Even under the best of circumstances, the list of indignities at Bonnaroo, the annual arts and music festival set to take place this year from June 9 to 12 in Manchester, Tenn., can be long. There is, not infrequently, rain, which means mud — nearly 700 acres of it. Temperatures in middle Tennessee in June tend toward the hot and the humid. Many of the estimated 75,000 to 80,000 attendees will camp onsite, a manifestation of the festival’s tie-dyed, second- or third-generation hippie ethos; if the past is any guide, more than a few of them will forgo showers for the duration.
But 2011 may present the festival, headlined this year by Eminem, Arcade Fire, Lil Wayne and others, with its weirdest and most badly behaved guests yet: hundreds of thousands of cicadas, whose loud emergence from the ground every 13 years is a wryly observed fact of life in central Tennessee. Bonnaroo, founded in 2002, missed the species’ last trip aboveground, in 1998. This year, however, may be a different story.
The 13-year cicadas, as they’re called, only live for a short time: a month to five weeks, said University of Tennessee Extension entomologist Frank Hale. This week marks the beginning of their emergence around the Nashville area, which means that by the time Bonnaroo arrives, they’ll be nearing the end of their brief lifespan. “There could be some around,” said Hale, who noted that at their peak there can be thousands of cicadas under a single tree, and 100 times that per acre. “But I’d expect a lot of them to die around then, too.”
This outcome is what the organizers and performers of Bonnaroo are hoping for. “What we’re hearing is if they’re going to come, they’re going to come before the festival,” said Rick Farman, one of the producers and founders of Bonnaroo. “But regardless, it’s not a major concern — they’re harmless.”
Cicadas do not bite, sting or pose much of a danger to humans. But natives of the region regard them with a sort of bemused awe, and talk about the spectacle of their emergence with a mix of glee and trepidation.
Jake Orrall grew up outside of Nashville, and is now the frontman and guitarist of JEFF the Brotherhood, set to play Bonnaroo this year; he still remembers the last time the cicadas were out. He was 12. “We went to a Renaissance festival,” Orrall recalled, “and they were everywhere. You couldn’t walk without crushing them. Me and my friends filled a lunch box full of them and gave them to this girl, and she opened it and screamed. We’d have fights, just picking them up and throwing ’em at each other.”
The sight of cicadas blanketing trees and swarming over grass made early colonists, versed in Biblical stories about plagues of locusts (an insect distinct from, though often confused with, cicadas), think that they were being cursed by God. Today, pastors in the area, like Frank Lewis, of First Baptist Nashville, scoff at that notion, even as they acknowledge the otherworldly-seeming nature of the phenomenon.
“I can understand 200 years ago when the first settlers came here,” Lewis said. “They’d never seen this before, because it is pretty phenomenal, to see all those bugs come at you — you might be thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, this is the end of the world.’”
“And the bugs are pretty horrible-looking. They’ve got red eyes, and it’s a black body, and you might think, ‘That is a cicada from hell.’ But I don’t see it as being the locust thing as much as I do, ‘Boy, this is really amazing that the God in the universe who created everything there is put in an order.’”
The cicadas, if they do live long enough to see Bonnaroo, are unlikely to do more than keep campers awake at night as the males lustily serenade the females — a festival occurrence that is perhaps not limited to the insect world. But four days of concerts does present an interesting, and perhaps unprecedented circumstance, according to Hale, who noted that cicadas are often “attracted to the sound of a lawnmower,” and, when they are in full emergence, will frequently move toward it.
“Now, it might be interesting if there’d be any attraction to speakers,” or even amplifiers, Hale said. “All they would do is buzz toward” the noise. “But I don’t know if anybody’s ever looked into that.”
What would Orrall and his band do in the unlikely event that they and their equipment were swarmed by bugs, mid set?
“We’d probably get some kids to come up with, like, tennis rackets onstage, if that happens, just to fend them off,” said Orrall, laughing. “It’s the only thing I can think of, really.”
Credit: Video by Harry Tanielyan/The Daily; Photo by Getty Images
But 2011 may present the festival, headlined this year by Eminem, Arcade Fire, Lil Wayne and others, with its weirdest and most badly behaved guests yet: hundreds of thousands of cicadas, whose loud emergence from the ground every 13 years is a wryly observed fact of life in central Tennessee. Bonnaroo, founded in 2002, missed the species’ last trip aboveground, in 1998. This year, however, may be a different story.
The 13-year cicadas, as they’re called, only live for a short time: a month to five weeks, said University of Tennessee Extension entomologist Frank Hale. This week marks the beginning of their emergence around the Nashville area, which means that by the time Bonnaroo arrives, they’ll be nearing the end of their brief lifespan. “There could be some around,” said Hale, who noted that at their peak there can be thousands of cicadas under a single tree, and 100 times that per acre. “But I’d expect a lot of them to die around then, too.”
This outcome is what the organizers and performers of Bonnaroo are hoping for. “What we’re hearing is if they’re going to come, they’re going to come before the festival,” said Rick Farman, one of the producers and founders of Bonnaroo. “But regardless, it’s not a major concern — they’re harmless.”
Cicadas do not bite, sting or pose much of a danger to humans. But natives of the region regard them with a sort of bemused awe, and talk about the spectacle of their emergence with a mix of glee and trepidation.
Jake Orrall grew up outside of Nashville, and is now the frontman and guitarist of JEFF the Brotherhood, set to play Bonnaroo this year; he still remembers the last time the cicadas were out. He was 12. “We went to a Renaissance festival,” Orrall recalled, “and they were everywhere. You couldn’t walk without crushing them. Me and my friends filled a lunch box full of them and gave them to this girl, and she opened it and screamed. We’d have fights, just picking them up and throwing ’em at each other.”
The sight of cicadas blanketing trees and swarming over grass made early colonists, versed in Biblical stories about plagues of locusts (an insect distinct from, though often confused with, cicadas), think that they were being cursed by God. Today, pastors in the area, like Frank Lewis, of First Baptist Nashville, scoff at that notion, even as they acknowledge the otherworldly-seeming nature of the phenomenon.
“I can understand 200 years ago when the first settlers came here,” Lewis said. “They’d never seen this before, because it is pretty phenomenal, to see all those bugs come at you — you might be thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, this is the end of the world.’”
“And the bugs are pretty horrible-looking. They’ve got red eyes, and it’s a black body, and you might think, ‘That is a cicada from hell.’ But I don’t see it as being the locust thing as much as I do, ‘Boy, this is really amazing that the God in the universe who created everything there is put in an order.’”
The cicadas, if they do live long enough to see Bonnaroo, are unlikely to do more than keep campers awake at night as the males lustily serenade the females — a festival occurrence that is perhaps not limited to the insect world. But four days of concerts does present an interesting, and perhaps unprecedented circumstance, according to Hale, who noted that cicadas are often “attracted to the sound of a lawnmower,” and, when they are in full emergence, will frequently move toward it.
“Now, it might be interesting if there’d be any attraction to speakers,” or even amplifiers, Hale said. “All they would do is buzz toward” the noise. “But I don’t know if anybody’s ever looked into that.”
What would Orrall and his band do in the unlikely event that they and their equipment were swarmed by bugs, mid set?
“We’d probably get some kids to come up with, like, tennis rackets onstage, if that happens, just to fend them off,” said Orrall, laughing. “It’s the only thing I can think of, really.”
Credit: Video by Harry Tanielyan/The Daily; Photo by Getty Images
