Passion Pit / Photo by Ian Witlen

THE WORST

Worst Ryan Adams Impression: Erick Baker
Shortly after Charlie Allen finished his set, Erick Baker offered a less successful bit of musical mimicry. But where Allen was aping mainstream country roughneck Toby Keith, Baker was milking a Ryan Adams sensitive guy shtick. Actually, that assessment is probably harsher than the Tennessee kid deserves. His fiddle-kissed and lovelorn folk rock was always tuneful, and delivered with an appealingly earnest intensity, but throughout his performance I kept thinking of singer-songwriters who do Baker's thing better than he does. (Check out Ben Sollee, also playing Bonnaroo this year.) Other folks had similar ideas: A shirtless and sunburned yahoo standing near me wouldn't stop yelling for Ryan Adams. -- DM

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Worst Band Name: Zac Brown Band
The Zac Brown Band sounds like it could be the name of a small town barband, or a high school jam act, or a coffeehouse folk group, or just about any inoffensive outfit, really. Accordingly, the music made by the Zac Brown Band -- who closed out the That tent Thursday night -- is similarly (if comfortingly) bland. Mixing in bits of Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews, Bob Marley, and southern rockers like Marshall Tucker and Charlie Daniels, Brown delivered a set that alternated between light as air sing-a-longs and extended major key guitar-fiddle-keyboard jams. Neither style gained much heat. Even so, hearing the ZBB was an amiable enough ending to a muddy and wet first day at Bonnaroo. But I'm sure I'll get a version of the band's sound done better by someone else before the festival is through. -- DM

Worst Thing to See Before Going to Bed: Hippies Having Sex
Sure, People Under the Stairs' banging beats get people moving -- the crowd was one gyrating mass, hands in the air, for an hour straight. But one dreadlocked couple took the opportunity have sex in rhythm with the music… in the middle of the crowd. No joke: The girl was riding this dude as he sat in a sloppy puddle of mud. Sorta awesome, mostly… not. -- WG