Bonnaroo Reviewed: The Fiery Furnaces

Brooklyn’s Fiery Furnaces kicked their epic indie-pop into full gear Friday afternoon as dedicated fans began filtering into Bonnaroo’s stage compound, amassing beneath the shade of That Tent and basking in the cool breeze that foreshadowed the rain to come. Relaxed and charismatic, singer Eleanor Friedberger chatted with the crowd between songs and the band, apparently in the Bonnaroo spirit, jammed out on tracks like “My Dog Was Lost but Now He’s Found,” reserving their heavy handed percussion and ominous guitar riffs for “Bitter Tea” and “My Egyptian Grammar,” both of which surfaced later in the set.

With the performance drawing to a close, four cardboard cut-outs of the band — apparently part of a Converse advertising campaign — surfaced in the audience and began making their way atop stretched hands, like wafer-thin crowd surfers. “I’d rather you guys touch my real body than those,” Friedberger told fans. “That’s corporate infiltration. After the show, anybody who wants to touch me can come up here and do so if you’ll throw those down. Unless Converse wants to give everybody free shoes.”

Here’s what the fans had to say:

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