@ZackTeibloom Finding out the hour by hour scheduling of a festival is equally exciting and frustrating. In some cases, it can be more frustrating as the overlaps you feared come to haunt you. We’ve got of overlaps 2nd weekend of Jazz Fest. Sunday is a cruel bitch. Van Morrison and The Dead Weather playing at the exact same time. OK, there’s a 10-minute overlap, but if you think I’m going to 10 minutes of Van (who will likely be 10 minutes late anyway) to NOT get a good spot for The Dead Weather, you’re crazy.

So, what to do when those two end? Make a tough decision between the next three acts. The Neville Brothers, B.B. King and Richie Havens. @Samifest insists there’s always tough conflicts at Jazz Fest, but this seems especially cruel. I’m so enraged with the Van Morrison/Dead Weather conflict that I’m turning it over to Kappel for the five other conflicts that have him wondering where he’ll be sippin’ on strawberry lemonade. I analyzed the 2nd weekend first since that’s the one Festival Crashers will be attending.

Sure, this is driving us crazy now, but at least it’s win-win. And if anyone underwhelms us, we have options. And they’re damn good. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom Yesterday’s Bonnaroo announcement was a nightmare. Even if you don’t run a music blog. First they put it in the hands of the artist, so you had to have a dozen tabs open to see when Dave Matthews was going to put up a video or if @wearephoenix would tweet about it. It was exhausting. It was unnecessary. It made us spend the day on MySpace. Gross. We can do better than that.

Here’s what I’m proposing: A one-hour prime time announcement for each of the major destination festivals with live bands and video montages. You’re intrigued, aren’t you? Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom We’re one step closer. We now know who plays on each day, but we don’t know the hour-by-hour schedule. This makes it that much clearer that weekend two is the bees knees. Saturday of first weekend goes Simon & Garfunkel, My Morning Jacket, Drake, Better Than Ezra? Weak sauce. Compare that to the second weekend’s Sunday of The Neville Brothers, Van Morrison,  B.B. King, Irma Thomas, The Dead Weather. The Neville Brothers always close down the fest, but I know I’ll be at Van after an incredibly strong TDW/BB combo. Ooh I have chills already. Based on last year, they always have two bands co-headlining each day, so as our friends at Offbeat Magazine tweeted at us, “You can almost kinda guess based on the type of music/size of act & their position in the paragraph of the daily schedule!” We sure can. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom This show is from New Orleans Jazz Fest in May ’09. For some reason, I never finished it until Thanksgiving Day. I’m so thankful for being at this show I felt compelled to finish it today. Enjoy.

A perfect 10. I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever see one. A perfect 10 requires everything to be just right on stage and just right from where you stand.*

On stage you need: a tight band with a immense stable of songs to pull from. A front man who knows when to keep it tight, when to sprinkle in banter and when to solo. A well-paced set filled with crowd favorites, but not a best-of catalog, building to a dynamic finish and epic encore.  Read the rest of this entry »

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@ZackTeibloom I can’t believe it’s over. After 11 days of Jazz Festing, I’m prepared to call it my favorite non-sleepover festival. Sure, you can rock harder at ACL or Lolla, but for a complete tapestry of music, Jazz Fest has it all. I feel like I know the NOLA scene better than any other town after the last week and a half.

I also realized I hadn’t given any of the shows I’d seen a grade in my review. I guess I was waiting for the bar to be set. And it was. Neil Young set that bar for every show I ever see from now on. The perfect 10. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom The response to the beach ball contest has been, well, pretty underwhelming. We’ve sent about 30 beach balls into the crowds with instructions to e-mail us your funniest picture. This is the only picture we got, and we had to remind our new friends to send it in.

I knew that getting the Festival Crashers beach balls ready for SXSW would have been wildly preferable. Everyone with their iPhones taking pictures of the balls, tweeting about it and inventing hashtags about the contest. In New Orleans, they just hit the balls and go on with their day. I at least hoped we’d get a ridiculous, funn picture from some New Orleans folks, but digital camera’s and unecesary e-mailing is just not part of the culture here.

