Its been a long 5 days now, so I can say I've definitely had time to process my Jazz Fest experience from this past Sunday. Hot, breezy, chock full o' people, mangotastic, music filled--overall a great time. Let me give you the rundown:
HOT!
It was really hot. With lots of people around you. All the time. Hot enough to where I didn't really even feel like drinking. A four dollar Miller Lite (does anyone else feel like that is the worst domestic beer of all time? Above and beyond anything else I feel like it has the worst taste...Busch kills it) just does not seem worth it when you can buy a $2.50 bottle of water and hopefully rehydrate. I'm pretty sure I drank four that day, and they all were hot within 5 min of purchase, bu worth it. I know, I know--I live in New Orleans, this climate is the one I chose, I should be used to it by now, blahbidy, blah--but regardless of your conditioning, when its hot, its hot, annd it was on Sunday. Thankfully it was occasionally...
BREEZY!
There was a really nice breeze happening, especially later in the day. I know this doesn't sound like the most interesting thing to talk about (its not, that comes later), but when its that hot, and you're surrounded by thousands of people, and The Dan is playing, a nice cooling breeze really makes the day seem perfect.
CHOCK FULL O' PEOPLE
There were TONS of people at the Fest on Sunday. I've been a few times over the years, but I've never seen the Fairgrounds this packed. Maybe it was the day, maybe it was me, but apparently they matched the record from 2004 of 375,000 people overall.
MANGOTASTIC!
A lot of times you hear that at Jazz Fest the music is good, but the food is great. There are many, many food vendors there, and plenty of interesting items that people rave about all year (see: crawfish bread, crawfish puff pastry, crawfish monica, crawfish boat((!)), crawfish poboys, many other crawfish variations, fried chicken, fried catfish, other poboys, jambalaya, etc.), but I'm just not that into it. I do live in this city and can get those things most of the time at restaurants for a cheaper price, so I'm probably biased, but even so, I also just don't think the food is that good. BUT...there is something there called a mango freeze that is perfect for the Festival day: mango, sugar, ice--its like sorbet but sweeter. I had one. I could of had five.
(On a side note: At Jazz Fest, those foods that I mentioned, as many of you already know, are only in ONE SPOT AT THE FAIRGROUNDS. The Fairgrounds are pretty big, and its hard to see the signs that show what each vendor is selling, and the food is only in two specific areas, so basically, if you see someone walk by with something that looks delicious to you, the best thing to do is to ask them where they got it. This happened to me about 5 times with the mango freeze.)
All of this is of course a side note when compared to...
MUSIC FILLED!
I saw Steely Dan. Live. Performing songs that I've been singing along to or playing along to or live for the past ten years. "Peg", "Bodhisattva", "Josie", "Monkey On Your Soul" (with Becker singing!), "Bad Sneakers", "Hey Nineteen". It was really hard to not smile while watching that band with my good friends around me (we've all been listening to the Dan together for years), and it was just an amazing experience. One of my best moments of the day. The other was watching my good friend Khari Lee play earlier in the day on a stage at Jazz Fest with the Louis Armstrong Quintet, and realizing how captivating he is to an audience. Its nice to have him down here, and wonderful to see him take the New Orleans jazz scene by storm.
It was just a great day, capped off with beers, food, air conditioning, and people watching at a friends house thats right next to the Fairgrounds. Even with all the boohoo-ing of the Fest, I really did have a good time--I think I just needed a really good draw, and the Dan did not let us down.
