Voodoo Fest in New Orleans! Day Three!
Check out Noel and Rory’s reports from Day 1 and Day 2 of Voodoo Fest!
All Photography courtesy of the peerless and fearless Rory O’Neill.
The final day of the 2008 Voodoo Music Experience started out with Rory and I retrieving Sweet Leaf Tea (who generously donated their delicious beverages to the Noo Moon Stage’s backstage area, thanks y’all!) out of a coffin. Only in New Orleans would someone have the foresight to fill a coffin with ice, tea and beer, making thirsty music-folk open the lid of a coffin retrieve a cold one. ‘Six Feet Under’ might be my favorite television series, but even I’m weirded.
We also took in the bizarre-ness known as the fest’s only hearse, trimmed with the finest in tacky plastic accoutrements.
The first set of our day is Ozomatli with Chali2na from Jurassic 5. Rory and I have seen their live shows multiple times over the years, and it fits like a broken-in pair of jeans; always a good pick, if not always your favorite thing to wear (sorry for the clothing analogy, I AM a girl, you know…). If you’ve somehow missed them over the last fifteen or so years they’ve been on the road, by all means, go to a show.
I had a deep, very non-geek-like conversation with Asdru Sierra, vocalist and trumpeter, after the set, which I will be sharing with y’all soon.
After Ozomatli finished up, we checked out local New Orleanians, Hands of Nero, who served up some rock and roll straight up and got us pumped for our afternoon. New Orleans may be known for its jazz, but it can bring the rock. Check these guys out!
Find Of The Day: ManWitch!
What do you get when you take four strong New Orleans women, who have families and real-person day jobs, but love to rock out on the side? You get ManWitch. “A sandwich may be a sandwich, but a ManWitch is a motherf***in’ meal” to quote their press bio. Their debut album is in the works, but you can check them out at www.myspace.com/manwitch (and add them!) to curb your appetite until then. I’ll be sure to let the Geekscapists know when you can beat to the meat in album form. I chatted with Rachelle, Sue and Laurie after the set, and that will be posted soon!
Festival-goers pulled out all of the stops the last day. Here are some of our favorite costumes:
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings brought the noise, brought the funk, and brought random festy-girls out onstage to dance. They also flew on my JetBlue flight back to New York City today, so I was thrilled to tell Sharon that she killed it, as well as compliment her Barack-Obama-head dangly earrings.
If all you know about the Dap-Kings is that they sometimes pull double-duty as Amy Winehouse’s band, then get yourself to a record store (if yours still exists, mine closed, so I now go to Best Buy…) and purchase. Then, keep your ear to the ground for a show near you. Put on your dancing shoes and Sunday best. And GO. Trust me.
Between Grace Potter, Marva Wright, Joss Stone and Sharon Jones, this festival had some serious soul. Maybe the now ten-years defunct Lilith Fair will emerge a la Lollapalooza, as a festival and these fierce birds will take flight? (Are you listening, Sarah McLachlan? If you build it, they will come.)
We ended our day with R.E.M. Stipe and company treated us to the new and the angry, a.k.a. tracks off of new disc, ‘Accelerate.’ We also (surprise surprise) were treated to the proclamations, “We hate the Bush administration.” And “We also really hated the Reagan administration, too.”
They ended their show on a positive high, with ‘Man on the Moon.’
And so did we.
Solid performances, thought-provoking interviews, killer photos and crazy levels of fan-dom. Suffice it to say, it was a great weekend in New Orleans. I can’t wait to do it again.
Thanks for checking out our coverage of VoodooFest! Until next festival season…