It’s a bit disappointing, but seeing the pure joy on the face of this boy as he had his daddy hit the ball back and forth to him made it totally worth it. Our first winner of the contest is Ginger Anderson, a new friend to the Festival Crashers and a Dave Matthews fanatic. The real winner is that kid. Could he be more adorable?!

Andy- send that girl some Dave pictures and I’ll send the Port-O-Pong. Did you see that shudder go through her when she was looking at those pics? Good lord.

@ZackTeibloom There are lucky mistakes at festivals that make them infinitely more special. My lucky break was coming across the incredible Theresa Andersson. I was intending to see the subdudes, but an outdated scheduled steered me to their stage as Theresa began. I couldn’t be more thankful.

She’s a looper. Like Keller Williams, but instead of every song sounding the same, she’s an exuberant spark plug, flitting around on stage.

“I’d like to introduce you to my band,” she says and has the cameras show off her pedals she uses to loop her layered sounds. She adds vocals, violin, guitar, tambourine and more into an ever-growing tapestry.

Start watching her here and explore her catalogue. She’s a treasure.

@ZackTeibloom SUNDAY UPDATE: Be prepared for your phone not to work. Especially if you have an iPhone. Make your meet-up points now. And it might rain. Plan accordingly.

As for the music, today is legends day. A jazz, rock and blues legend of epic proportions. I plan to see every minute of three sets today:

1:00 Allen Touissant, 2:55 Neil Young, 5:45 Buddy Guy. Other than that, it’s wandering time.

After a week of being at Jazzfest, I’ve learned a thing or two. It took making some wrong moves like eating the worst fish sandwich of my life, but I think I’ve got a hang of this festival. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom I’m a pretty seasoned veteran of going to festivals,* but I don’t have any experience running them. Until now. My wonderful host, @SamiFest got me a gig helping to set-up the weekly day festival Wednesday’s at the Square. We got to an empty park at 9:30 a.m. and by 5 p.m. transformed it into a tent-filled barracaded festival zone I’ve come to know and love.

Compared to the festivals I’m used to, this was tiny. Compared to anything, it was tiny. You can see the whole park at all times. Still, it was a ton of work. Helping roadies stack speakers, getting the alcohol from the trucks to the booths, setting up tents and tables and the barracades.

Steel barricades are now my official nemesis. I always hated them because their job is to prevent Festival Crashing, but after lugging more than 50 of them around the park for hours, I couldn’t hate them more. I got blisters on my fingers!** By the end of the night, I needed a friend to help me carry one.

The thing that blew my mind was this festival was literally 1/1,000th the size of an overnight festival. And even with two dozen workers,*** it took all day to set it up. To put together a town like Bonnaroo or Rothbury is something I couldn’t imagine. Especially that Sherwood Forrest. Part of me wants to be part of making it a reality, part of me wants to only see it in its magical finished state.

As exhausted and disgustingly dirty as I felt afterwards,**** it was fun to be a part of a festival. To see it come together. I could see myself getting into that kind of work. I wouldn’t even have to crash anymore.

*I’ve been to 4 Lollapaloozas, 3 Bonnaroos, ACL, SXSW, Langerado, 10KLF, Rothbury, New Orleans JazzFest, Pitchfork, Chicago Reggae Fest, Chicago Blues Fest, Chicago Jazzfest, Austin Reggae Fest, Crawfish Festival, Jamboree 97, Twisted 8 and Ozzfest.

**Did you know it was Ringo that says this at the end of “Helter Skelter?” I always thought it was John.

***If you share your Smart Water with a Mexican who doesn’t speak English, the odds are high that he’ll think you’re giving it to him for good.

**** I didn’t have a tan line, I had a dirt line at the sock level. Not a good look.