To paraphrase a popular motto on campus, it’s Bonnaroo time in Tennessee. One of the country’s biggest festivals, drawing as many as 90,000 fans and averaging above 70,000 each year, the festival and its founders have helped re-establish Tennessee’s rightful place on the musical map over the last decade.

Festival season, which traditionally begins with California’s Coachella in April, coincides with the mid-spring to early fall months when bands spend most of their time on the road. In the last two years, Knoxville gained the special distinction and bragging rights as the host of the first star-caliber festival on the calendar, with the Big Ears Festival that occurs a month before Coachella. Though quite a bit smaller, as most shows are restricted to small theaters and clubs, Big Ears holds its own in terms of ingenuity and imagination with lineup choices and musical eclecticism.

And though Big Ears has garnered great reviews and adulation from the music community, Tennessee’s crown jewel in the sweaty, sun-baked four-day weekend be-in Bonnaroo, whose melding of jam-band festie fodder with A-list pop stars, music geek icons and all of the freaks in between brings a greater social significance.

“To me it’s – I get a little bit more excitement playing festivals because there’s a lot of other bands that I admire,” Weezer bassist Scott Shriner said. “It feels a little bit … not competitive, but I guess I’m a little bit extra inspired because of all of the talent and energy that’s around.

For a band whose exposure to larger audiences relies more on word of mouth than radio play, festivals such as Bonnaroo often provide the perfect place to test new material and carve a niche with impressionable listeners.

“We actually played Bonnaroo shortly after ‘Boxer’ came out in 2007, and it was one of the early indicators that things were going to go well,” The National guitarist Aaron Dessner said. “I remember the tent was packed, and it was one of the first times in the U.S. that we really had like a really warm receptive festival audience.”

Founded by local promoter and UT alumna Ashley Capps and Superfly Entertainment in 2002, this year marks Bonnaroo’s ninth showing, and while festival attendance has ebbed and flowed, something can be said for the consistency the weekend festival has experienced in a time where musicians struggle to sell tickets to individual concerts.