Update Jazzfest Day One

24 is over, so now I'll try to update some more posts.

I didn't get to bed till about three Thursday night. I had to meet Larry, the friend I was going to Jazzfest with, at the store for seven in the morning. I woke up without too much trouble, but had to hurry to get everything together. I was bringing my camera to get some pictures. I was also bringing my backpack to carry things, like suntan lotion, the jazzfest bible from Offbeat, and some other odds and ends. I checked my supply of film, I thought I had about a dozen rolls, but found I only had four rolls of film left. I don't like to have that few, I'm always afraid I'll run out when I need some the most. No food or drink, they weren't allowed in, they wanted you to buy them at the Fest. I got everything, thinking to myself, did I have everything and telling myself yes I did. I headed to the store to meet Larry.

Just as I got to the exit for the store I realized I was missing one thing. My ticket. I was there about ten minutes early, but figured it was easier to go to the store, Larry is one person that is even earlier than me. I got there and Larry was already waiting for me. I tell him I need to go in the store, where I write a check for $25.00 so I'll have some cash, the food booths at the Fest don't take credit. And I also get four more rolls of film. It's nice to be able to get this before the store opens, but since I work there it's easy.

It's a good thing that my house is on the way to where we need to go. We make a quick stop so I can grab my ticket and head out for the trip across the lake. We do a drive through McDonald's so we can get something to eat on the way.

The trip went quick. Larry has been going to Jazzfest for years. When he lived out of state he used to come here just for Jazzfest. I haven't been in over fifteen years. He has a parking spot that is close to the site, but on the street so we don't have to pay. Offical parking site at the fest is $35.00 a day. The Fest last seven days, that would add up quickly.

We get there and get our chairs and backpacks out of his car. We walk past what he says is his ususal spot to enter, he says since we're going to the Sprint stage we should enter the main entrance, it's closer.

It's 8:30 when we get there. The Fest doesn't open its gates till 11:00. So we were a little early. Larry said sometimes they'll open at 10:30, but that was still kind of early. And we weren't even the first people there. It was cool though, we set up our chairs (those collapsable chairs are great) and enjoyed the beautiful morning. The weather was great. As we waited more and more people started to show up. A cab pulled up and let this older black man out, turns out he was blind. He made his way over to stand next to a street lamp and pulled a clarient out and started playing. So we even had music.

By ten the line was starting to get long and by the time it was ready to open the line stretched farther down the street than I could see.

They didn't open the gates until exactly 11:00. While we were waiting, about 10:30 a newswoman from channel 26 and her cameraman came up. They yelled at some cameraman that on the other side of the gate. Evidently they would't let them in yet. Than a crew showed up from channel four too, they couldn't get in either. Listening to these news people complain just made them out to be jerks. The channel 26 cameraman was complaining, telling the channel four guy who must have been new to the Jazzfest, that they couldn't even get on stage to film, "cause of the artists" he said, or should I say sneered it. God forbid that the artist didn't want a cameraman on his stage. I could understand if this was news, than they should have the right to go for it, but this was just entertainment, I say if an artist doesn't want a newsman in his face while he's trying to make music, than that's his right.

Once they open the gate they have tables set up where we have to open all our backpacks and even our chairs to make sure we're not trying to sneak anything in. Even though Larry had told me that the allow cameras in I was a little paranoid about it. It was in the backpack, so if they said no I would just bring it back to the car. But they didn't blink at it. I'm so used to the no camera rule at concerts I guess. Than from the tables we had to go line up and wait till they took our tickets and let us in. At first they weren't going to let us keep our ticket stubs, they took the whole ticket, scanned it and threw it in a box. Now other concerts I've went to that scanned the tickets let me keep the whole ticket. Larry asked about it and they gave us "souveinor tickets" which were tickets with part tore off, like they used to do. Which is good, I wanted to keep my ticket.

Once we were in Larry was off. I was wondering what the rush was. We were among the first in, the place was big, the Fest is held at the Race Tracks. But I followed behind him, he was the pro I was just a rookie.

By the time we got to the Sprint stage there were already quite a few people laying their blankets and tarps down, putting their chairs up, as close to the stage as possible. We managed to get our chairs set up right behind the barricade to the left of the stage. They put the metal police barricades up about ten feet from the stage, creating an empty space between the front of the crowd and the stage, which I found out later was used for the photographers and vip guests to watch the acts.

It was strange, but if you laid your blanket or tarp or chairs down people would respect this as your spot, at least until the final act or two Larry said. Than it would get so crowded if you weren't at your spot someone might take it. I was kind of nervous about that, when we left our chairs and went walking I was afraid we'd come back and either find the chairs gone or pushed to the back and someone in our spot. But to spare you the suspense we didn't. The chairs were there when we got back.

