Dr. Briley teaches Old Testament and Hebrew studies.
Dr. Terry Briley, likely one of the few Lipscomb professors to ever attend Bonnaroo, first went six years ago to chaperone his younger son. But he’s returned three times since.
He says the common perception of the festival and its attendees isn’t entirely accurate. Once you get to Bonnaroo’s 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tenn., you see that “people there are more diverse than you might think.” The crowd does not consist of young people exclusively.
Briley says he enjoyed the atmosphere, describing it as “a flashback to the ’60s,” when he was just a boy. He stresses that there is no need for anyone to be afraid while there. Certainly there are people participating in activities of which Lipscomb does not condone, but there is no need to worry about someone hurting anyone else.
“One time I was taking pictures of a group of people who were dancing around in funny costumes at a concert,” Briley says. “ One of the guys noticed that I was taking pictures and came over to ask why. Although I told him I was just taking them for my own use, he asked me to delete the one with him in it because he was supposed to be ‘out sick’ from work while he was at Bonnaroo.”
Going camping on a farm in Tennessee at the beginning of the summer is not the most comfortable thing in the world. The main complaints are the heat, the dust, and the inability to bathe in anything but sulfur water. Campers must pass through two checkpoints and wait in line to get a place to set up. And then it’s a pretty good hike to get to multiple stages.
But the music is the payoff, and Briley says he’s enjoyed performances by Dave Matthews Band, the Allman Brothers Band, and Beck while at Bonnaroo.
He notes that sometimes the music gets in the way of a night’s sleep.
“One year the group Sigur Ros was playing at about 2 a.m.,” Briley says. “Sigur Ros is a rather unusual group from Iceland, but they have devoted followers. A student here, who is a big fan, asked me to call her when the band started playing so that she could listen to the show over the phone. There was so much noise that I couldn’t tell if she was on the line or not, so I kept the phone on for an hour or more. Later I found out she heard the band, but fell asleep listening to them.”
Bonnaroo is held every year on a 700-acre farm in Manchester.
After you enter the area where the music is, you are a captive audience. He adds that the commercial aspect of Bonnaroo has begun to eat into the laid back vibe of the annual fest, but still there are many strange sights to behold.
“One of my favorite sights at Bonnaroo is the people dancing in the `Silent Disco’,” Briley says. “The people are in a tent with clear sides while they are dancing. Passersby can’t hear the music, though, because everyone in the tent is listening to the music through headphones. It’s strange to see people dancing together when you can’t hear the music to which they are dancing.”
He appreciates the groups that “work hard to put on a good show” not “just (sorta) going out and doing their songs.” When an artist has a passion for his or her work, whether a musician or writer, it is noticed and appreciated by the audience.
Briley says the same of his studies in biblical languages. For example, he says, Hebrew “is very earthy, (and has) a lot of warmth and passion.”
When he conveys that same warmth and passion to his students, he shows that he may have more in common with the headliners of Bonnaroo than one might think.