As I sit on the bus back to Mobile, I can't help but to think of JazzFest as being one of my best adventures. First of all, It took me and my friend, Tyler, three attempts to even get to the city of New Orleans that Saturday. Second, It was my first ever music festival.
As we entered the fairgrounds on Sunday afternoon, the atmosphere was amazing. The First place we went to was the Gospel tent, a whole tent dedicated to Gospel music. Immediately from there we went straight to the Acura Stage where we would be for the remainder of the festival. The first band we watched was The New Orleans Suspects. I had never heard them before but the sound they produced was absolutely amazing. They played really good funk music that screamed New Orleans.
The Second band we saw at the Acura stage was Better Than Ezra. I'm not going to lie, before the festival, I hated big time on Better Than Ezra. I'm the first to admit that I was wrong. Their performance was awesome and they knew how to work the crowd. Maybe they knew how to work the crowd because they are from New Orleans, maybe it's because they had fun with it, or maybe it was because they brought out kids from an elementary school they adopted to help them at one point. Whatever it is, it was awesome and I really regret hating on them. In fact, I really enjoyed their music and have found myself listening to some of their stuff post-JazzFest.
The third band we saw at the Acura stage was The Voices of The Wetland All-Stars. This was a super band consisting of members from different bands from the local area. The purpose of their band is to bring awareness to issues of the Gulf Coast. Their performance was really cool. They played funk songs like "Ain't no funk like Louisiana funk." I thought that it was awesome that they came together to play for a cause as a super band.
The fourth and final show of the day was, of course, the headliner, the band we were willing to stand on our feet for an entire day to see, The Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Chili Peppers was the best performance I have seen in my life. They played some of their hits including "Dani California," "Scar Tissue," "Snow (Hey Oh)," "Californication," "Aeroplane," "By The Way" and many more. But absolutely nothing was better than the closing Jam they did with The Meters. They ended the jam and the show with "Give It Away." The biggest complaint of the crowd was that first of the show ended about 15 minutes early and that they didn't play "Apache Rose Peacock," the song written for and typically played at New Orleans shows.
JazzFest was an awesome experience and I hope to attend another music festival in New Orleans sometime within my lifetime. The atmosphere was awesome, the weather was awesome, and the music was awesome. It was all amazing.
