Magazine Street Blues Festival this weekend

I went to this Uptown festival last year and it was really nice.

My friend K and I are trying to not take New Orleans’ fantastic music scene quite so for granted. I don’t have the stamina I once did to go out late to see music, especially not on a work night. We took advantage of Tipitina’s Free Fridays a couple of weeks ago and saw a great show with Soul Rebels and DJ Soul Sister. Even though the place was packed, we scored a great spot upstairs. Last night, we ventured to d.b.a. It’s been a while since I’ve hung out on Frenchmen Street. It was hopping last night. I was pretty surprised for such a crowd on a night in July, but what do I know?

Lost Bayou Ramblers were playing. A great young Cajun band out of the Lafayette area (a.k.a. “Cajun Country”). K and I had the pleasure of discovering these guys at the Creole Tomato/Cajun Zydeco/Seafood Festival back in June. It was a blistering hot Saturday afternoon. We walked around for a while, had lunch but it was just too hot, so we parked ourselves in Café Angeli and had some cocktails. Once we had cooled down and had a nice buzz we wandered back to the music stage to catch the end of Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots set. After Sunpie, the Ramblers came on.

About half way through their set, the power went out. This did not deter them in the least. The bassist unplugged himself and jumped off the stage into the crowd. The rest of the guys followed suit with the drummer grabbing his snare from his drum kit.

They moved over to stand on some steps near by and the crowd followed them, clapping keeping time. Sunpie had been dancing in the crowd when this all happened. He rushed off to grab his accordion and joined in. I don't know if the techs got the power back on, but nobody cared. It was one of those magical musical moments.

Festival Double Header

Last Saturday we squeezed two festivals into one day. We needed our Sunday to do the mundane weekend chores.

First was the Greek Fest. Held every year at the first Greek Orthodox Church to be established in America back in 1866. It’s on Bayou St. John near the lake. The day started out gray with rain in the forecast, so we didn’t bother with hats and sunscreen and packed ponchos instead. An hour later it was full on sun. Oops.





We spent a few hours consuming a smorgasbord of Greek delicacies, a bottle of retsina wine (tastes like drinking water from a Christmas tree stand, but in a good way), browsing the market place, chatting with friends and taking in the music and Hellenic dancers. It had been a number of years since we had been (it’s usually beastly hot, which isn’t fun) and it has grown considerably in size; they apparently bought more land, probably after Katrina. Opa!

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We then went to the other end of Bayou St. John for Bayou Boogaloo, a festival of local music, crafts and food vendors.


Floating in the bayou seemed to be the place to be. Shade was limited and what shade there was, people crammed in under.






The music was great – we were too full to eat anything else – checked out the crafts and bumped into more friends. We only stayed a few hours because it was really getting hot.

I love April in New Orleans. The weather, while very unpredictable, can be spectacular. Today, after several stormy days this week, is gorgeous. I remembered to put on sunscreen (unlike Mardi Gras) and put on a floppy hat. After voting and walking to Harry's Ace for a few things, we stopped by Cafe Atchafalaya for a crawfish boil. Lordy be, this was some of the best crawfish I've had in a while. Very flavorful, hot and spicy. They had a trio playing tunes while we stood outside, sucking heads, pinching tails, drinking beer and chatting with neighbors from the 'hood.

After our fill, we headed over to the Freret Street Festival. It's a shame I was so full of crawfish because there was some good smelling food there. It was very crowded. I was looking for a jewelry maker who is usually at the Freret Market. It took us our third time down the street for me to see her. I bought her shotgun house necklace. Love it!

(P.S. I can't remember if I said this before but a friend of ours bought Cafe Atchafalaya back in January and has changed up some things for the better. Open on Mondays. Check it out!)

Notice anything different? It was time for a blog makeover. I wanted something more New Orleans-esque and found this great map of the crescent city from 1880 - it's a map of the city's cemeteries and I love me a good cemetery. "Annunciation" (lowercase a) is the act of announcing which is what a blog is all about. Plus we live on Annunciation St. so it works on that level too. Hmmm... now I wonder how the street got it's name. There aren't many churches on it. That will have to wait. It's time to slather on sunscreen and head down to da Quarters for FQ fest.

This is the first Saturday of the month and that means it's time for the Freret Market. This weekend, it's being held in conjunction with the Freret Street Festival. Last year, the Fest was in June and it was too darn hot. The market is going to have over 150 vendors and pet adoptions and the Fest will have two music stages plus a children's stage. Some good music this year too:

Jo “Cool” Davis; Jazz in the Afternoon with Troi Bechet, Pearlie Tyler, Sharon Martin, Leah Chase, Gregory Thompson, Philip Manual; Sunpie & The Louisiana Sunspots; Johnny Sketch & The Dirty Notes; Kermit Ruffins & The Barbecue Swingers; Egg Yolk Jubilee Music Band; Fredy Omar con su Banda; Soul Rebels; Gringo Do Choro; Walter “Wolfman” Washington & the Roadmasters; Terrance Simien

See y'all out there!

Freret Fest web site
Freret Market Web site

Good Grief! How can it be November already? Time changes always mess me up and I still feel out of sync. Nothing really exciting to report, and weekend football watching seems to have sucked up a good bit of my time (Go 'Noles/Wave/Tigers/Saints!). Instead, here's some upcoming things to note:

1) Tomorrow night is Women & Wine on Wednesday, come by Zoe at the W hotel.
2) If you live here, go VOTE this Saturday.
3) Sunday is the first
New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival
November 18, 12 noon - 6:00pm

Oak Street at South Carrollton
There's gonna be po-boys and music and po-boys and beer and po-boys and awrt....