St. Stanislaus School benefit, 9 to 4 in Kolbe Hall, Adams. Bake sale, snack bar, games, Chinese auctions, money raffle, crafts, and pierogi.
Blackinton Union Church, 1373 Massachusetts Ave., North Adams; 10 to 2. Crafts table, bake sale, Chinese auction, the Christmas table, and kid's grab bag. Lunch $4, $2 kids.
First Congregational Church, North Adams, 9-2.
Nov. 28 Becket Federated Church, Route 8, holiday bazaar from 9-3. Lunch, crafts, baked goods, holiday and other items. Information: Mary Peltier, Parish House, 413-623-5217.
Dec. 5
Holiday Fair at First Congregational Church, 25 Park Place, Lee, from 10 to 3; handcrafted items, raffles, children's shop, bake sale, cut Christmas trees and lunch from 11 to 1. Includes angel-themed goods from SERRV. Information, 413-243-1033 or www.ucc-lee.org.
Dec. 12-13
North Adams Country Club, crafts 9-4; food from That's a Wrap from 11-2. Information: Sheryl Morehouse at 413-822-3329.
Planning a bazaar this season? Submit information to info@iberkshires.com to have it listed here.
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Send press releases and announcements to info@iberkshires.com. Need to contact someone at iBerkshires? Here's how.
Mammography Dispute The government's issued controversial new guidelines stating that women shouldn't get annual mammograms until age 50, rather than age 40.
iBerkshires will be meeting with local medical experts Monday. Have a question you'd like answered on this issue? Send it info@iberkshires.com with "mammogram" in the subject line.
By Jonathan DelSordo iBerkshires Intern 06:44PM / Monday, June 22, 2009
Photos by Jeff Kravitz/Bonnaroo Music Festival
Top, Bruce Springsteen joins Phish on stage; above, upwards of 75,000 trekked to Tennessee for the four-day festival.
MANCHESTER, Tenn.
With one of the most powerful, star-studded lineups in history, Tennessee's annual Bonnaroo music festival was everything and more of a life-changing experience.
Tickets went on sale in late 2008 starting at $187, and sequentially increasing every two months or so up to the final price around $280. Bonnaroo, now in its seventh year, is one of the priciest venues out there, but I assure you it's worth every penny.
The actual count of concertgoers was inconclusive, but the rough estimate was that more than 75,000 people showed up Thursday, June 11, as the concert began, and only grew larger and larger. Most times one felt like packed sardines at the main stage but everyone was there for a common reason — good vibes, spectacular music and plenty of psychedelics.
The evening before the festival was also surprising. It seemed as though everyone got the memo to meet up with his or her respective traveling group the night before in Manchester's Wal-Mart parking lot. The anticipation was very high, as thousands of people tailgated until the wee hours of the morning, some not even getting a wink of sleep.
The license plates varied from Texas, Ohio, New York and even California. From New York alone, it would take you 17-plus hours to get there by car, not including rest stops and fueling. The realization of how many people there were that Wednesday night was nothing. Until you crossed into the venue and witnessed the true magnitude of it all, it just all seemed too surreal.
Upon entering the gates at 7 a.m., all the cars were briefly searched and Technicolor Bonnaroo 2009-issued wristbands were handed out for fully entry into the shows. Each gate filtered lines of cars to designated camping spots all across the 750-acre farmland.
Setting up the campsite was the easy part. Dealing with the intense heat beating down on you was a different story. Even at around 8 a.m., it was hard not to soak your own clothes in sweat, or even fall victim to sunburn or heatstroke.
The heat was the biggest issue campers and festivalgoers encountered. Luckily, Bonnaroo provided free water for washing and drinking purposes throughout the venue.
Above, FilmMagic; below, C. Taylor Crothers/Bonnaroo Music Festival
Flavor Flav revs the crowd; rain turned the farmland into mud but didn't dampen the mood of the throngs of music lovers.
