I had my first taste of the South this weekend when I traveled to New Orleans. The occasion was the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, a.k.a. Jazz Fest, an annual 2-weekend-long music and food blowout that draws musicians and spectators from all over the country. I’d been told by a Jazz Fest veteran that only Grateful Dead concerts had this festival beat.
About 70 musicians and groups performed on Friday from 11am until 7pm on 11 different outdoor stages. It was impossible to see everyone—even getting a glimpse of each one was impossible—and people-watching was almost more tempting than settling in for a performance. But I wound up seeing some excellent performers, including Susan Cowsill,
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About 70 musicians and groups performed on Friday from 11am until 7pm on 11 different outdoor stages. It was impossible to see everyone—even getting a glimpse of each one was impossible—and people-watching was almost more tempting than settling in for a performance. But I wound up seeing some excellent performers, including Susan Cowsill, Amanda Shaw and the Cute Guys, The Black Crowes, Ozomatli, and Wilco. They all put on great shows, but Ozomatli seemed especially suited to performing to a totally laid-back, giddily happy, well-fed, sunburned crowd.
The atmosphere of the Fest, and the attitude of everyone there, was unadulterated bliss. People left their inhibitions and their stress in the planes they flew in on and the entire day was just one big party. Cowboy hats, bikini tops, Jazz Fest T-shirts from years past, Birkenstocks, bare feet, and Mardi Gras beads made up the dress code, and many people carried beer cans and water bottles in insulated holders that hung from straps around their necks and were printed with the question, "How you gonna clap?"
I spent about 3 days in New Orleans, and the anything-goes attitude never changed—no open-container laws for alcohol means there were plenty of beer-carrying tourists decked out in still more Mardi Gras beads wandering around the streets. Away from the Fest, however, other parts of the city peeked through. New Orleans is obviously the end of the road for a lot of people, and many of them apparently spend their days loitering on the benches overlooking the wide, muddy Mississippi.
There were too many tourists around to make the place seem dangerous, but my Lonely Planet was loaded with warnings about walking alone at night, and even warned against walking in the grand cemeteries alone during the day. I did explore a cemetery and understood the warnings: the above-ground tombs loomed closely around the cracked stone walking paths, and with all those hiding places, mugging me would have been no problem at all, even in the sunny afternoon.
I didn’t wander very far from the French Quarter, and I suspect I went 3 days without seeing a true resident of New Orleans apart from restaurant and hotel employees. Early one evening, however, as I walked through the warehouse district back to the Quarter, I passed a porch where two weary-looking men were talking and overheard a bit of their conversation. "I’m just so tired of the whorin’ of the city," one said in a distinct New Orleans accent. "These endless festivals…" And I have to wonder what real New Orleans life is like, taking place on the outskirts of the Disney-fied, constructed "New Orleans" of Bourbon Street. I can’t blame the men for giving me disgusted looks as I consulted my street map for the hundredth time and headed back to the Quarter for dinner. I was just another tourist, part of the reason why the lovely Jackson Square is littered with palm readers and mimes.
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