Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Halloween in New Orleans!



Ah the moment you have all been waiting for! My tour blog has sat empty while I was livin it up in New Orleans, but I have not forsaken you dear readers, I'm back at the computer and ready to divulge the deep and dirty shenanigans of the March Fourth Marching Band, back in the Big Easy once again. We are now on the tour bus, on the second 12 hour bus rides, heading towards snowy Denver.
We arrived by plane into Austin, Texas, and were scooped up at the airport by our bus, complete with our driver Aaron AKA Breathalyzer and Richard, Jeremiah, and Dan Stauffer, who had stayed in Texas over the tour break. They had even stocked the fridge for us which was totally rad after our whole day of airplane travel. Our home on wheels, it doesn't matter where in the world we are it feels safe and cozy on our trusty steed and I for one was glad to hop on and settle in for a long drive towards Lafayette, LA, where we were playing the next night. We made it part of the way there and got a few motel rooms somewhere along the way. After a good night's sleep and a shower, we were back on the road Thursday morning, and we wouldn't stop till we got to Lafayette. We pulled up at the Blue Moon Saloon and hostel and were greeted with open arms. At that point we had many hours until our gig, so a few of us set out for a local thrift store, but when we got there it had closed down :(
We ended up checking out the downtown area, sticking out like sore thumbs with our crazy hair, unusual bling and funky m4 style... on our walk we definitely noticed that there were thunderclouds forming but didn't think too much of it. That night Sabrina took over the kitchen at the Blue Moon and made us the most delicious dinner of fried chicken with bacon and mashed potatoes... yum!

Our show was super fun, we had a bunch of people there that had seen us last time we were in Lafayette, for the International Festival de Lousianne, and lots of new people too. March Fourth rocked it of course! Midway through the show the heavens opened up and poured on us some good old Louisiana rain, complete with a beautiful thunder and lightning show. At one point a HUGE bolt of lightning shot across the sky and simultaneously some of the loudest thunder I have ever heard cracked up above. It was exciting! With March Fourth's Dynamite in the background it was an almost perfect cacophony. After the show was festive as usual, with the band making new friends and spreading merriment throughout. That night we did not have a house to stay at or a hotel, so we slept in various places throughout the property, on our bus, and on the floor of the Blue Moon Hostel. I think they were a little surprised when they woke to find us on the floor in the living room, but it was so soggy outside it was almost impossible to camp!
In the morning we packed up and got on the road to New Orleans! One of our favorite places to play in all the world, we were excited to get there and get this party started. March Fourth rocks NOLA like nobody's business, and we fit in there like a puzzle piece. This time we were especially looking forward to it because we just released our new album called Rise Up, and it is dedicated to the city of New Orleans.

As we drove over the super long elevated expressway over the Louisiana swamplands, we watched out for alligators but didn't see any. Then we crossed Lake Pontacharain and we were in the frying pan. It was hot and humid, and it looked like the thunderclouds had followed us from Lafayette. We got to Richard's house, a friend of Keith's who lived uptown. This would be our home base for the next 5 days. Many members of the band opted to get hotel rooms and whatnot down in the Quarter, but Chad and I decided to stay at Richard's, along with a handful of other people. The Carrolton line would take us right down town for a measly $1.25 (though I never ended up riding it!) The first night there everyone opted to go out and get into trouble on our only night off in the city, but unfortunately I was feeling totally crappy and headachy so Chad and I scrounged food off the bus and made a yummy meal and then snuggled up and watched a movie! It was nice to just totally chill out and go to bed relatively early.

Friday's bus call was actually a van call, the Voodoo Fest provided us with vans to cart us to and from the event, which was great so we didn't need to deal with parking the bus quite so much. The vans picked us up at 1:00 and took us in to the festival. We didn't have a show until 4:30 but it was nice to get there early and get our bearings. As soon as we got there we started running into some familiar-unfamiliar looking people! They looked just like they were in March Fourth, but they weren't! They were a band called the Noisician Coalition, and they sport the black, red, and white funky alternative marching band style. But that's where the similarities end. They have all sorts of crazy new fangled instruments, made out of speak and spells, industrial tubes, and various noise making digital and analog devices. Totally cool! From what I perceived, they didn't really play any songs per se, just kind of made a lot of noise in an organized disorganized way. I felt in the beginning there was a bit of standoffishness on both band's parts, but we were fast friends and will definitely hang with them next time we are in New Orleans.