But patrons got their first surprise of the festival in just the first few hours — torrential downpours around noon. People fled for cover under the numerous vendor tents as the thunder and lightning storms turned the dirt pathways into mud.
The headliners came in the form of festival favorites Phish, playing two shows, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and Nine Inch Nails, just to name a few of the some 125 bands in the lineup.
The four-day festival truly began Friday afternoon, as patrons trampled through soggy, mud-soaked walkways. Featuring Santigold, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Portugal the Man and Moe., Friday kicked things off with a boom, just to name a few of the many various artists. The later stages of the evening made concertgoers stick around for a star-studded list of bands, which featured a legendary performance from Al Green, David Byrne of the Talking Heads, the Beastie Boys, and Phish to finish off the night at around 2 a.m.
The fun didn't stop there, though. After all the concert venues wound down in the early morning, other small tents hosted numerous DJs playing upbeat dance and techno shows with some even carrying through sunrise on most nights.
One of the most interesting parts of Bonnaroo is there is never a spot for boredom. Activities varied from daily yoga instructions, a cinema tent, a comedy tent and, most especially noted, the Silent Disco.
Approaching the huge tent, you could see hundreds of people dancing with no sound. You were handed a set of wireless headphones when you entered the tent that transmitted turntable music from a DJ booth at the front of the tent. Such DJs as the Hood Internet and Girl Talk were present, making it an all-out "silent" dance party.
Jason Merritt/Bonnaroo Music Festival
There was something for everyone at Bonnaroo. Merle Haggard performs on Sunday, the festival's final day.
Food was hit or miss. The range was anywhere from $1 grilled cheeses to $8 cheeseburgers. One suggestion if you ever go — bring and grill your own food. Especially because a 16-ounce draft beer will cost you $6.
Surprise guests were popping up all over the Tennessee venue as well. New York rapper Nas performed with the Beastie Boys, Bruce Springsteen played a set with Phish with a version of "Glory Days," and the biggest shocker of all on Saturday morning was Jimmy Buffett playing a two-hour unscheduled set.
After a fun-filled Friday evening, Bonnaroo kept getting better. Saturday rang in with an even better lineup encompassing Rodrigo y Gabriella, Raphael Saadiq, Wilco, the Mars Volta, the Decemberists, Bruce Springsteen and Nine Inch Nails back-to-back, Elvis Costello, Ben Harper and Rentlentless7, MGMT, and Moe., playing once again until 5 in the morning.
It's hard to say where most campers attained the energy to spend night after night until 4 or 5 in the morning, but I'm sure you can take a guess as to how.
Just walking to the venue each day anyone and everyone was trying to pedal something. The police enforcement was minimal, very minimal. One could basically do almost anything within reason, just as long as it didn't inflict anothers safety. The occasional streaker made most people laugh in disgust.
Sunday rolled around, and as usual a blistering 85 degrees got everyone up around 7 a.m. By this time, you could notice the lack of attention to trash pickup. In some instances, you would be trotting though trash every other step.
This was a major downfall of Bonnaroo. In 2008, Bonnaroo hired trash removal specialists, people who signed up as a cleanup crew postfestival in exchange for a free concert ticket. It took these people over a month to clean up the entire site. This year, it looked as though it would take over two- to three months' worth of cleanup duty.
Citizen Cope, Coheed and Cambria, and Erykah Badu led off Sunday afternoon as the big names only to make way for Snoop Dogg and a final three-hour Phish show in the evening. By this point, almost everyone's tank was running on empty.
Bonnaroo is a wondrous spectacle to say the least. Once you go, it seems to be the consensus that you will be back year after year.
This was Jonathon DelSordo's first time at Bonnaroo, which he attended with 30 friends. Do you live in the Berkshires area and have you attended this year's or past Bonnaroo(s)? Tell us about your experiences by commenting on the high/low points of your adventures there. You can contact Jon at raekwonsayz@gmail.com.
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