I envy you ... the unwashed masses, the blissfully unemployed, the bearded and bedraggled. You get to go to Bonnaroo, to revel in four days of unadulterated muck and music and mind-altering substances. I don't, because I am stuck in meetings all week.

And this is most certainly a bummer. See, I love Bonnaroo. I think it's the best fest in America, an experience every music fan must have at least once in their lives (and I'm not just saying this because, back in 2007, I got to fly a helicopter there).

But this year, because of the time constraints due to back-to-back-to-back business meetings (read: impending adulthood), I'm not going to make it down to Manchester, Tennessee. I will probably regret this for the rest of my life, because Bonnaroo 2009 looks like it's going to be a blast.

And, yeah, I know that the weather forecast for Manchester could charitably be described as "cataclysmic" — the phrase "strong storms" is bandied about, which should make camping in an open field with 80,000 other revelers a rather messy affair — but that doesn't change the fact that there are tons of can't-miss moments spread out over the fest's four days. Which means that if you're brave enough to, uh, brave the weather, you're gonna be in for a treat.

So even though I won't be down in Tennessee with you, I figured I could still lend a hand. I've thrown together a Bonnaroo Cheat Sheet, highlighting some of the fest's best acts. These are the bands you probably can't afford to miss, even if you have to trudge through six feet of water to check them out.

» Thursday: A bit of a light schedule, as most of the 80k will still be setting up their tents, but you'd be doing yourself a favor if you checked out Passion Pit, a much-buzzed electro-pop outfit from Massachusetts who just released their debut disc, a dazzler called Manners. If you can get past frontman Michael Angelakos' pinched squeal, there's plenty of goodness.
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By Joseph Patel

The best four hours of live music I've ever experienced took place at the Coachella festival in 2004. It was a Pixies/ Radiohead/ Kraftwerk/ TV on the Radio back-to-back-to-back-to-back string of sets that only Coachella or a European festival could have offered. The Empire Polo fields in the California desert have been sacred ground for U.S. music festivals ever since Coachella's inception in the fall of 1999, and that spring afternoon in 2004 — my fifth time at the festival — was so epic, I have yet to return.

My day started much earlier than the Pixies' set but that's what I remember kicking off my "Afternoon Not to Be Forgotten." The Pixies' reunion tour had started about two weeks earlier, and I had already seen them three times, having flown myself to Minnesota to catch their first reunion show. (Yes, I know I have a raging battle with the concept of moderation.) I needed to see them with 40,000 people, and it was wonderful. Not a bad appetizer for Radiohead, who took the stage just as the last bits of purple sunset were ducking out of site in the desert sky. They made a majestic offering to the gods. They're one of the best live bands in existence right now and, fan or not, they're worth seeing. I suspect that is why they're performing on the Grammys, to give those who have never seen them a little taste.
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The announcements for 2009's music-festival season are fast approaching, and rumors are flying all over about who's playing where.

Through some smart Net sleuthing (on artists' MySpaces, etc.), many artists' festival appearances have already been identified. LAist.com, for example, has determined that the Killers, No Age, Girl Talk, Hold Steady and Fleet Foxes will be at Coachella.

But what about the more outlandish rumors? The juiciest one for Coachella is clearly Britney Spears. Many speculated earlier this week that it's well within the realm of possibility for the pop star to drop by the fest (as Madonna did in 2006). She just happens to be performing in Los Angeles that same weekend, and the Coachella grounds in Indio are just a few short hours' drive away.
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By Alex Shapiro

Are Phish headlining Bonnaroo? There's been no official announcement yet, but rumors have been swirling for weeks. And with details about the band's reunion tour showing up on Billboard.com today, the possibility of Phish taking over Manchester, Tennessee, for the rumored two-night stand is looking more and more likely. As I take a gander at their relatively short list of dates, there seems to be a very curious week-long break in between gigs in North Carolina and Missouri — hey, Tennessee is even located between those two states — smack dab in the middle of the tour. Now you might say, "Well, these guys are a little older now and they might need a break. They haven't done this in five years!" To that I say, "Shenanigans!"

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By Emily Donahue

Amongst bustle skirts and corsets, top hats and tails, brass-rimmed goggles and time-traveling arm bands, it was me, in a black tank top and jeans, that received the most stares in Brooklyn a few weeks ago. I was at the first day of the Dances of Vice festival, an evening that also served as my first taste of Steampunk, a wide-reaching subculture that lately has been, well, picking up steam. Yet people are still hard-pressed to define what is, on the surface, an embrace of the neo-Victorian, but deeper than that, a keenly felt reaction to the stark modernity that has come to homogenize a generation with iPods and Ikea.

Over the course of shooting two separate Steampunk events — Dances of Vice, which spanned both Brooklyn and Manhattan; and SalonCon, a two-day event held in Somerset, NJ — I was exposed to a mix of concerts, fashion shows and lectures. Vendors sold handmade corsets, jewelry made from clock gears and even wings. People's imaginations were on full display in their clothing and accoutrement. I expected to simply observe from a distance, but the more I learned, the more the Steampunk artists and their philosophy began to appeal to me. Musicians I knew and liked were mentioned, such as Tom Waits, Smashing Pumpkins, the Decemberists and even Sufjan Stevens; "Edward Scissorhands," "The Prestige" and "Wild Wild West" were a small handful of the "steamy" movies that I had seen.