Our show was at the Bingo Parlor, which was the circus tent put up by the New Orleans Bingo Show. For me the show wasn't perfect but that's just because I misjudged my space capabilities and when I went out to hoop I realized that I simply did not have enough space. I did what I could but It was definitely not my best show, I could only hoop above the waist because of the monitors and when I tried to do any sort of tricks I would hit a drummer or a mike stand. I think I even dropped the hoop once because of a mike stand. Oh the shame! All the while I was pouring sweat in the most unusual way and I think the band had created one of the great lakes on the stage, which made it extremely slippery. Falling on stage would be the height of embarrassment so I was super careful. I ended up leaving my song early which has never happened before! I usually can pull it off even in a small space, or else I make the judgment call not to go on. Ah well... you can't win em all. But I try! The rest of the show was incredible, and the circus tent went wild! They loved it! Because of the heat of the day, the humidity, the lack of airflow in the circus tent, and the stage lighting, it was so sweaty in there it was like we had jumped in a pool. The drummers were having trouble holding on to their drumsticks! One kind of funny, kind of annoying thing that happened was there was a smoke machine blowing a haze on the band, and Faith asked the guy to turn it off because our horn players sometimes have a hard time breathing with the smoke... and the guy didn't really know what he was doing and accidentally turned it all the way up so there was this giant cloud of smoke enveloping the band, so for a minute you couldn't even see the band! Even though it was not so cool, I couldn't help but giggle a bit at the absurdity of it all. After the show, we quickly got our things together and started a march through the festival to one of the other tents where the Preservation Hall All Stars were playing and wanted us to march to their show and play one song with them. We were joined on our march by these fantastic older men who were so old school New Orleans. They were decked out in dapper peach suits and they had on beautiful feathery sashes with giant feather fans. Loved them! They continued to be part of our Voodoo Fest experience throughout the weekend. As we were marching one of the most strange weather phenomenons happened. We were marching along and a big wind came up. It was swirling up all the leaves and blowing them around, and as it hit us it was a wall of air that had to be about 25 degrees cooler than what we were leaving. It was so strange! It was a great relief and instantly almost froze the sweat that was on us, making it a lot easier to finished the march. We got to preservation hall just as the downpour started. It must have been that same storm from Lafayette, but it seemed to have gathered some intensity on it's way over. We played a couple of songs with them and then headed over to hospitality where there was yummy eats and an open bar for us all weekend! It rained a heavy rain all throughout dinner and then we hopped in the vans and they took us back to the house where we had a short break to dry off and whatnot before hopping on our bus down to the French Quarter to play a show at One Eyed Jacks. It was a cool club right off Decateur street in the Quarter, filled with fun like minded people. The party was put on by Captain Morgans and Rolling Stone. We went on first and seriously slayed it! We didn't even give the audience a chance, filling it with heavy hitters like Knightmarrika, Lesley Metal, Fuzzy Lentil, and Pilo. The only bummer was that the set got cut one song short so we didn't get to drive it home with Crack Haus. The audience was super stoked, even Captain Morgan was blown away. After us was some other band and then the Meat Puppets were playing. I tried to stick around for them but they took sooooooooooo long to go on (WTF? Why was our set cut short?) that I was totally over it and a bunch of us headed over the Anjalie's on Decatuer and got a yummy burger complete with a mound of bacon on top. By the time we were done with that it was like 3 am so Chad and I grabbed a cab and went home to bed. Lots of other band mates partied till dawn so you'll have to check their blogs for the juicy details ;)

