Voodoo Fest in New Orleans! Day Two!

If you missed it, check out Noel and Rory’s report from Day 1 of Voodoo Fest!

All Photography courtesy of the incredible Rory O’Neill.

Day two of the 2008 Voodoo Music Experience started with my alarm’s inability to go off.  Regardless, we were woken up at the very non-rock-an-roll hour of 9:33am in time to hustle frantically to prepare for a very full and festy day.

We hurried from press parking to the WWOZ/Southern Comfort stage to catch Drew Smith’s Lonely Choir’s 11am first-set-of-the-day set.  It was worth every ounce of not sleeping in to experience.

This is the best band you’ve probably never heard.  I mean that with all of the love in the world, because every band starts out with only a handful of listeners outside of their hometown.  I have to say, in my multiple occasions over the last few years at large-scale music festivals, there are very few occasions when I see something that blows me away before I’ve even had my morning (or afternoon…) coffee.  Drew Smith gives me hope that good music, regardless of the label of ‘pop’ or ‘rock’ or ‘alternative’ exists in the twenty-first century.  He put together a group of some of Austin’s finest musicians, hours of work, and dollars out-of-pocket, and released an album that not only is a work of art to view, but a work of art to experience in a stereo or in headphones.  Drew and I share a love of Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman (which we uber-geeked out to at the conclusion of our interview (coming soon! -Ed.)) and that influence is apparent in his songs, the obvious title, “Nilsson Sings Newman,” and “Are You Lonely?” as well.  I just can’t stress enough how much you need to buy his record, and keep the name, Drew Smith’s Lonely Choir in your periphery.  The record is available on iTunes, but I recommend for those of you who cherish every last liner note like I do, to contact Austin’s Fat Caddy Records to purchase a copy.

After the set, Drew, Lonely Choir’s keys-master and arranger, Matt Russell, Rory and I headed over to the quiet oasis known as the Miller tent, to enjoy Miller High Life and do an interview on one of their cozy couches.

We headed over to the Fuse TV tent to claim the iPod’s we won yesterday in music trivia!!!  Fuse TV is re-capping VoodooFest on Monday, October 27th at 8pm/7pm central if you’d like to tune in.

After beer and jambalaya for breakfast, Rory and I decided on a double scoop from the New Orleans Ice Cream Company.  It was delicious, as was the name of the dark chocolate ice cream with chunks of white chocolate; the Chocolate City.  Take that as you will.  We spotted this cute couple in line for ice cream as we were leaving:

Part of the fun of having time to amble around aimlessly in an enormous crowd at a music festival is to people-watch.  Here are some of our favorites from Saturday:

Oh yeah, and Playstation is a Voodoo Music Experience sponsor!  I checked out their trailer filled with toys for all you hungry nerds.  The last video game I played was Super Mario Bros 3 on the original Nintendo gaming system, so I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

We’re learning that Preservation Hall’s tent is always a good bet for New Orleans flavor and for a break from the rock and roll national touring acts.  We caught the Treme Brass Band.  Laissez les bons temps rouler.

We then went to meet the very talented and kind Eric Hilton and Rob Garza, better known as Thievery Corporation.  It’s very hard to define what they are… because they are everything.  The ultimate do-it-yourself guys, they started a company with pressing vinyl ages before every Tom, Dick or Harry started an indie label.  It isn’t really about categorization; I do not know how to begin to specifically label the kind of music they play.  They combine flavors of music from all over the world, from many different languages, from many different instruments, all executed by many different guests.  It is an unparalleled live show and recording that will get you dancing, or zen-ing out in a corner, contemplating why every other “electronic artist” (haha, there’s that pesky label creeping in again!) isn’t as cool as what these guys consistently mastermind.  I asked Eric and Rob what they would like us Geekscapists to know about their new record, “Radio Retaliation,” and their answer was so complexly simple:  “There’s nothing really to say then just to listen to the music.  It’s a Thievery record.  We wrote the songs, we played the music.  I think we’re really proud of it; it’s our first record in almost four years and the guests on it are great, people like Seu Jorge, who was in The Life Aquatic, Anoushka Shankar, Fela Kuti and Chuck Brown.”  If that isn’t an honest-to-God invitation to experience something unique, then I don’t know what is.

Speaking of unique, here’s what Rory and her lens captured during their electrifying set:

Day two was awesome.  We’re ready to rest up and rock the final day of the Tenth Ritual.  More to come!

Read on for Day 3 of Voodoo Fest!