Just to add to Ms. Fensterstock’s assessment of the Happy Talk Band show at the Bingo Tent, it was one of the better shows I’ve seen. Everyone looked exhausted, drunk, crazed, or some combination thereof. Several musicians’ bags under their eyes had bags under their eyes. Yet they powered through singer/songwriter Luke Allen’s songs with a desperate intensity most befitting of the subjects of said songs. At a certain point I looked at guitarist Alex McMurray who had one of those looks on his faces and said to fellow OZ programmer the Boudin Cowboy, “Look out for McMurray. He’s either going to do the most amazing solo or bash some dude with his guitar.” Lo and behold McMurray 10 minutes later played his guitar with a ferocity of someone smashing the skulls of his worst enemy. And then there were the shirtless bearded guys in front wearing masks on the back of their heads drinking tall boy cans of Heineken dancing and singing to every word. Happy Talk Band groupies! Like most things in the Bingo Tent, it was in technicolor and then when you walked to the other stages they were in black and white. The whole show reminded me of the Royal Fingerbowl Jazzfest sets in the late 90s/early 00s when they started at 11:15 AM on the Sprint Stage and hadn’t slept the night before and you never knew what was going to happen. As the poem I am going to write about this set will go:

Confusion almost reigns
Nobody’s slept
Nobody’s sober
It’s 12:45 PM and
the fun
is just beginning

Parades at Voodoo took on a very local vibe. Here are Social Aid & Pleasure Club members, a brass band, the Noisician Coalition and other groups getting ready to march around the Voodoo grounds on Saturday. — Bryan Davis

In front of a packed audience at Voodoo, Lil Wayne said,

“I’ve got 3 things to say. One, I believe in God? Do you?”

Crowd goes wild.

“Second: This is all about you. I’m nothing without you, my fans. So give it up for yourselves.”

Crowd goes crazy.

“Third, I’m registered to vote!”

Crowd goes beserk.

“Now, for this next song, all you over here (gestures right) say ‘Fuck bitches!.’ All you over here say, ‘Get money!’”

Crowd starts repeating chant except for me who has fallen over laughing.

Ah New Orleans the sacred and the profane.

Just spoke to Zack Smith behind the Preservation Hall tent. Smith, the drummer for Rotary Downs and one of the city’s best photographers, graciously took time out of his ridiculous weekend schedule — which included four shows in three nights as well as full days shooting at Voodoo — to shout with Gambit over the nearby phalanx of horns about his concurrent projects and his upcoming 40 Under 40 selection. Read the rest of this entry »

WWOZ was raffling off this cherry-red Vespa scooter signed by several Voodoo artists, including Kermit Ruffins, Rev. Horton Heat, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and James Andrews. Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint signed. Not sure if it’s visible in the photo, but apparently, so did Buddy Bolden. 

I walked through the Preservation Hall tent and sat for a minute to check out the PHJB - with Hall director Ben Jaffe playing tuba, which I think is fairly rare for in-town shows - and had a complete loss of awareness of my surroundings as the band led a brief second line during “St. Louis Blues.” I really had a whole thirty seconds or so that I thought I was at Jazz Fest. Maybe too much Voodoo for me. 

Not sure if it’s visible in this lame cell-phone picture, but the nonagenarian singer of the Blind Boys of Alabama, Jimmy Carter, is being gently steered around the stage (Carter is one of the only remaining members of the original five, who met at a school for the blind) by a handler whose job it seems to be to point Carter in the right direction, so he can rock the crowd - which he does. 

The ladies of Fleur De Tease burlesque wait in the wings (or whatever) to go onstage with the New Orleans Bingo! Show. 

Alex McMurray led the Tin Men and his oddly popular Valparaiso men’s chorus through a rousing set of sea shanties that was possibly the most high-energy of any set at the Bingo! Parlour all weekend. (Funny, how he can deliver a line like “Boston, the land of the bean and the cod” with such sweaty conviction.) This iteration of the choir included Bad Off frontman Erik Corriveaux, klezmer wizard Jonathan Freilich, Happy Talk Band leader Luke Allen, actor Chris Lane in white tie and tails and Gambit contributor David Kunian. 

  Maybe there is something ageless about R.E.M. The band closed Voodoo working through some of its best known work, even from its first album Murmur and still sounded great. Its video enhancements were the best that I saw during the festival. But it was great to hear many of the early hits live and hear that the band still had the same enthusiasm for them, even if it was quite obvious visually that this isn’t the same alternative band that came out of Athens, Ga., in the ’80s.