We put the chairs up and sat down to watch some of the first band. It was a group called Liquidrone, their bio said they made music out of all sorts of noise, sirens, bells, whistles, anything. They turned their show into a mini thearte. They had mimes and all sorts of things going on. They actually weren't bad, I wasn't expecting much from what I read about them to be honest. But we figured this was when we needed to do any walking we wanted to, the rest of the acts for the day were ones we wanted to see.

Larry took me on a tour of the site. Virgin had a huge tent set up with probably cds from every act at the Fest. There was a book booth set up too. And tons and tons of food booths. We headed over to the booth to get the offical posters. They sell only a limited number of posters and number them all. There were already lines for the posters. The posters cost $65.oo. I've got posters from the three previous Jazzfests I've been to, so I figured I had to get one from this one.

After getting our posters we decided to get some food and head back to our spot. I ended up getting fried chicken, yeah I could have gotten alligator or oen of a bunch of other unusal choices, but I'm not that much of an adventurer when it comes to food.

So we get back to our spot and our chairs are still there. We settle in, eating our food. They were setting up the next act on the stage. It's amazing that they can change and set up the stages between acts in twenty minutes at Jazzfest but at a concert it takes like forever.

The first act up was Susan Cowsill. For anyone that doesn't know who she is, she was a member of the Cowsills back in the sixties. They were the real Partidrige Family, they were a family that traveled around making music. More recently she was in one of my favorite bands, the Contintental Drifters, a group that was no more. She had just released a new cd, actually her debut solo cd. She was 45 and had been in the music business since was a kid and this was her first solo cd.

I was surprised by how much I liked her act. I don't know why, she sings lead and wrote a lot of the Drifters material. She sings sort of a folk rock type of music. She put on a really good show. She said she was told not to talk too much, they have a very limited set and they keep everyone on time, but she said that was going to be impossible, so she sprinkled her set with a lot of her talking. But it was all very entertaining. For her next to last song she brought out her kids, two girls and a very young boy. The oldest girl was 11, she wasn't her biological child, she was Peter Hosapple's girl, Susan was married to Peter at one point, but evidently she thought of her as her daughter. Peter even came out and played mandolin on one of her songs. The girls sang backup on the song and than Susan said she was suppsed to get off but she was going to do one more song. She launched into the Pretenders' Back on the Chain Gang. The girls moved back a little and started dancing. The older of the two was a real ham, just having a great time on stage.

After Susan Cowsill came CC Adcock. He was someone I wasn't familar with, but Larry said was really good. He played swamp rock. The weather was still wonderful. The sun was out with a nice breeze blowing. It wasn't too hot, you couldn't order more perfect weather. Adcock was good too.

Next up was Sonny Landreth, who I did know. Sonny comes from Lafayette, about two hours from New Orleans. He plays with John Hiatt as part of the Goners. He also puts out his own material. He plays slide guitar and is amazing. Just watching him play is amazing. It was just getting better and better.

Next up was Cowboy Mouth. Now if you've never seen Cowboy Mouth you're missing an experience. Fred LeBlanc, the lead singer and drummer of the Mouth, is full of energy and he doesn't let it idle. He is constantly telling the auidence to scream, yell, jump, bounce, anything. By the time their set is over you've exhausted. During one song they brought out George Porter from the Meters to play guitar and John Batiste to sing. They did two new songs, from a upcoming new cd, either the end of this year or next he said. The new songs were good. One was called Joe Strummer, about the former Clash singer.

The last show was Wilco. I got to see them twice! They started their set out with The Late Greats, one of the last songs they did the previous night. They did most of the same material, but mixed it up from the order of the night before. The did do two of their Woody Guthrie songs. One of them was Nora Lee, one of my favorite songs. While singing the song, he moved over to John Stirrat and the spoke and he laughed. After the song he said he was goind to admit something entertainers weren't supposed to admit, he forgot the second verse, so he just sang the third versed twice. He asked the auidence if anyone knew what the second verse was, but no one answered. He laughed and asked if anyone out there knew any Wilco songs.

Before the show started a man and his son pushed their way up to the front of the crowd, right behind me. The father asked if I minded if his son stood up next to the barricades. The kid had a Wilco shirt on. His father said last night's show was his son's first concert. The kid was around 10. I told him it was no problem. It was fun watching how much the kid was enjoying the show. His favorite song was Spiders and after every song he would say he hoped they would play it. They did play it before the show was over. It was another great show.

During the show I looked back and the crowd was huge. The entire area was packed with people.

After Wilco ended we packed up and headed out. I haven't heard figures yet, but they had to have had a good crowd for the day. There were people everywhere. We made it back to the car and managed to get out of the city without too much trouble. The only downside to the whole day was that the top of my legs and knees and arms got sunburned. But it was a small price to pay.