With Big Man so tired with all that playing and all those crowds day and night, he reluctantly decided not to go to the fest this one day. So I was free to get up and go early, which I really like. I left the house about 10 am, parked at our new Jazz Fest friend Mark's house, and walked onto the Fairgrounds about 11:15 am. I had decided not to try to lug stuff around and around all by myself, so I picked a stage to be my base for the whole day. I chose Acura, and found what I thought was a pretty good spot, about middle of the field, toward the left, only a few feet from the blacktop walkway. (This turned out to be a tactical mistake, as you'll see later.) I was early enough that there was no music playing yet.
I placed the chair and the bag and walked over to Congo Square. When Big Man bought his new hat the other day, there was a beautiful black and white picture hat trimmed with beads and buttons on the band that I had admired but for some reason didn't buy at that moment. I had purposely arrived at the fest with no hat on so that I would HAVE to get a new hat. In what turned out to be my second miscalculation of the day, I had assumed that the vendor would take a credit card, but he insisted on cash or check. I had left my checkbook at home (third miscalculation?), so paid the $32 in cash. Unfortunately, with the $20 for parking, this left me with only $17 for the rest of the day. Geez. I'd have to be really-really careful, like the way Jazz Fest used to be when I was a kid and struggling and poor.
Thinking hard, I got a combination plate at the Jamaican booth -- jama jama (sautéed spinach), fried plantains, and chicken fricassee on a stick. It was a giant plate, and I figured it would *almost* satisfy me all day. I also got a strawberry lemonade. I walked back to my chair, easy to do since it was so close to the walkway (sure, *then*), sat down and ate very slowly. It was delicious and very filling. I was feeling hopeful.
The folks who were set up in front of me were very friendly, and offered to share their giant stash of ice with me, so when my lemonade was done, I added ice to the cup and was able to drink as it melted. A little later on, I walked across the crowd to the drink tent and got another water, which I nursed slowly, with my new friend's ice to help. It pretty much worked, but when I got home, I was STARVING.
Another sweet person, another row ahead, noticed I was using my folding umbrella as a sunshade and offered me the use of her small beach umbrella with a pointy bottom. This worked out VERY nicely, keeping me in the shade for the rest of the day. God bless that nice young woman!
The first band up was ¡Otra!, a local Afro-Cuban group with lots of percussion and great horns. They were great, and touchingly happy to have "graduated" to the Acura Stage. I loved the trumpeter, and wished Big Man were there to enjoy it with me. When they were done, they introduced all the players and I was surprised to hear the name of Michael Skinkus, a percussionist who apparently plays with just about *everybody*.
Next up was the great Zachary Richard, Cajun guitarist extraordinaire. What a set! His guitar playing was masterful, and he sang in both English and French, old hits and new songs. One song was sad and angry, a song that Richard said he wished he hadn't written, and was of course about Katrina. He was everything you want in a Jazz Fest set -- danceable tunes, stuff to make you think, some sad songs, ending on an upbeat note. He bade us good-bye in English and French ("Bonne aprés-midi!" "Good afternoon!") and we were all happy.
Richard was followed by a gigantic Zydeco review, with Buckwheat Zydeco, Boozoo Chavis, Rockin' Dopsie Jr. and a host of others. There must have been 4 or 5 squeezeboxes, and 3 or 4 Cajun washboards. What an amazing set! Even when they promised from the stage that they were gonna "slow it down" they just couldn't bring themselves to do it -- everything was fast-paced, high energy, almost frenetic. Folks were dancing and jumping and waving their arms in the air. It was wild. It was over before we knew it.
Next up was the good doctor, Mack Rebenack, otherwise known as Dr. John. A huge group of great musicians, including Charlie Miller on trumpet, filled the stage to back him up, and began the set with a Mardi Gras beat. Dr. John walked out slowly, leaning on a large decorated cane. He sat down between a piano and an organ (so he could play both, almost at the same time) and swung right into "Iko Iko." He did "Right Place, Wrong Time" with the crowd supplying the "Ooohs" right on cue. Old tunes, new tunes, all in Mack's inimitable style. He did his "Save the Wetlands" and then went into one of the pissed-off tunes from his latest post-Katrina album. (In one of the lyrics, he told "Miss Billie Holiday" that the new "strange fruit" was bodies, not hanging from trees, but lying on the ground, victims of flood waters from lousy levees). He was wonderful and powerful and even the angry songs had an agreeable, "Dr. John" beat. The 65 minutes flew by.