The next day was Halloween! We woke to a beautiful sunny day, you really couldn't ask for a nicer day on October 31st. It was sunny and beautiful, yet that cold front had stuck around so it was not vary humid or hot. Just nicely warm. Voodoo Fest itself was pretty cool, though the warring sound systems was a little bit overwhelming at times, and the amount of butt rock there was indescribable. On Halloween day we did not have any big gigs, mostly marching around and we had a cool short little set at a radio station booth that turned out to be super fun. That day was ridiculously muddy in patches which was OCF reminiscent. We did get to see Gogol Bordello from backstage up in the rafters which was SO AWESOME! They are totally awesome, and their dancers are so hot!!!!!! Then, later in the evening, we got to see Jane's Addiction which was amazing too!! I have been listening to Perry Ferrell's sweet sweet voice for like 20 years and this is the first time I actually got to see him in person, I felt kind of star struck. Next up.... Kiss! I am SO not into Kiss but we had to go see them just for the spectacle.

It was well worth it, the were so silly and glammy and cliche it was hilarious. Complete with fireworks and fire cannons onstage. Loved it! We could only handle a few songs though, and then we were outta there.
After that the band was heading down to the Marigne, to march down Frenchman Street for Halloween and then parading to the Always Lounge in the 9th ward. Somehow we were short a van or two and ended up piling 20 people into the 12 passenger van. We had a totally awesome van driver who kept getting us to sing to him, and he stopped by his friend Doc's place on the way so he could come out and meet us. New Orleans is so like any other place I know, people are not really uptight about anything, rules are kind of lax and open for interpretation :) On our way out of the Voodoo Fest we saw Perry Ferrell right by his van, and our driver stopped so we could talk to him. IT WAS AWESOME!!!!! We gave him our sticker and told him that he would love us. Our driver told him that we were family and if he didn't come down to see our show that night there was going to be some problems. :)

When we got down to the Marigne it was total madness!!! As we were circling up, all hands in the center, gathering our group energy, I could feel the excitement in the air and the zing of the unknown, knowing that we were about to head into something extremely crazy, good or bad I wasn't quite sure. Either way we were at the point of no return, and there was no going back. We were in it. We started on Royal Street and made our way up to Frenchman. We started playing and quickly were enveloped in a crowd so incredibly thick, all you could see was a sea of costumed faces in all directions. Looking up, all of the beautifully detailed porches were packed with revelers as well. We passed through the drunken jovial crowd in a single file line, Chad bringing up the end with the bass amp. It was complete and total MADNESS! The front of the band could hardly hear the back of the band and vice verca! We had to push through the crowd to keep from getting separated. We stopped at the corner of Frenchman and Chartres and played for about 15 minutes. Even stopped it was mayhem, the tightest crowd I think we have ever played in. They say that Mardi Gras in NOLA is even crazier, but truthfully I don't think you could pack another person onto that street corner! We decided it was time to move, and headed down Frenchman pushing through the celebratory crowd. Luckily I only felt happy vibes, I can imagine if there was any kind of conflict that it could get hairy pretty fast. We went down a couple of blocks to Decatuer and found a little empty space and played a bit more. This was much more fun as it was still crowded but there was some breathing room. After about an hour it was almost 2 am and time to head the march down to the Always Lounge where we had a stage set.

We headed out of the Marigne with a huge crowd in tow. As we marched on through the neighborhoods we maintained a lot of our crowd but lots of people dropped off as they realized how far they were getting from their original location! I was near the front of the parade, as I usually am because it gives me ample room to spin my hoops. As we neared the venue a car was coming down the street. This is common when we go guerrilla style and take over the streets. A lot of times people will back up and go another way, or they will just sit there and either be annoyed as the parade passes, or they will love it and rock out, sometimes they will even get out of their car for a little bit! This guy did none of those things, it looked to me like he speeded up a little. I moved to the side of the street as he looked a little unstable. I was standing next to a parked car just as he rammed the car and kept going, heading at an alarming speed towards all my friends. I jumped out of the way to the sidewalk, and then headed after him to hopefully warn people that he was not looking like he was going to stop. I ran along side of him and tried to tell people but in all the merriment no one was hearing me, and also everything happened so fast. I think he realized in that moment that it was probably a bad idea to run over a parade, so he stopped but kept jerking forward into the crowd as people jumped out of the way. Annie ran up along side of his window and started scolding him, as I ran behind the car and tried to take a picture of his license plate. I didn't get a good shot of his plate but Faith managed to memorize it and write it down to leave on the car that got hit. whew! That was totally freaky and I was shaking for a while after it happened. I'm sure the guy was totally drunk, along with the entire city of New Orleans it seemed.

