After looking forward to this year’s Jazz Fest since the end of last year’s festival season, I can confidently say that weekend one was a success with a couple of bumps along the way, but nothing I can’t handle.
I went this year with my parents and congregated with my family and family friends and covered ourselves in glitter. It was the best weather I think that I have ever seen at the festival. It got a little chilly near the end of the day on Friday if you’d believe it.
On the way into the festival, we walked alongside the gate on the backside of the Blues tent and knew it was going to be an amazing day for music. We walked in by the Gospel tent and could hear the LB Landry Gospel Choir as we checked in through security. We passed by one patron who was wearing a white button that said “The Gospel tent counts as church”, which my mom and I got a kick out of.
We made sure we had water and perused the area for some of the art just outside of the overarching “New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival” sign. My parents had been there the previous day, Thursday, for Widespread Panic, and recounted the crowd and their expectations for Friday to be a breeze. I disagreed as I knew that the Revivalists and the Killers were playing the main stage that night, and I was pumped for both of those sets.
Before immersing ourselves in the music for the day, we loaded up on snacks and drinks. I knew that I needed crawfish strudel from Caluda’s Cottage Catering. It wasn’t a negotiation scenario. I would go on to fuel my entire festival experience in weekend one with the stuff and was begging for more by the end of it. Caluda’s is a family favorite. My dad got their pork debris and grits and claimed it was the best thing he’s eaten at Jazz Fest yet. We also got crawfish enchiladas at Prejean’s Restaurant stall. I had a hard time choosing between that and the Crawfish strudel on the second day.
We stopped by our usual crew to establish a home base at the back of the main stage lot and diverged for the next couple of hours.
I left with my Uncle “Sparkles”, who often leaves dustings of glitter from the costumes he wears casually , who was at our home base to go see Big Sam’s Funky Nation at the Gentilly stage. We passed Congo Square and stopped for a bit so I could take a couple of pictures of Shamarr Allen’s set, which encouraged audience participation in the “weekend dance”. Allen brought out his son to perform with him, which was something his son will probably remember forever.
Uncle Sparkles and I continued to Big Sam’s Funky Nation for a fun set full of dancing room and ample energy. Kids were bouncing on their parents’ shoulders, grannies were doing a little shuffle, and everyone else was dancing in their own right. I focused more so on the crowd rather than the set because it was the first time I was taking everything in.
I decided to take my leave to do a little more exploring in terms of the art installations that were running. I passed by the Roman Chewing Candy Company, something iconic to my childhood, and decided that would be my treat for the day. As always, it was delicious.
I returned to the Main Stage to try to get a good spot for the Revivalists and was sorely mistaken as I could barely move in the crowd. Sweet Crude was playing and I was in shock that the field was like swimming upstream this early in the day. I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of Sweet Crude’s set, despite only hearing two or three songs. I got out of the main walkway of the Revivalists, but that’s about as close as I could get.
The Revivalists played an electric set. I loved hearing some of my favorites, especially since they closed with my favorite song of theirs: “Kid”. I was dancing as best as I could with two girls that I met who were in New Orleans for a friend’s wedding. It was a beautiful moment to share with two random strangers that I may never cross paths with ever again, but that is the beauty of Jazz Fest. This was one of the better performances I have seen from the Revivalists. Maybe it was because I knew more of their music, but I could enjoy the show for what it was a lot more due to the crowd’s energy.
A crowd’s energy is half of a show in my opinion. If the crowd is dead, you can feel it. The performers can feel it, and it brings everyone down just a little bit. Because the Revivalists are fairly local, I think the crowd was a little more enthusiastic for a 3:50 p.m. show. One of my favorite aspects of their performance was the drums. There were two drummers, and that will never cease to amaze me for the sheer size of a band. It allows for more rhythm and a more driven sense of articulation in the music.
As soon as the Revivalists finished their set, I knew I had to move when it came time for the Killers.
I love the Killers. In a previous article, I mentioned the song “All These Things That I’ve Done” as one of my favorite songs, but I honestly love their entire discography. I grew up with their music, as did most of the people in my generation. If you think you don’t know a Killers song, you’re lying because everyone knows “Mr. Brightside”.
The Killers opened with “Mr. Brightside”, immediately signaling that this was going to be an amazing set. Usually, artists will play their most popular song near the end of their set because everyone is waiting to hear it, but The Killers didn’t hold back. They immediately transitioned into “Jenny was a Friend of Mine” and continued on with other familiar favorites.
The Killers then covered “Louisiana 1927”, a Randy Newman song, and “Go Your Own Way”, a Fleetwood Mac song, beautifully. Flowers had mannerisms that I would compare to a preacher, often pointing to the sky and making the preacher point to the audience, he looked like he was having the time of his life. The highlight of my entire festival experience so far was the extended version of “All These Things That I’ve Done”. That song has been a favorite of mine since I was embarrassingly young. I have memories of the days after Hurricane Katrina listening to the “Hot Fuss” album and playing that song over and over and over again until my mom would get sick of it and we’d change it.
We went home to recharge for the next day, and showed up bright and early in New Orleans, fueling up with more crawfish strudel or pork debris and grits. and went our separate ways for the day for the most part. Our days were relatively similar to the day before, but I encountered one of the worst crowds I had ever encountered during my separation.
After seeing part of Molly Tuttle and the Golden Highway’s incredible set of folk-country music, I headed to Hurray for the Riff Raff. I did not recognize any of the songs, but I can appreciate their music as a whole. I loved hearing their acoustic sound and the lead singer’s voice was incredibly powerful. I heard Big Freedia on the way over, which was such a stark contrast to Hurray for the Riff Raff but got you moving.
When I was getting set for Hurray for the Riff Raff at the Gentilly stage, the crowd was very mellow. I have no complaints regarding my experience with them. I will say, however, I did not move very much for Vampire Weekend. I moved a little closer because some of the audience for Hurray for the Riff Raff left for Christ Stapleton as overheard in conversations, but I felt like I got hit by a train right before Vampire Weekend went on. I had been in place for about 20 minutes, chatting with some of the other people who were standing around, but about five minutes before Vampire Weekend went on, a flood of people started pushing from the back, and hard.
I had been talking about concert etiquette with one of the couples that was standing near me because a group of guys was getting rowdy and started shoving the group near me. The couple explained that they decided against bringing their young son to Jazz Fest this year despite the festival’s encouragement of family-oriented fun due to the change in violence with crowd behavior they had experienced in recent years.
Whilst having this conversation, I heard a stream of swears and “hey!”s quickly approaching me and felt an elbow to the back. A six-foot-something guy elbowed his way to the barricade of the show, which was about two people in front of me at this point, and was shoving people out of the way to get there. Other festivalgoers were cussing at him and telling him to leave, but he did not budge. He immediately lit a cigarette and started smoking around the young children in the sectioned-off pit, and in general was a nuisance.
The show started so nothing was done. Vampire Weekend performed a great set without their bassist, but their drummer and accessory band members stepped up to play bass. Bass is heavily featured in their music, so playing without it would have been devastating to their set. They played a lot of their hits, some covers, and some new songs, including a song they were playing for the first time, live since the release of their new album “Only God Was Above Us”. “Prep-School Gangsters”, a nostalgic sounding new song for Vampire Weekend fans was an immediate fan favorite in the crowd. They played their biggest hits, “A-Punk”, “Oxford Comma”, “Sunflower” and “Walcott”, to which the entire crowd erupted in applause to.
To say my time at Jazz Fest during weekend one was all sunshine and rainbows wouldn’t be completely true, but definitely memorable. You have to have lows to have highs, and there were certainly variations throughout the days.