By now, after Dr. John and before Bon Jovi, the crowd had swelled amazingly. The walkway was no longer passable -- it was wall to wall people who had apparently decided that in the absence of any place better, they would just stay right there. To get to a Portalet, I had to quite literally push my way through. I headed to what I supposed would be the back of the crowd so I could cut over to the track where the Portalets were. But there was no back to the crowd -- the Acura-minded multitudes filled the entire field all the way to the Jamaican food booth. I finally was able to cross over near the Congo Square Stage (!), but all the Portalets there were terribly crowded. I walked back to the next group and they were packed too. I kept on going, moving closer to the Acura Stage, and was eventually able to get into a line of only 3 people (I keep to my rule even on the last 2 days of the fest).
Afterwards, I went to the crossover bridge that is the closest to Acura, and began making my way through the crowd, along the white line in front of the chairs. It was relatively easy, as people had left a kind of neutral space between the standees and the chair people. Then, I came to where there had been a gap over the orange track covering the sound cables -- which now was blocked by barricades! There was a small group of young people ahead of me, who also had thought they could cross there, and after a moment's hesitation, the lead boy pulled the barricade out and led his little band over. I hustled to keep up with them.
Unfortunately, on the other side, there was no gap between the people standing and the people sitting -- the standees were practically on top of the feet of the folks in the chairs. It was impossible to move, almost impossible to breathe. A frustrated security guy was there, trapped himself, hollering furiously, "There is NO passageway! You have to go through the chairs!!" I turned and faced the chairs and tried to see a way through. There didn't seem to be any. Finally, with lots of "'Scuse me's" I just tiptoed and pushed and stepped on tarps, keeping the pole with the red flag in front of the row in front of my chair always in sight. I reached an impasse with a wall of chairs and headed back to the packed walkway. Good grief! Some people had actually set up circles of chairs in the middle of what was supposed to be a walkway, and then THEY acted aggravated when folks tried to get by! Incredible! (Taught me a lesson for the next day -- DO NOT set up near a walkway, but near the track.)
Whew! Relieved, I sank into my chair and took a good long pull of my ice water. A few minutes later, the Rebirth Brass Band marched onto the stage, playing a loud and raucous version of "The Saints," leading the Bon Jovi band onto the stage. The crowd roared as Rebirth marched off, still playing as for a parade. Jon Bon Jovi came out, looking, as he does, younger than his years, in a sleeveless back T and camo cargo pants. (Bon Jovi has for some years cut his hair to a more appropriate length for his age and the calendar year, but the other members of the band have apparently not got the word and sported long, straggly, '80's hair.)
The crowd belonged to Bon Jovi, knowing almost every song by heart, screaming cheers at the first bars, and singing along word for word. Jon seemed in a tremendous good mood (which must be easy to do, when you can see a multitude of people, almost as far as the eye can see, all there for YOU). He said how great it was to be back in New Orleans, and told us about how deeply affected he had been by Katrina, and how he and the band had come down to Houma afterwards and built something like 20 houses for folks, some of whom were his guests today. He said how happy it made him to see New Orleans and Louisiana getting better and stronger, and dedicated the next song to "all of you, and all you're doing here." The song was "I Love This Town."
He did all the crowd favorites: "My Life," "Bad Medicine," "Dead or Alive." He did "Who Says You Can't Go Home" with its chorus that back when I was preparing to leave Jersey and come home here always made tear up: "Who says you can't home?/The only place they call me one of their own./Who says you can't go back?/I've been around the world and a matter of fact/It's the one place left I want to be--Who says you can't go home?" Of course I teared up again.
He told us it felt like summer and ran through songs redolent of summer at the Jersey Shore: "First Kiss," for one and others not associated with him but that he did well. In the one small sour note, he shut the set down at only an hour (the schedule said 2 hours). The crowd hollered and screamed for more, and the band came back and did 2 more songs, but still, the set ended a good 30 minutes early. I wondered about it, but it was just as well. I was really hungry and wanted to get home to see Big Man before he had to leave for Bourbon Street.
A good day, but it would've been better had my sweetheart been able to be with me.
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