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Trying to boil down three days and four nights of relentless music, comedy, distant bass thumping, a unrelenting jerk of a sun that made you sort of wish you had never been born, heat-based insomnia, unstable baked-mud terrain, fried foods in paper trays, sympathy-inducing sunburns and displeasing olfactory combinations into an Internet-friendly list is an absolutely impossible job; a team of a dozen working the festival at all times would be inadequate. But nonetheless, our small but intrepid team fearlessly managed to put together Billboard's Best Moments of Bonnaroo 2010, in no particular order, and issued with the caveat that when these moments were happening, dozens more were happening elsewhere, but we were probably in the press area, where we found a little air-conditioned spot.
Bonnaroo Main | Bonnaroo 2010 Photos
1. Team Coco's Friday Takeover
By the time Conan O'Brien took the stage for the first of his two Comedy Tent appearances, his more lively fans had been in some form of line for more than five hours - almost all of them under a Tennessee sun that started grueling on Friday and ended on Sunday with many festgoers losing their faith in a benevolent god (and would have, incidentally, burnt Conan to a red-headed crisp). But such was the love for Conan here on Friday; his set was not only the ticket of day, but simulcast to both the air-conditioned Cinema Tent and the Lunar Stage, a massive outdoor screen used mostly for showing World Cup action and "Beatles Rock Band" games. And Conan brought his A game to the occasion. "Six months ago I was the host of the 'Tonight Show,' and now I'm playing a refugee camp," he mused, to big applause. He then moved over to serve as main stage MC, where over the weekend he introduced Tenacious D ("The best band in the history of entertainment!"), Damian Marley and Nas (where he jokingly questioned his credentials), Kings of Leon and Stevie Wonder.




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