Aside from making it to the Farm in time for it, I can think of no better way to have kicked off Bonnaroo 2015 than a set from Strand Of Oaks. Even after seeing the same set at Governors Ball last weekend and Primavera before that, the new lineup’s power is undiminished. A lot of early Bonnaroo arrivals seemed to agree, with This Tent already being packed to the point of spilling out into the fields surrounding it and, with the sun still up, bottling all the humidity up under the tent to the point where it felt like a storm just had to break to bring some relief. With another distorted guitar swapped in for their old synth player, Strand Of Oaks’ current live sound basically does sound like a storm breaking, songs now expanded and augmented with even more intensely cathartic guitar bursts and mini-epic outros. “Sterling” has become a late-set highlight — once a ruminative folk song from Pope Killdragon, it’s the most drastically transformed example of Strand Of Oaks’ Crazy Horse phase, morphed into a patient volcano of a song. Everyone there seemed eager and excited to have Strand Of Oaks at Bonnaroo, and Showalter fed off that energy, proclaiming it one of their favorite shows they’ve ever done. He crowd-surfed as the dying notes of “JM” echoed from the stage, pumping his fist in the air in triumph.