posted by Ashalah on destinations, Life, united states

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It had been raining for several hours, torrential downpours that soaked you if you stood close enough to the tent opening where we had parked ourselves for the majority of the early afternoon while the thunder boomed around us. Yet there we were, among the crowd full of umbrellas and ponchos outside the Gentilly Stage, soaking wet and (accidentally) standing in a fire ant pile.

Do you know how much fun standing in a fire ant pile is? So much fun that my foot swelled all up and it STILL itches, 5 days later and has all these awesome red welts all over it. I forgot that the smallest ant on earth can cause such big damage.

It was Day One of Jazz Fest and I had been warned that it wouldn’t be Jazz Fest without a massive rain storm. I was told stories of flooded fields, people sitting in their camp chairs in several inches of water. But that no matter what, the show was always going to go on. When we arrived around noon on Friday we were thinking that Saturday was going to be our washout day, that the rain wouldn’t arrive til at least five that evening. As soon as we got halfway through the entrance, it started to sprinkle. When we reached the tent, the skies opened up and it was downpouring. Thunder was booming overhead as we sipped our Miller Lites (that were free thankyouverymuch!) and scarfing down bags of Zapp’s chips and M&Ms, a substitute for the food we were expecting to eat when we got there.

At one point, when the rain had eased up in just the slightest, we got sick of waiting in the tent, listening to the bass of a neighboring stage, and headed out into the mess. It took us a matter of seconds to get soaking wet, no thanks to our ponchos and umbrellas. The real problem was the flip flops. They splashed up the water from the puddles that you had to cross to get anywhere all over your back. And if you happened to be walking behind someone wearing flipflops? You were screwed. It wasn’t just water coming up and I got splashed IN THE FACE multiple times with mud. (by people I called FRIENDS no less!) For the first half hour we were out there, before the fire ant incident, Ana and I were laughing hysterically at how ridiculous we all looked, mud splattered up our legs, backs and fronts. At how wet we were all getting. My stomach hurt from all the laughing.

We eventually found ourselves at the food stands after seeing a band play and I had my first taste of crawfish–in something called Crawfish Bread that was AMAZING. It was cheesy and saucy and crawfishy goodness. Mmmm… Anyway, after a few more incidents of mud going up in my face (luckily completely missing the po’boy I was eating), we headed to the Acura stage to see…Lionel Richie.

Yep, that’s right. The man that makes women swoon just by singing Once…Twice…Three Times a Lady. And to think I had considered going to see the Black Crowes instead!

He sang, we danced, it rained, we got muddy, we had a great time. The two songs we were all looking forward to the most were Hello (only the most ridiculously creepy video EVER**) and All Night Long*** and he delivered both of them. And we danced some more and did some required dramatic singing.

Day two, which was supposed to feature even stronger storms and already had tornado warnings tacked all over it, was cloudy but not a drop of rain was to be seen the entire day. The storms we were supposed to get, passed north! We did have to deal with massive amounts of mud and I got mud all over me once again, but without the rain it wasn’t so bad. We started the day at the tent again, which always turned into a long process since Andy worked for the sponsor of the tent and knew everyone in there.

The first day I was unable to meet up with Heather and Jake, thanks to incredibly uncoordinated plans but this time we managed to snag Heather right outside the tent. Shortly after we got there and downed a beer or two, we headed over to the Acura stage to see Cowboy Mouth, a band I had first seen perform when I was 15 years old at a music festival in Atlanta. Such a fun show! He wasn’t the greatest singer but boy, he could entertain.

After Cowboy Mouth we devoured some more food and I was introduced to White Chocolate Bread Pudding. Oh my. YUM. Everything I had that day was delicious and I even twittered about how I never knew that Jazz Fest was going to be such a culinary experience. And that was the end of my live tweeting since my phone died. Who was the genius who left her phone charger in Colorado? OH THIS GIRL. It became a fun game of trying to find where everyone was, without a phone. Luckily Andy was gracious enough to play phone tag with my friends, helping to coordinate Heather and Jake get to us in time for Simon and Garfunkel.

Despite having a lovely tent with lovely bathrooms, sometimes you just gotta go and sometimes it’s in a portapotty. And all the time I’d really rather not ever have to do that. Especially at a large festival like this one. But we had to do it otherwise I’d be doing a pee dance at S&G and it wouldn’t be the pretty little dancing I’d be doing to Mrs. Robinson. It would probably come with facial expressions. Unpleasant ones.

ANYWAYS. Too much talk about peeing. Not enough talking about Simon and motherfucking Garfunkel.

The entire reason I went to New Orleans. The ONLY reason I decided to go to Jazzfest. I am not even kidding. I am one of their biggest fans since like the dawn of time (or the dawn of me) and when I got an email saying they were going to be there I, the girl who hadn’t had a desire to go to Jazz Fest prior, jumped out of my seat and declared that I HAD TO BE THERE.

I was like a giddy little school girl, sitting on our tarp under the sun that had come out only minutes before they took the stage. They took the stage, Heather and Jake arrived and what we thought was going to be a concert for relaxing sitting down, turned into everyone standing, dancing and singing. Garfunkel had laryngitis so it was a tad painful to listen to him but he stuck it out and still put on an AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, *INSERT OVERLY POSITIVE DESCRIPTION HERE* show. I mean, outstanding. The Boxer still gave me the chills, Homeward Bound reminded me of the concert me and Kira put on in the Danbury Mall parking lot after fireworks like seven years ago, Paul Simon played some of his solo stuff off the Graceland album.**** I knew all the songs, except for maybe one or two, and well, what can I say? It was awesome.

AWESOME.

OK so I thought I’d be able to recap jazz fest in one post, but apparently not. It’s getting too long! You’ll have to stay tuned….

* Take Me Back to New Orleans, song by Cowboy Mouth and All Night Long, by Lionel Richie.

**Hello? Is It Me You’re Looking For?

***When I worked at Hotel Hell out in Montauk, we had a singer who was friends with the GM of the restaurant come out and perform at the restaurant. He once performed All Night Long and the entire restaurant, full of people, started singing and dancing along, staff included. It was one of those awesome moments that I will always be reminded of!

****Sadly he did not play You Can Call Me Al–only the best video EVER–the song that REALLY defined my childhood. We have many a video of my brother and I when we were really little dancing ridiculously to this song. It’s also one of my earliest memories. The entire album reminds me of my childhood, but most particularly that song.

Tags: Friends Make My World Go \'Round, Life Would Be So Boring Without Music, New Orleans, That Warm Fuzzy Feeling, The Good Times