I went to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival today with my dad. Incredible food, incredible music, incredibly hot and incredibly crowded.

The Music

When my dad and I first got to the festival, the first tent we reached had a band playing a foot-stomping, rocking, jazzed-up version of that classic "..you ain't got a thing if you ain't got that swing... dowap dowap dowap.." with a bunch of people dancing, and one couple in particular just jamming down in a charleston-sort-of way to their heart's content. When the song was over I think more people were applauding the couple than the band.

Next was the House of Blues stage where some band I didn't recognize was playing some sort of rockabilly. We wandered by that one, and continued on to the gospel tent. The gospel tent is always tons of fun because everyone gets so into it. Unfortunately we came in near the end of a group's set, and then didn't feel like waiting around ten minutes or so while the next group set up. So we continued on around.

The New Birth Brass Band was playing on the Ray-Ban stage, so we stayed and listened to them for a while... then kept walking.

We wandered through Congo Square where Willie Metcalf & the World Peace Movement with the Academy of Black Arts Rainbow Youth Jazz Chorus was playing. I swear, that was the name on the playbill. They were good, but the next act, Bamboula 2000, was more fun since they had a bunch of African-style dancers.

At the Fais-do-do stage, we stayed for a while, since fais-do-do is great to lisen to and fun to dance to. Unfortunately my father wouldn't dance, so we watched everyone else do cajun-waltz and two-step.

The Fox-Polaroid stage was jammed with people, but we listened to Los Calientes play some rockin' salsa. I swear, the next guy I date had better be a good dancer. Luckily, no one looks at you funny at the jazz-fest if you dance by yourself. Later we made our way back to that stage to listen to Rockin' Dopsie Jr. & the Zydeco Twisters. I really enjoy zydeco, and once again I was wishing I had someone to dance with!

We wandered back toward the House of Blues stage at some point and listened to the Aubrey Twins do some classic-rock classics.

We tried to go back toward the Ray-Ban stage again, and discovered that that entire end of the fairgrounds had about 3 million people in it, all waiting for Jimmy Buffet. (At this point he wasn't due to start for about 3 hours, but it was already jammed solid.) When we finally got to a spot where we could breathe, we couldn't even see the stage, so we decided that we didn't want to see Buffet that badly. By this time the Fox-Polaroid stage was also totally jammed with people waiting for Better Than Ezra.

The Food

There ain't no hot dogs or hamburgers at the jazz fest. One of the best things about going is the food. One of the neat things about eating at the fest is that people wander around looking at what other people are eating and then asking them what it is and where they got it. But no one ever asks you if what you're eating is good. That's a given. My first meal was grilled crawfish cakes. My second meal was spinach and artichoke casserole. (Remember, this is a massive outdoor festival, with about 100,000 people attending the day I went.)

Yes, I went off my diet. And it was damn good.

The Rest

We didn't get sunburned, thanks to the fact that I was slathering sunscreen on every time we stopped. It was pretty damn hot though, and my dad ended up buying me a jazz-fest bandanna so I could get my hair off of my neck. And it was also crowded, especially as the day wore on and it got closer to the time that Jimmy Buffet was going to perform. Around 4pm my dad and I looked at each other and said, "Had enough?" So we called it quits, took the shuttle back to the car, and came home.

I got pictures developed, but I'm at my parent's house now, and I plan on staying the night (since I'm dead tired and don't feel like driving home.) True, my dad has a scanner, but I'm not familiar with the software he uses, so y'all will have to wait until tomorrow for pictures, including the really awful picture of me drinking beer and looking very fat.