The voodoo’s got a hold of students again this year as many begin to head to New Orleans for the 11th ritual of The Voodoo Experience during Halloween weekend.
To see The Daily Reveille’s Entertainment Staff hot picks for Voodoo fest, click here.Some students will be partying on Carlotta Street on Friday and some will be watching the Tigers play the Green Wave on Saturday night, but others will be rocking out at City Park until Sunday.Gates open at 10 a.m. today and close at 10 p.m. on Nov. 1. The three-day music festival features national and local acts coming together to celebrate music and arts in “The Big Easy.”Voodoo’s 11th concert, or “ritual,” showcases more than 100 acts including headliner KISS, Jane’s Addiction, Lenny Kravitz, DJ Justice, Widespread Panic, The Flaming Lips, Ween, Silversun Pickups and Wolfmother, as well as Eminem headlining Friday night, reunited with his band D12 for his only full concert of 2009.”You will see a lot of different festivals featuring the same acts throughout the year,” said Steve Rehage, LSU alumnus and founder and producer of The Voodoo Experience. “So, what I try to do is put up a more eclectic main stage and bypass the normal festival-circuit acts. This year, especially with KISS and Eminem, it is a little more extreme.”Rehage said the variety has always been a goal since the concert started in 1999, with a one-day festival, featuring Wyclef Jean, Third Eye Blind and George Clinton. The first ritual only drew roughly 8,000 people, a tiny amount compared to this year’s festival which has ticket sales charting ahead of last year’s 143,000 attendees.”A good festival is organic, and Voodoo is really an entire-city festival,” Rehage said. “New Orleans is the main attraction of Voodoo — has been since the beginning. New Orleans is known for its music, and Voodoo is really only a part of an all-night party.”Rehage designed Voodoo to integrate New Orleans’ distinct culture and sound, so the festival is divided into three parts — Le Ritual for the main stage national acts, Le Flambeau for local acts and Le Carnival for indie bands and performance acts.”New Orleans is more than Bourbon Street,” Rehage said. “So Voodoo is set up to give musicians a chance to play alongside these bigger national acts. It is all like one musical gumbo.”Rehage said the ecletic nature of Voodoo gives local and lesser-known bands a big opening to play in front of crowds that would not have normally heard them — a feature other festivals don’t offer.”Where else can you find Rage Against the Machine on the main stage with Preservation Hall Jazz Band on another, playing right across from each other?” said Rehage, pointing to 2007’s festival.This year is the second The Vettes will play the main stage, and lead singer Rachel Vette knows she will play to a lot of new people who have never heard of her band or its music, she said.”We are going to be exposed to a lot of new people,” Vette said. “We are on the same stage as all of these huge artists, playing to a sea of people.”The Vettes will take the Voodoo Stage at 3 p.m. today.But some students believe this year’s festival won’t be as good as past year’s.”The lineup is just all right,” said Kyle Evans, engineering sophomore. “There aren’t as many people as everyone likes. Not everyone likes Eminem or Justice. It seems like other years they have had more people that everyone could get into.”Jim Soule, general studies sophomore, said he is going for all three days and looks forward to the headliners’ big shows.”The lineup looks good, but it’s not so much about everyone knowing the artist,” said Soule, who has attended the last two years. “It always looks to me like Voodoo makes sure to get the headliners who can put on the biggest shows, so it has always been fun.”This year’s festival has a lot of new features to look for, including a new children’s area called VooBoo, two new iPhone  applications, which will act as a GPS and give concert-goers the schedule, the world’s largest picnic table set up in City Park and an attempt to break the Guinness world record for the largest gathering of zombies on Halloween night.Voodoo experience has also partnered with Life is Art Foundations–KK Projects to present a series of large-scale, interactive art installations by 24 artists, including a 108-rung ladder and a giant “OK” sign illuminating City Park.The Benjy Davis Project is one of the newest acts to be included in the 2009 festival. The band will take the stage at 3 p.m. today on the SoCo stage, playing right across from The Vettes.”This is a big honor for us,” said lead singer Benjy Davis. “We have been trying to get into Voodoo for five years, and it’s a big honor. I’m excited. We have to come in there and really push ourselves for the high energy needed.”Every year is unique and has a little backstory to it, and this year is no different, Rehage said. He is looking forward to the weekend and recommends people get there today after getting a lot of sleep — they will need the energy.”If you are a music lover of any type or just love the New Orleans vibe, Voodoo is the place to be,” Rehage said. “Voodoo really is an experience.”—–Contact Jake Clapp at [email protected]