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By Daniela Capistrano

Yo La Tengo, Titus Andronicus and Ebony Bones performed a bittersweet send-off Sunday for the final JellyNYC Pool Party held at Williamsburg's McCarren Park Pool.

But fear not, outdoor concert lovers — JellyNYC plans to work with local officials and community advocacy groups to find a new mainstay venue in the area by next summer.

Ebony Bones found some shelter with us from the sweltering heat and shared her thoughts on the last pool party right before her set. We were having so much fun we missed her signal to get onstage, which resulted in Ebony making a mad dash for her own show!

Check out what Ebony had to say and some of her set after the jump.
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"The location is pretty great — look at that view," said Brian Weitz, a.k.a. Geologist from Animal Collective, gazing out across the expanse of Liberty State Park at the skyline of Lower Manhattan. Indeed, the first thing you notice on stepping off the ferry and turning to look behind you is a cityscape that is hard to match anywhere in the world. It was day two of All Points West, the so-called "boutique" festival (meaning it accommodates 30,000 instead of 70,000) that at long last brought a weekend-long major music event to the Northeast. Saturday was the only sellout of the three-day weekend, and for good reason: Apart from the godlike Radiohead on top of the bill, there was a pretty exceptional supporting cast that included, on three stages, the Roots, Kings of Leon, Metric, the Black Angels, the Virgins, Chromeo, K'Naan and Sia.

But I began my day by speaking with one of my favorites, the Collective. A few hours before they brought their clanging, charging, joyful noise to the masses, we talked on the VIP bleachers overlooking the grounds. How great is the idea of Kings or Radiohead fans discovering Animal Collective? "That's the main reason, I think, you do festivals," said Weitz. The guys are not doing a lot of fests this summer — they're concentrating on mixing and finishing their ninth album, due out in January — but they were pleased to be at All Points West, in part because they were playing the main stage. While there is no doubt AC's sound is big enough to fill a large setting, Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear, is not a big fan of outdoor fests. Apparently, he and the sun "don't agree."

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Getting to cover summer music festivals can sometimes be a mixed blessing. Unless you have an especially large crew (as we did two weeks ago at Lollapalooza), you end up spending a lot of time shooting interviews and writing or shooting standup segments, and not a lot of time actually seeing live music. Such was the case this past weekend New York's All Points West festival. (check out some of the bands we talked with right here). I did, however, manage to catch sets by two of my favorite bands, neither of which is playing many U.S. dates this summer.

Kings of Leon are the sort of dependable rock band that almost effortlessly delivers a good show — and while a colleague of mine thought they could have used a little more effort in Saturday's set, I thought they delivered solid renditions of fuzzed-out, whiskey-soaked songs that just do not get old: "Taper Jean Girl," "The Bucket" and "On Call" and definitely got the late-afternoon crowd going. Every time I see the Kings live I'm reminded of just how many great hooks and melodies these guys they've crammed into three albums — which makes it all the more amazing they're bigger in this country (they're massive in England). On Saturday, we were also treated to "Sex on Fire" — the first single (and one of the more hard-charging songs) from Only By the Night, the band's fourth LP, set for release September 23.
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The All Points West festival in New Jersey's Liberty State Park had a lot going for it — mostly beautiful weather, a decent (if not through-the-roof) lineup, a fine setting, a cool way to get there — a ferry ride — and a daylong view of the greatest skyline on Earth. What more could you ask for?

Oh, I don't know. How about, enjoying a beer while watching the concert? Here's the deal: You arrive at APW and soon discover that in order to drink, you must get your ID checked, then pass into a closed-off, fenced-in area — from which you cannot see the stage — to pay $7 for a Bud or Bud Light. You get a yellow plastic bracelet on which there are five tabs, one for each beer you are allowed. Each time you order, a tab is removed. And to indicate that you have been issued a bracelet (they're one step ahead of you, these beer police) they put a big Sharpie "X" on your hand. Read more...

By Bryn Bennett, lead guitar player for Bang Camaro

(Editors' note: MTV News asked Bang Camaro to help us cover Lollapalooza and they were happy to oblige! The band's Bryn Bennett wrote this blog; Alex Necochea shot the video.)

"Load-in is at 8:15am?!" This is terrible news for a rock band. We travel around the country in stinky vans, make no money and don't take showers for many reasons. One of them is so that we don't have to wake up at 7 a.m. like the rest of corporate America. It was Lollapalooza though, and Radiohead was going to be sound-checking at the same time, so I guess this early wakeup was worth it.

We pulled into Chicago from Boston at about 1 a.m. on Friday, had a few cans of beer and some of us did our best to fall asleep. Others of us attack life with the same vigor as a cat attacks a mouse, sometimes with the same bloody results.

(Watch Bang Camaro "interview" the Black Lips, plus get medieval after the jump!)
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