Music | 22 October 2002

The Bonnaroo Music Festival first turned up on the radar of the mainstream press and music industry when it posted some remarkable numbers in the spring of 2002. Folks in the know wondered how could a first-time event in rural Tennessee sell out all 70,000 of its tickets in a matter of days, with no advertising except email and word of mouth. And why would anyone, with the riots of Woodstock '99 a not-too-distant memory, even attempt such an event. The answer is that Bonnaroo, staged on a green expanse of Tennessee farmland June 21-23 2002, is the apotheosis of a movement that has quietly gained momentum for over a decade, existing as a parallel music universe.