After that, we went into the Always Lounge and played a great show. it was a tight spot so there were no dance pieces, so I found a spot on top of a railing near the back of the bar where I had a good view and could dance up high. Sometimes simply being part of the ambiance is in the job description. The show was super hot and smoky, New Orleans is kind of like Europe in it's smoking tolerance. After the band totally slayed the place, I was more than ready to go home. Aaron fired up the bus and we were outta there. Well, a few of us. Most people stayed on and danced to a rockin Global Ruckus set, but by that time it was like 5 am so I headed home to get a short nap in before we had to be ready to go again on Sunday.

Sunday we had a later set at Voodoo, we were marching at 7 and doing a stage set at 7:45. We got there a little early so I got to catch the Squirrel Nut Zippers at the Bingo stage, so awesome!!!!! I went backstage after the show and met the lead singer, I gave him or sticker and told him he should come to our show! He said he would but who knows.. Then I headed over to the Flaming Lips to meet the rest of the band. Cool show! I wasn't totally into the music but the show itself was really cool complete with massive amounts of confetti being shot off with cannons. A bunch of March Fourthers totally dig the band. Apparently the lead singer Wayne Coyne hung out on our bus for awhile but I missed that one. He told us we were living the dream! After the show we marched to our stage set which was my personal favorite of our shows at Voodoo Fest. We were at the Preservation Hall stage and it was just sweet. We played lots of awesome songs and ended with Gospel. The dance team had all painted our faces like El Dia de los Muertos and they were so beautiful! The Noisician Coalition showed up in full regalia and were shining faces in the audience. Our New Orleans feather fan guys were there too!

When we were done with that show, that was the end of our Voodoo experience, and the end of our run of shows in New Orleans. A bunch of us hopped on a van and headed down to the Quarter to get some food and kick around. We ended up eating at Coop's, a great spot in the Marigne that serves traditional cajun eats. We had to wait a long time but it was totally worth it. There was even a cute little kitty that lived in the restaurant! That would so not fly in Oregon...
After our yummy dinner of jambalaya, roasted duck quesadilla, pesto pasta with blackened shrimp, gumbo, and so on, we met our crew next door at Molly's. This had to be the crowning glory of the weekend for me. It seemed like almost everyone was there, including all of our Portland peeps who had flown in for Halloween like Keri Chang, Mischief, Kurt and Sia, Joe, Ariel, Anne Olivia, Tabor, and more that I am forgetting in this moment. Also present were a few people from the Noisician Coalition that we had become particularly fond of. We had hijacked the jukebox and were playing a bunch of Ning Nong songs, and of course we were all singing along at the top of our lungs. Everyone was so happy! It felt like we were there for hours and hours. The silliness commenced until the wee hours of the morning. At some point Chad and I decided to slip out, grab a cab, and go back to Richard's.
The next morning bus call was early and we rolled out of New Orleans feeling fulfilled and happy. We had come with a purpose, and we did it. We all win! Team Awesome strikes again!
Monday we drove for about 12 hours, to our destination of somewhere in the middle of Texas where we got a few hotel rooms and slept a few hours, then early bus call again to drive another 12 hours to make it to the amazing home of Marsha, Andy's amazing mom! She took us in and fed us a real live home cooked meal!!!!! It was incredible! She is like a mother to all of us, providing us with all that we need and more! She even has us trace our hands on prayer flags so that she can decorate her backyard with them. We just rolled away from her house a few minutes ago, bellies full of an amazing breakfast and the fridge full of food that she sent with us. Thank you Marsha and Antonio!
We are now on our way to Denver to play a show tonight at Cervante's, and hang out with our friend Dave Clay. More to come!