Non-traditional music connoisseurs can caravan to New Orleans this weekend for a three-day music experience at the Foburg music festival.
Located in the historical Frenchmen Street and Marigny area, the weekend festival features rock, indie rock and alternative genres of regional, as well as national, touring artists en route to the national music festival South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, the following weekend.
“The overarching idea behind Foburg is that South By Southwest is the next week, so hundreds of bands are passing through New Orleans on their way to Austin,” said Nick Thomas, marketing promoter of New Orleans Indie Rock Collective. “We felt a need to create a platform in New Orleans for all these artists to perform, so we created Foburg.”
With numerous advocacy groups promoting traditional New Orleans music like jazz, funk and blues, NOIR Collective, a group of local managers and promoters who publicize the local indie-rock scene and artists, created Foburg to promote alterative music in the city, Thomas said.
A weekend pass costs $40 and gets music lovers a chance to see 40 different shows in one weekend.
Translation: $1 a show, a price unheard of in the music industry, according to Thomas.
More traditional music festivals have about six performances at a time, but Foburg has up to 12 different bands playing at any one time at venues within walking distance of one another. A person can see 25 to 30 bands any given night for just $40, Thomas said.
Foburg features not only straight rock, but also electronic, progressive hip-hop and comedy showcases.
Headliners for the festival include New York indie-rock band Ra Ra Riot, rap art-world band Das Racist, Lafayette-based band GIVERS, electronic group The Hood Internet, the muti-cultural sounds of Toro Y Moi, the funky soul band T Bird & The Breaks, the father of Budu music Janka Nabay, New Orleans crunk band Jean-Eric and rapper G-Eazy.
The members of GIVERS are excited about performing back in their home state.
“Foburg will be the first show we’ve played in a while,” the band said, according to manager Aaron Scruggs. “We’ve been cooped up in a studio for weeks, working 12-hour days, napping on couches and ordering fish tacos almost every day, which is great, but playing shows is something we all start to miss after a while. There is an openness in Louisiana that is so unique, and we are really excited to share that with the Ra Ra Riot posse.”
The first Foburg festival was last year and featured 10 venues, 100 bands and a crowd of about 10,000 people, according to the Foburg website.
Kate Grace Bauer, New Orleans resident, attended the festival last year and said it had a large turnout, even at smaller venues like The Maison featuring indie band Vox and the Hound.
“Most of the bands were locally grown, sprinkled with smaller national bands making their way to Austin for South by Southwest,” Bauer said.
The Foburg music festival is also about community.
“It’s on Frenchmen Street, where everyone’s hanging out and having a great time.” Thomas said. “The festival caters
generally to younger people who are a little bit alternative and progressive, but who are all interested in the same kind of music and are looking to have a great weekend.”
 
 
____
Contact Jeanne Lyons at [email protected]