Falling asleep just hours before when we saw Kanye West was not hard at all, however waking up after only 3 hours of sleep on the day of our show was a whole other story. Every part of me wanted to stay in bed until I realized that we were actually going to perform at Bonnaroo today. That was DEFINITELY a surreal experience in and of itself after all of the awe inspiring shows we had seen over the course of the past 3 days. We quickly got ready and made sure all of the other band members were ready to rock. Before we checked out of our hotel, some of the staff at the inn we were staying at asked us to sign some autographs and wished us well for our set. We, of course, happily obliged and signed some flyers for them in addition to giving them all some NK Band stickers. What a great way to check out of a hotel. I suppose in a way, this place had been our home base for the last few days so it was a fantastic way to send us off.

ALL of the NK Band members were now excited to make the drive to the festival grounds. Some of the guys had flown in the night before due to other commitments previously made so I was happy to see everyone had arrived safely and we were on our way. Once we got into the festival, I surprised the band members with some appointments at the hospitality tent for us to pick up some free stuff. This is no question one of the coolest parts of being a performer at Bonnaroo. Companies like Timberland, Asics, Crocs, Kaenon Sunglasses, Converse as well as many more had set up booths for all the perfoming artists to pick up free gear such as shoes, sunglasses, shirts, hats, bags and more. It was such a cool feeling to see the looks on all of their faces. It was like Xmas for all of us in the middle of summer. We quickly made our way to each booth, grabbed either a gift bag or shoes or basically whatever we could get our hands on to leave Bonnaroo with more than just the experience. It was definitely a great feeling to know we were playing later today and here we were getting loads of free stuff as a result. I guess you could say, it felt like we had finally “arrived.”

We didn’t have much time to see any other performers that day before our set so we literally only had time to go back to the cars to grab our gear for the performance. Now in all 6 years that the NK Band has been together, 99% of ALL of our gigs have meant for us to load our own gear whether that included climbing stairs, walking through a crowded club or arriving several hours early after a 6 hour drive to soundcheck. This time, however, Bonnaroo had arranged for ALL of our gear to be transported via golfcarts which was so fun. ALL of us scrambled to manage loading all of our instruments, merchandise as well as ourselves onto these tiny golfcarts to help us get to our destination which was the Blue Room Stage.

We all arrived safely and hastily loaded our instruments and such onto the stage. Right then, we met our soundguy, Opie Odom, who was very helpful and maintained a level of calm from the first handshake to the last that day. What I love about the NK Band is that all of these guys, once onstage, are complete professionals. We set up in no time and had plenty of time to spare to take some cool pictures of us in front of the mainstage which the Blue Room tent faced. We were just about to start and noticed that there were no people in our tent. Now this was odd since at EVERY show I had seen, there were people roaming around every which way. The staff right then told me that since Israel Vibration had changed stages, security had blocked off the gate and was not letting anyone into our area. This was unacceptable and so I made sure to call our production manager in addition to asking the staff to tell security that we were about to perform so this should not be happening. Unfortunately, these gates remained closed for a bit, but that still didn’t deter people from coming into our area to hear us jam. The NIKHIL KORULA BAND jammed a 65 minute set that included our world influenced original dance music with quotes of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes,” Sublime’s “What I Got” and the Allman Brother’s “One Way Out” which we played in honor of the Allman Brothers absence due to them pulling out of the festival at the last minute because of Greg Allman’s exhaustion from health ailments. About halfway into our set, more than 5,000 people had entered the mainstage area and the Blue Room Stage was completely filled to capacity. We could see that we were winning so many new fans over with our originals, one song at a time which was beyond overwhelming for us to see. People were clapping so loud after each song and they had smiles from ear to ear. ALL of these fans welcomed our music with open arms and to see a line at our merchandise table for them to buy our CDs and shirts made the trip totally worth it. I have no doubt that we left an impression on those people who saw us play, some of whom even asked us to sign autographs after only seeing 3 minutes of 1 song. To give the feeling to them in the same way that other performers gave me over the course of the week was a dream come true from start to finish. I know we were low on the bill since no one had heard of us before, but several people came up to us and told us that we should be playing on the mainstage. Those comments made all the troubles we went through initially before playing worth it. I have nothing but great memories from performing at Bonnaroo, but to really see and feel how much our music impacted the fans who expressed how lucky they were to be able to experience our songs in the way they did, was truly mesmerizing. Simply put, it was the icing on the cake. Soon after, we were carted off to an autograph signing area where we signed everything from stickers to frisbees for the fans we impacted. To anyone that is reading this, you either helped us get to this point or are now a part of our journey to give us the fuel to keep pushing on. We cannot thank you ALL enough and hope you stay fans for life. Even still, we promise the best is yet to come.

After our performance and autograph signing session, the rest of the band wanted to head up to Nashville where we were staying for the night and avoid the mass amounts of traffic from the last day of the festival. We all walked around the grounds for a bit and soon, they were on their way. I had, however, one more performance to catch which was Robert Plant & Allison Krauss so Scott and I stayed behind even though we were both beyond exhausted. Plant & Krauss were exceptional and to see them perform was the best way for us to end our Bonnaroo experience.

Playing Bonnaroo was an amazing accomplishment for me as a performer and independent artist. I hope that I can inspire those artists just starting out to do all the work themselves because there is no greater feeling than setting a goal and reaching it on your own and on your own terms. There has been no compromise on my part to change our music for the sake of a record label or manager, only from our own free will. I sincerely believe that the NIKHIL KORULA BAND will be headlining the Bonnaroo festival in the future, but for now, enjoying this wonderful process has been a remarkable life experience for me. In 2 weeks, we will be performing on a stadium-like stage, opening for Rusted Root at Summerfest in Milwaukee, WI on June 27, 2008, our 2nd Summerfest appearance in front of 15,00 people. All I can say is the dream is happening and to any struggling artists out there, always believe in the beauty of your dreams because if you visualize it long enough and work towards reaching it, I promise it will happen.

My drive back to Nashville was peaceful and soothing. Scott and I recorded our set and listened to it the whole way back while the sun was setting. All I could do was smile the biggest smile possible all the while reflect on what an incredible experience performing at Bonnaroo truly was. What a perfect week. What a perfect night. What a perfect life and journey I have been given. There is no doubt that I have all my friends, family and fans to thank for this too. No matter what happens, I will never forget what you all have given me and believe me when I say, you are all in my heart while I savor every step of my path.

Thanks for believing in the beauty of my music. Until next year, Bonnaroo….signing off. Shine on!

Yours in Music,

NK

P.S Lakers won as well to end my weekend on an even higher note. Keep the faith.

Tags: Bonnaroo, day 4, korula, Nikhil

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Blogs, Nikhil Korula's Bonnaroo Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.