb and its self-titled predecessor.

Obviously the song “Pussy” went over well and summarized what a lot of people were looking for over the course of the weekend with its chorus of “Pussy, Pussy, Pussy, Marijuana.” Singer Sabina Sciubba danced, flirted, smoked cigarettes, solicited drugs from the audience, brought a young man on stage to dance and somehow, amongst all that managed to put on quite the captivating performance that set the tone for the rest of the day.

After sitting in the 90+ degree heat we were thrilled that Hot Chip were playing “This Tent,” which afforded us much needed comfort and escape from the sun. The UK group debuted a bunch of new songs off their upcoming (and currently nameless) record which, according to them will hopefully be released in September. Outside of new material, “The Warning” and “Over and Over” were slightly modified and fantastic as always. Everyone we spoke to agreed that this band definitely should have been one of the late night shows as their set would have been a great pick me up around 1am.

We had just enough time to sneak over and watch Michael Franti & Spearhead, who managed to have every single person on their feet, hands in the air, jumping up and down. It was quite the sight and walking up during their rendition of Sublime’s “What I Got” was a perfect song selection for a summer festival.

We chose seeing Lily Allen over The Roots and The Black Keys because we’d never seen her live show before and certainly were intrigued to see for ourselves if she was worth all the hype. Having run into Lily on plenty of occasions in the press and backstage area of the festival leading up to her set, and we were certainly curious if the Jagermeister toting lady would be in high performance spirits - she certainly was. We had a great time as she played favorites off Alright, Still, which nearly every girl around us sang along to word for word. She threw in a few interesting covers into her set, but we ultimately ducked out early to catch the end of the Roots set which featured a frantic and electric version of Dylan’s “Masters of War.”

Friday night’s headlining act was Tool. We took in the show from the friendly confines of our campsite, where we could hear perfectly as we rested up for the late night sets and tended to our sunburns.

We started the late night/early morning sets with at the Super Jam which featured Ben Harper, John Paul Jones, and ?estlove. The short set list was heavy on the jams, most of them Led Zeppelin tunes. The set started out with really great and tight versions of “Dazed and Confused” followed by “When The Levee Breaks,” but lost steam about half way through Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” which was fine because we were ready to check out DJ Shadow anyway.

By far one of the highlights of the day, and of the festival overall, was the two hours DJ Shadow spent on the one’s and two’s. For whatever reason, I never took the time to listen to The Outsider when it was released last year, but believe me it was the first record I went digging for when I got home to my collection. His ability to skip from one genre to another without losing the crowd’s energy or attention is simply stunning. Most of the time our group just looked at each other in stunned disbelief and laughter at how unexpected all the turns were, and certainly ended day two with a lot of memories that won’t soon be forgotten.

Myspace: Brazilian Girls
Myspace: Hot Chip
Myspace: Michael Franti & Spearhead
Myspace: Lily Allen
Myspace: The Roots
Myspace: Ben Harper
Myspace: DJ Shadow