The Patchouli Stays in the Picture

photo: Hal Horowitz/WireImage.com

6:15 p.m.

The choices available to Bonnaroosters at this moment underline the depth and diversity of this festival. On the What Stage, Oysterhead, the supergroup composed of Les Claypool, Trey Anastasio and Stewart Copeland have reunited after five years. They play selections from their 2001 album, The Grand Pecking Order, then move on to some next-level jam-band shit. Claypool dons an Elvis mask and plays a bizarre modernist stand-up bass -- it looks like he ripped off a strip of the track lighting from his trailer -- while Trey whips out his famous "Matterhorn" guitar, twisting the contraption's antler extension to create some distorted mayhem. Copeland is playing drums in a relatively traditional matter. Except that he's wearing bright white gloves and after the show mumbles something about wanting to run around naked in the crowd.

Meanwhile, on the Which Stage, Death Cab for Cutie are representin' the hipsters. Frontman Ben Gibbard's white button-down shirt is drenched, as he jumps around spastically to favorites like "Sound of Settling." Amid a ten-minute improvisational guitar squall, Gibbard waves John Roderick of label-mates the Long Winters onstage. Practically mid-strum, he lofts the six-string to Roderick who picks up where Gibbard left off. In one motion, Gibbard swoops onto a second drum kit and he and first primary Jason McGerr build to a thrilling, thrashy climax.

Meanwhile, Cat Power, who has notoriously been dogged by stage fright, is playing one of her most confident, assured shows ever in That Tent. The quirky singer-songwriter hops and skips across the stage and even requested a bottle of water mid-song, which she took a sip of and splashed the crowd with. Playing with the Memphis Rhythm Band, Marshall covered tracks off her new album The Greatest. "I have a really bad relationship with these things," she announced before sitting down at the keyboard. Her mike stopped working midway through the next song.

In This Tent, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder are finger-picking their way to bluegrass glory, and in the Other Tent, Robert Randolph and the Family Band are playing their patented blend of gospel and rock, fronted by Randolph's heavenly pedal-steel guitar in the Other tent. "The energy here is better that anywhere else," Randolph says backstage. "We get hotter chicks at our shows after Bonnaroo. This is like our church now."

9:05 p.m.

The music stopped at all the stages at 8:30, the scheduled time for Tom Petty's show (although anti-Petty die-hards can still watch King Kong in the cinema). After thirty-five minutes of swirling anticipation and chants of "Pe-tty," Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers stride onstage. He grins, shakes his head at the 80,000-strong spectacle before him and launches into a thrilling run of hits, including "You Don't Know How It Feels," "I Won't Back Down" and "Free Fallin." He makes broad strumming gestures with his arms and kicks his legs, as if teaching a clinic on how to reach a huge crowd. They covered the Yardbirds' version of "I'm a Man" and the Traveling Wilbury's "Handle With Care." After introducing his band, Petty sent thousands of jaws dropping when he introduced Stevie Nicks, who joined him for their duet "Stop Draggin My Heart Around." "I told you you were gonna have fun, didn't I?" Petty grinned.

Petty and friends charged on for more than two hours, playing more hits than many remembered he had, including tight versions of "Learning to Fly," "Don't Come Around Here No More," "Refugee" and "Running Down a Dream." After an encore of "Gloria" and "American Girl," Petty surrendered the stage, likely with thousands more fans than he had when he walked on it.

Midnight

Fans faced another self-defining moment after midnight. At This Tent, Common, Blackalicious and Lyrics Born held court at the weekend's first hot hip-hop set. Common got the crowd hyped with his break-dancing skills and pushed them over the edge with a cover of Dr. Dre's "Nuthin' But a G Thing." About 500 yards away, true jam-band fans headed to the Other Tent to see Umphrey's McGee and the Disco Biscuits.

But the best attended gig was a solo set from My Morning Jacket, the eclectic hard-rocking quintet, which made its fourth appearance at Bonnaroo in 2006. The band tread lightly on its experimentalism of its most recent album, Z, and played more straightforward, soaring rock, including covers of the Rolling Stones' "Loving Cup," the Who's "A Quick One While He's Away" and the Band's "It Makes No Difference." "Bonnaroo is kinda like Thanksgiving or Christmas for us," My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James says backstage. "It's another day on the calendar that you really look forward to."