The 2017 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is currently taking place in Manchester, Tennessee. I haven’t been to Bonnaroo in a few years but I went to the very first Bonnaroo back in 2002, and I went to 4 more after that. If the crowd at the music festival this year is anything like the crowds of yesteryear then there are some people hot in pursuit of mind altering substances.
Tens of thousands of millennials and crusty festival-going hippies are descending on Manchester for this year’s music festival headlined by U2, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd, Chance the Rapper, Major Lazer and others. Amongst those festival goers was a man from New York arrested with over 1,000 fake drugs, and the statement he gave to police after being arrested is probably the single greatest thing I’ve read.
According to the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department, David E. Brady, 45 of Albany, N.Y. was sitting under a tent Wednesday on the grounds of the four-day festival held in Manchester, Tenn. when deputies say they saw him with items that appeared to be narcotics.
When deputies approached Brady, sheriff’s spokesman Lucky Knott said, Brady tossed the items behind him.
When Brady stood up, Knott said, he had bag of mushrooms hanging from his waist band.
Authorities searched Brady and, according to an arrest warrant, found 37 pills made to look as if they were molly – a synthetic drug that alters mood and perception, 22 bags of fake mushrooms, about 1,000 hits of fake acid, 20 bags made to look like cocaine and an incense stick made to look like black tar heroin.
The arrest warrant goes on to say the Brady told deputies that he was “doing God’s work by selling fake drugs.” (via)
One of my favorite comedy bits of the past few years came from Aziz Ansari when he talked about eating mushrooms at Bonnaroo and getting lost in the ‘Sonic Forest’. It’s almost as if getting lifted with Samson is a right of passage at the Boner-zoo, and this man was just trying to do God’s work…Also, I’d like to just point out how much this festival has changed over the years. The original lineup and style of those bands are unrecognizable in this year’s collection of artists:
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For more on this arrest you can head on over to the Knoxville News Sentinel.