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Apr182009
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Saturday at FQF |
Mom wasn’t up to going to the French Quarter Festival today but she gave Lauren and me a ride to the Algiers ferry. We made it over the river at about 11:30. I walked to Jackson Square to see some of Tim Laughlin. I only caught a couple songs before he took a break. Since there were other acts I wanted to see I took a walk to Royal Street and saw a few minutes of Bamboola 2000. I then went over to the Historic New Orleans Collection on Chartres Street where there was a classical music venue. I went to see Opera a la Carte. I saw it last year and it was pretty interesting. This year was less entertaining. There were only two performers this year and their routine was centered on teaching the audience about opera. Apparently this routine is performed for elementary school students.After the performance I walked to the riverfront to get some lunch. I had the shrimp etouffee and bananas foster from the GW Fins booth. I ate near the pavilion stage which had a big crowd for Marva Wright.When I finished lunch I took a walk down Royal and saw a few minutes of Hot Club of New Orleans. I’ve seen them at Jazz Fest in the past and they put on a great show. I then walked to 300 Bourbon Street where Jimmy Larocca & The Original Dixieland Band was just getting started at the Jazz Legends Park. This venue is part of a bar and there are tables and chairs so it’s a great place to relax and enjoy the music. I remained there for about an hour until about 4:15 when I left to walk to the riverfront. I wanted to check out the Treme Brass Band. It seemed that they had very few of their regular members in attendance which was rather disappointing. Their appearance at Jazz Fest will be a lot more interesting.With no particular interest in seeing half of Treme I walked across the Quarter to the US Mint where Astral Project was scheduled to perform at 5:45. I got there just before Ingrid Lucia finished her set. I used the time between sets to get something to eat. I had the Crawfish Ravioli and Tiramisu from the Bravo! booth.Astral Project’s bass player, James Singleton, was in town so all four members were in attendance for this evening’s performance. As always they were excellent. They played a couple songs from their new CD which I didn’t know existed until this evening. I stayed through the end of the set at 7 o’clock. I talked to Lauren after and we met at the ferry landing before eight. On the way I saw a couple minutes of The Renard Poche Band.Mom picked us up again tonight. This evening was much like last night. I spend a good deal of time combing through the day’s pictures. Aunt Lauren departed this evening. She’ll be spending the remainder of her stay at a friend’s house.