I've been lallygagging the shit out of writing this post but I started it this past weekend and I figured I'd get it out before it had gone the way of the AP Chemistry and European History.
I left off Friday night dancing to four nerdy white guys at the Bon Temps until sunrise...
Saturday I chose not to go to the festival, missing the Roots and Steel Pulse, a sacrifice I was willing to make in order to save up (and by save up I mean sleep until 5pm) for the big Saturday night -> Sunday push. I drank a few beers watching Under Siege waiting for those who made it to the fest to return. We then went to one of my favorite New Orleans eateries, Dick & Jenny's, and got in line for a table at around 8 o'clock. We then went around the corner and I had a few Gin and Tonics. When we finally got our table around 11:30pm, I was a little drunk, to say nothing of the rest of that party who had drinking steadily since noon. The food was obviously out of this world and dinner was otherwise fairly unremarkable, except for the part where we got free dessert for leading the dining room in a Journey sing along. It is fair to say I didn't stop believing how good my tempura soft shell crab in Thai curry sauce was.
From Dick & Jenny's we walked our full bellies to an even fuller Mae's where the majority of our party cabbed it home to cuddle/pass out. I however had tickets to the Greyboy Allstars back up the street at Tips. The Greyboys always play the last Saturday night of the Fest at Tips and they never start before 3am and it's always sold out. This year, having never been, I bought tickets a month ahead of time. Denson and Walter and the rest of the boy's funked us until about 6:30am at which point I collapsed into bed for a couple of hours and went back out to the fest.
On feet too numb to be sore we made the long walk to the fest for the last time of the year. Liuzza's is closed Sundays so there were no Bushwhackers to be had. In a daze I ate my last Cochon De Lait poboy of the fest and arrived at the Gentilly stage just in time to see Galactic and get the Inspector Gadget song stuck in my head the rest of the day. I ran into an old college classmate who was in town for the weekend and I was regretting not having seen up to that point. I used to do homework at this girl's house and then we'd sit around on the porch and drink beers afterwards. I probably did less than 25% of the homework that was assigned to me throughout my college career, and I'm positive I would've blown off those assignments as well if it wasn't for her. After Galactic we stayed to watch the Raconteurs who played a decent if commercially successful set. It was nice though, to see a rock show in between so much jazz/funk/blues/latin fusion. From there I circled back around the back of the main stage to at least be able to say I saw Santana, a move I immediately regretted when as soon as we cleared a sight line to the stage he promptly started playing my least favorite song of all time, by anyone, evar (Smooth, fucking hate that fucking song.) So anyways we picked up the pace and continued the circle around to the Blues Tent to close out the fest with the Derek Trucks Band.
It would be the third time I'd seen the Derek Trucks Band and I'm a huge fan (obviously huge enough to completely forgo the highly touted Neville Bros. closing the festival on the big stage.) We rolled up right as Keb Mo was finishing up and the aisles of the Blues Tent cleared out like the people could smell us walking in. We posted up front and center leaning on the railing that was in front of the stage. I patted myself on the back for the good luck and began worrying if there would be enough crowd soon enough that I could pee my pants without anyone noticing because there was no way I was leaving that spot. Five excruciating minutes later an usher told us that in the blues tent there is no standing room except at the very back. I jogged to a portapotty line that wasn't 8 deep and got some decent Zen considering the circumstances. After returning to th bak of the blues tent where luckily my krewe had staked out a pretty good spot in the merciful shade and saw what was probably one of the awesomest slide guitar performances in my life. Also, Derek has an sweet jazzflute player who I can't help but idolize. Derek's wife, Susan Tedeschi who's made a career out of opening for acts like B.B. King, Bob Dylan and Taj Mahal, also joined him on stage for a few songs which was nice as she can sing worlds better than he can. They finished up their set and went offstage and the MC appeared to try to tell the crowd to go home which enough did to allow us to move up fairly close to the stage to pound our hands together and scream for what seemed like 20 minutes before they came back on stage and tore off the best version of one of my top five favorite songs of all time I've ever heard.
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