It was such a pleasant surprise to see soooo many people out on Thursday’s addition to the French Quarter Festival. It’s such a hip festival with a great vibe and free music flowing all over the French Quarter, oh, and lots of foods booths that any foodie would drool over (I had a duck poboy from Crabby Jack’s booth, it was a sloppy one…..mmmmmmnn). We played on the Abita Beer Stage, they didn’t give us any Abita to drink, WTF, we still had a blast, literally. Massive crowds, great food, music in the flow and superb weather pumps you up to PLAY some good music. Almost every musician that plays during these 4 days feels the same excitement in some form or fashion. There’s a lot of really good music around here this weekend.
Here’s a few shots from our friend Laura Bergerol (check out the rest of her photos from FQF here):
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- Bones: Stage Right
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- Bones: Stage Left
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- Great crowd!
I’ve played FQF since the first one in 1984 (though Mark and I did miss a couple when were were on the road with Harry) and it has grown from a grass roots, get the local people who never come to the Quarter much, to get back down town and enjoy this music and food. Our culture. It’s truly a world class festival now and they still not only focus on N.O. music, but expanded to include other great Louisiana music; cajun, zydeco. There’s even a Latin stage. Stages are all over the Quarter and on the river so you wake everywhere. The French Quarter is one of the most amazing neighborhoods in the world. It was the whole city at one point, “back in the day.” Also there are lots of musicians from Europe and Japan, lots, visiting and playing every where, and we like that. Most of them focus on traditional N.O. jazz, which is the music the festival started out with, but love all the music because it’s really good here and we are blessed.
Come check it out. It’s real New Orleans.
One hot set that had Brian Coogan on organ, Jason Jurzak on bass and Eric Bolivar on drums. They were smoking and Bert was the icing on the cake or the ice in the Jack Daniels, or whatever. -ck
One Set:
By Athenish
Hard Times
I Got Loaded
Funky Brown Shorts
Close The Door
Down By The Riverside
I Don’t Wanna Play Guitar
Whipping Post
Indian Red
Folly
