New Orleans life...sigh.

In between the torrential rains that have been dousing us, I managed to get out to Jazz Fest on Thursday.

This huge music fest brings in hundreds of performers for two week-ends. You pay to get in and then just wander the various stages to hear who you like. And of course there is art, food and booze galore, because hey--it's New Orleans!

Mardi Gras Indian funk with Cha Wa. It was a new one on me but they were fantastic as they did a lot f old Mardi Gras classics with their unique style.

Here they are playing somewhere else.


Then there was Quiana Lynell.

Wow!

Again, one of her clips from another fest.


George Porter was there.

And Waylon Thibodeaux.

And Batman...Because Jazz Fest, I guess.

Finished the day with Eric Lindell.

Great day. Muddy as hell but the early rain kept the crowds down so I count that as a win.

Only issue was that I got invited to sit in one of the new cars that Acura was displaying there as part of their sponsorship. They grabbed me and three others and had us sit in the car for a sales pitch but the sales girl got a bit of an attitude when she walked off to get some literature and came back to find me drinking from a bottle of Fireball that I'd had in my pocket. She said "You can't drink in the cars!" I pointed out that I wasn't sitting in the driver's seat and that I had brought enough to share, but I still had to go. Some people... Tsk.

Jazz Fest, 2016

OK, I'm still damp 24 hours later, but I survived a day of Jazz Fest.

I was invited to accompany my new crazy cat neighbor/aging hippie and full-time writer Beth--a truly wonderful person--and her friend Lolly. (And no, she had no adverbs with her. You know I had to ask anyone named Lolly.) Lolly was from New Jersey, and I scored extra bonus points when she told me this by asking "which exit?"

But we made the quick drive up to the Fairgrounds under clouds which promised a serious soaking...and they did deliver.

Part of the venue. Imagine a dozen or more concerts going on all at once in the same park.

Add food, t-shirts, booze and rain/mud and you've got Jazz Fest.

Seventy-five bucks a day for tickets. And hundreds of thousands of people pay it during the two week-ends that this event goes on.

The rain first drove us into the Gospel Tent, where we heard the Jones Sisters rocking it out.

After a while, the rain stopped, so we wandered a bit. Then Beth and Lolly popped into one hall to hear a band that Beth knew and I went off to get more food and beer. Then the clouds opened up again and I got so wet that I could have jumped in the river to dry off. But on the plus side, the beer line got real short so I loaded up my cargo pants pockets with cans of beer and I was happy for a while.
I listened to a brass band for a while, out in the rain, because...well hell, I was already at my saturation point. Why not?

Back in the hall, a jazz band played, and an impromptu Second Line dance broke out.

It's all fun and games until someone breaks a hip.

And yeah, we joined in.


More wanderings...more music. And I had my beer.

It was more than a little muddy, but that didn't really seem to stop these folks.

All ages got into it.



A bit more wandering put us in Prime view of some Mardi Gras indians.

Some of these costumes can weigh over a hundred pounds and cost thousands of dollars to make--and they're all hand-made.

We wandered more. Drank more, got rained on a bit more...it was great.



Finally we wound up at the Acura stage to catch Susan Tedeschi and the Tedeschi Truck Band, who made a great finale for our day.

More mud.

The way to dress for Jazz Fest...See the Jazz Fest boots?

Although that was not a bad look either...little black dress, jazz boots, beer, and a hat that says "Keep calm and kill zombies".

Looking forward to next year already.