Jeff & I walked down to the Sound Cafe to pick up some Upper Nine Doughnuts for breakfast. We passed the Balcony Guest House on the way. We were going to stay here but it was booked. We ended up renting a beautiful house only a block away which is where we enjoyed our doughnuts on the front porch. It's another perfect weather day as we head to the French Quarter.
Our first stop was at the Old U.S. Mint, we watched the crawfish eating contest for a few minutes...
...but we came for the music so here is the Onward Brass Band.
Some great seats across the street from the Popeye's Brass Band Stage.
Steve Pistorius & the Southern Syncopators on the Traditional Jazz Stage in the French Market.
Lots of good seats in the "200" and "300" Levels
This busker needed money for guitar strings. We donated to this good cause.
We caught the end of Lynn Drury's set..
...and the beginning of Russell Batiste & Friends who were introduced by the Landry-Walker High School Drummers.
Russell also brought out the Wild Tchoupitoulas...
...and Jason Neville.
Chrissy & Jeff relaxing at the Big River Stage.
Local favorites, the Dixie Cups drew a big crowd and they sounded great.
I agree.
The All For One Brass Band were entertaining a huge crowd on Decatur Street.
There are always great t-shirts at music festivals. I wanted the shirt that has the French Quarter Festival motto, "I want to live in a music festival forever" but it was sold out.
Egg Yolk Jubilee
Chrissy looks good wearing my hat, too bad she hates wearing hats.
Renard Poche Band
Rusty Metoyer and the Zydeco Krush
During the FQF, every morning I would read about the bands playing that day. A band called The Scorseses caught my attention today..."a ska/punk band". I added them to my list of bands to check out. I'll admit that five straight days of drinking, music and staying out late was catching up with me today. That is why the next story still makes me smile. We headed over to the Voodoo Lounge Stage at the House of Blues to see The Scorseses....
....five beers and an hour and a half later...we are all wide awake, having a great time singing and dancing to this fantastic young band. This is why I love good music, it can be so powerful for many different situations.
They also had an artist painting the band as they played.
They mixed their original songs with several 70's rock classics by Chicago, Boston and Billy Joel which they played as ska punk songs. They had everyone singing and bouncing to every song. I've said this about most New Orleans bands...showmanship is incredible. I think the kids that grow up here see so many great performers that it comes naturally to them when they start a band.
The band had really young fans and this lil' guy was trying to impress this girl with his air guitar technique...now you know how come so many musicians come from New Orleans. When they played the Sublime song "Date Rape", the singer made the song suitable to the all ages show by editing out a few words throughout the song. It still was a great cover song.
With the sun setting on another beautiful day, we headed down to the Big River stage to see Big Chief Bo Dollis Jr. & the Wild Magnolias.
While we enjoyed a 12-Hour Roast Beef Po-Boy with Horseradish Cream and Pickled Red Onions with an Abita Amber, these two were preparing for a career in music with the Wild Magnolias as their teachers. They'll probably be on this stage in a few years.
Good food, lots of sunshine and alcohol, great music, a cool breeze off the Mississippi River and getting to hang out with my brother Jeff all day...what could make this day any better...
...BEIGNETS.
But wait, the line for a seat is 50 people deep, the carry out line is just as long...what could we do...make an offer to a waitress standing around that we will make it well worth her while to get us a bag full of those delicious powder sugar covered pieces of deep fried dough...three minutes later we are walking down the street with a bag of fresh, hot beignets. When I opened the bag it looked like I was carrying a kilo of cocaine, I had to dig through the powered sugar to pull out a couple of beignets. Since Jeff & I were pretty much hammered or as Christy put it "shit faced", we ate them with no concern for the amount of powdered sugar coating our faces as we walked back to the house...
...the laughter continued all the way back to the house. This reaction was to Chrissy giving us the details of our drunken walk through New Orleans. I guess some people were laughing at our inane alcohol fueled banter or maybe it was our powdered sugar covered faces. This was a fun day spent with my brother...something we have rarely done since I moved away 30 years ago. Thanks Jeff for deciding to hang out with us today, it meant a lot to me.
