MEET THREE FIRST-TIME BONNAROO ACTS WHO OWNED THURSDAY STAGES
PHOTO BY Ethan Andrews
HAPPY LANDING
As Thursday performers, the members of Happy Landing expressed their excitement to be able to play their show and then just attend the festival as attendees for the rest of the experience. The band, consisting of lead vocalist and guitarist Matty Hendley (lead vocalist and guitarist), vocalist and keys player Keegan Christensen (vocalist and keys), drummer Jacob Christensen (drums), Fiddler and vocalist Andrew Gardner (fiddler and vocalist) and Bassist and vocalist Wilson Moyer (bassist and vocalist), met in College at Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi.
“This is our first major festival, and we’re just doing a few of them, so it’s just cool to be here. We’re trying to keep our expectations to just whatever, and we are so grateful to be here,” said lead vocalist Matt Hendley told Pleaser in an on-site interview.
Happy Landing’s energy is nothing short of spirited, intertwining sounds of roots music, Americana, Indie-rock, and punk to create a truly exciting, pumped-up concert experience. Although many of the instruments they perform with are acoustic, Happy Landing makes it a point to turn up the amp to 11, creating energy through positive lyricism and innovative harmonies to project a well-rounded musical sound to eager audience members.
PHOTO BY Ethan Andrews
OCIE ELLIOTT
Vocalist and guitarist Jon Middleton and, as well as vocalist Sierra Lundy, began singing together back in 2016, after being “forced” to by Lundy’s sister, who thought the couple would sing well together.
“It was really awkward at first. It felt like we were back in high school, boy meets girl, and she was like ‘you guys should sing together!’” Lundy said in an on-site interview.
“But then we did,” Middleton continued., “And we were taken aback by how good our voices sounded together. And we thought it sounded really fun. So we kept doing it.”
This is Ocie Elliott’s first Bonnaroo, and the duo was blown away by the amount of people who showed up to their set. Although the band had played many folk festivals before, this was their first experience playing at a venue that was as community-oriented as Bonnaroo. Being on the festival grounds after playing their set, Ocie Elliott was overwhelmed by the consistent joy they experienced at this festival.
“I started crying looking around at all of the hard work and teamwork and creativity that goes into this festival. It’s creating this beautiful atmosphere where music is just very important,” Lundy said. “It’s been magical. We always get kind of nervous when we get invited to play festivals because we are pretty sleepy. To come here, we were a little worried. It was really nice to see so many people come out. We weren’t really expecting anyone to come out, and it felt really nice to see people.”
PHOTO BY Ethan Andrews
MEDIUM BUILD
Originating from the Atlanta suburbs, Carpenter grew up performing in religious settings, where he fell in love with the act of musicality. After breaking away from Atlanta at the age of 21, he moved to the greater Nashville area, where he went to MTSU for songwriting. Throughout his years at college, it seemed like many of his peers were focused on perfecting the audio quality of the music that they were creating. And while audio production can be important, it was never the focal point of Carpenter’s music. Instead, his focus reared towards lyricism and how to tell stories that are raw, real, and honest. To Carpenter, songs should carry a heavy emphasis on the emotional pull associated with the music.
It was with this mindset that Carpenter built Medium Build, which originated as a weekend project meant to throw away the pressure to meet perfection when writing, creating, and producing music that was pushed through the collegiate recording program Carpenter was associated with.
“My friend and I both dropped out of the program, and we wanted to make something so quick, so dirty, and so shitty. I would pay him with cigarettes and Adderall, and he had a tape machine, and he was like, ‘I’ll engineer for you,” and I was like ‘Cool. But I get to decide when it’s ready,’” Carpenter said backstage in an on-site interview. “So I would tell him to turn it up, or turn it down. The spirit was to make it fast, make it raw, make it feel good. And let’s use our limitations. It was a tape machine with four channels, and that was how Medium Build started.”
Since then, Carpenter made it a point to stick to the mindset of making music that is what it is, instead of spending too much time and energy making it something that it’s not and never has been.
This fest, for Carpenter, is extremely special. His first one, in 2012, was an experience he shared with his dad and brother.
“Growing up in Atlanta, I was so used to festivals like 420 Fest. You come to Bonnaroo and realize that there is so much community. Everyone is sharing food and drinks and everyone is hydrating each other and giving each other drugs. It’s so much more than just getting fucked up in the park for one day. I think I just imprinted that that’s how a festival should go, so much so that I remember when I first went to Coachella, I thought ‘This is so stupid. No one’s sleeping here? Nobody’s dirty?” Carpenter said. “I need to wake up in the blazing sun, in the dirtiest tent in the world, completely sweaty and miserable, and then just drink a lot of water and beer and Gatorade.”
