Rating: 
Summary: Bonnaroo 2003
Review: I was so bummed out when I got my Bonnaroo DVD in the mail. Where was Ziggy Marley, ekoostik hookah, Neil Young and Keller. Definately give thumbs down on the director of this documentary. It was like he wasn't even at the festival and just picked random artists performances. How could you put one of Ben Harper's oldest songs on the DVD. He had just come out with a new album that year but the director decided to put some old tune that wasn't even Harper's greatest works. I hope this year alot of negative feedback gets to the write people so we get a better idea of how Bonnaroo was for those who can't make it.
Rating:
Summary: Bonnaroo 2003
Review: I was so bummed out when I got my Bonnaroo DVD in the mail. Where was Ziggy Marley, ekoostik hookah, Neil Young and Keller. Definately give thumbs down on the director of this documentary. It was like he wasn't even at the festival and just picked random artists performances. How could you put one of Ben Harper's oldest songs on the DVD. He had just come out with a new album that year but the director decided to put some old tune that wasn't even Harper's greatest works. I hope this year alot of negative feedback gets to the write people so we get a better idea of how Bonnaroo was for those who can't make it.
Rating: 
Summary: Awesome Festival Documentary
Review: I went to the 2003 Bonnaroo Music Festival and had one of the most memorable times of my life. The only thing I truly wanted in this DVD was for the footage to illustrate the magic and mindblowing music that was created at the festival. To be perfectly honest, this DVD does all that and more. With a ridiculous number of music performances from artists in every single genre (including awesome Widespread Panic, Allman Brothers, Ben Kweller, and My Morning Jacket), the DVD captures the diverse musical influeneces that makes bonnaroo so special. Infused with footage of the massive crowds and interviews with musicians and the fans, this film shows people all the special and breathtaking aspects of the best music festival in history. I highly recommend it if you have gone to the festival and I recommend it even more if you missed out. You will not be disappointed!!
Rating: 
Summary: good stuff
Review: If you went to Bonnaroo or want to get an idea of the experience then you will appreciate this DVD. I was kinda disappionted that there was no Sound Tribe, Wailers, Neil Young...but overall they capture some good performances. I wish they would have had more footage of the people at Bonnaroo...for me that is what made the experience so amazing. Bonus footage is great...I loved the Jack Johnson and Mississippi All-stars jams...Also good interviews with The Dead and James Brown. This is a must buy if you went to Bonnaroo 2003.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad news
Review: If you were very pleased with last years DVD - with its clean good shots of the bands playing, and minimal but tasteful effects mixed in - you might not like this one. I was incredibly dissapointed for many reasons. The director seems unable to hold any shot for more than half a minute. The picture constantly jumps from shot to shot, and more often than not you are seeing shadows, the moon, reflections of a drum kit, the band members dancing to another song - anything other than someone playing their instrument. I found this very frustrating, especially during performances like Mike and Leo when I really wanted to see their fingers. He also really overdoes the annoying "cop drama" shaky camera thing. I don't want to relive dancing around - I want to see these bands up close which other than on a DVD I am unable to do. And the bands - of course you can't please everyone and good music has to be left out but for the most part the song and band selections are terrible. Can you believe that "Sugar Magnolia" makes a repeat appearance on this disc? Even Panic comes off as being run of the mill because it isn't a great song they are playing. Where is Neil Young? "I feel good" - please, anything besides the most overplayed song of his. And most of the more unknown bands are pretty boring or even awful. Where are artists like Drums and Tuba or the Campbell Brothers that really added a lot to last year's disc? And what about big jams, or collaborations? That's what sets Bonnaroo apart! I think the director really messed up on this one, and because of his treatment of the music I'm pretty positive he isn't a fan of the genre. He wanted to impress us with an artistic statement and really, really overdid it. Highlights do exist - the performances by the Allman Brothers, Bela Fleck, and N. Miss Allstars are excellent. And I did enjoy the audience shots during Yonder Mtn. though I didn't see much of the group. The bonus disc has some cool stuff on it but the interviews are heavily edited - they filmed the whole thing, why not give it all to us? And if they were able to give us visually uninterrupted performances from the artists' trailers, why not any from the actual festival? The direction and editing of this film really detracted from the music, which is a shame because it's some of the finest music out there.
Rating:
Summary: 2nd Place among Bonnaroo DVD's
Review: It would be hard to match the content of last year's DVD, and this one does not do it. It contains some awesome performances: Warren Haynes, Polyphonic Spree, Flaming Lips, etc. But last year's truly documented the performances while this year's takes those performances and makes them serve as sort of a music video for the entire festival. There are songs cut short here: Yonder Montain and Robert Randoph have longer versions of their songs cut short in the interest of keeping things moving along. I will not complain about the missing performances. You always will have someone mad about one performance or the other being shafted (and moe. got the shaft this time around), but my complaint is that the DVD is more about cool looking images during songs and not about the actual performances. I thought it was very well made. It had some good backstage stuff with the Dead and Ben Harper. And the segue from Nickel Creek to Sonic Youth was pretty cool. One last thing. When they actually do talk to people in the campgrounds, think about this. There are 80,000 people there, but they use the same fat guy in two different segments. Was there NO ONE ELSE to talk to?
Rating:
Summary: Bonna-rific
Review: Killer flick! Jam packed with good tunes, and some crazy Jams. Clinch did an awesome job putting this together, using brief lead-ins to each song with a some backstage looks at each band.Very colorful and overall excellent representation of the feeling of Bonnaroo. A must have for all who attended.
Too bad about some of the delays it took to get this thing mailed out though.
When can I get my tickets for Bonnaroo 2004?
Rating:
Summary: good but not as good as last year's
Review: Obviously any DVD containing performances from any Bonnaroo festival is going to be better than average because it is the greatest gathering of artists ever assembled. My only beef with this years DVD was that most of it has a slight delay between the audio and video. This is extremely noticable on The Dead's performance, which really pissed me off. Also I think they could have chosen better performances from some artists, and included some artists they did not (Galactic, String Cheese Incident, Neil Young) Highlights include Ben Harper, Jack Johnson featuring G. Love, The Allman Brothers Band, and of course the hardest working man on this DVD James Brown.
Rating:
Summary: Mediocrity
Review: Oh boy, twenty-three performances! That's a feature? That's twenty-three songs from how many hundreds that were performed? And there isn't one untouched live song with the crowd heard, no slow motion, all the words matching the singer's mouth, etc. Filming creativity is fine, but give me a few moments completely live. And since the producers were too cheap to give us a decent insert with a correct order of performances or song names, I took out the second dvd thinking ooh, maybe some better songs on this one. Wrong. No songs on this one. A performance schedule, some photos, and other useless - but mildly interesting- filler. People want to see live music. A legend like Neil Young plays at Bonnaroo, and a concert movie trailer is more important? Weak! On two dvds there should be hours of performances for this kind of money.
Rating:
Summary: Mediocrity
Review: Oh boy, twenty-three performances! That's a feature? That's twenty-three songs from how many hundreds that were performed? And there isn't one untouched live song with the crowd heard, no slow motion, all the words matching the singer's mouth, etc. Filming creativity is fine, but give me a few moments completely live. And since the producers were too cheap to give us a decent insert with a correct order of performances or song names, I took out the second dvd thinking ooh, maybe some better songs on this one. Wrong. No songs on this one. A performance schedule, some photos, and other useless - but mildly interesting- filler. People want to see live music. A legend like Neil Young plays at Bonnaroo, and a concert movie trailer is more important? Weak! On two dvds there should be hours of performances for this kind of money.
| 
