I woke up on Saturday morning with absolutely no idea where in the world I was.

“Whose house is this?”

“What state am I in?”

Yet, every red-blooded male child born in the great state of Texas is genetically engineered with a primordial sense to instantly recognize a Saturday morning during college football season and will instinctually turn on ESPN’s “College Game Day” no matter what corner of the planet and no matter how disoriented of a mental condition he wakes up in.  Once my eyes finally focused after lifting my head up from this stranger’s couch pillow, I beheld what appeared to be an 8’ x 4’ projector screen on the wall across the room.  Enraptured, I clambered around the living room in desperate search for a remote.  After nearly half an hour of searching for and then fiddling around with the damn thing, I turned on the blessed machine and woke up my unfortunate photographer to the terrifying vision of Lee Corso’s gigantic face ranting mad about the Penn State vs. Ohio State matchup.

Our helpless addiction to caffeine was the only force in the universe strong enough to pull us away from the lure of drinking beers and watching football all day in that living room, and we eventually resurfaced into the sunlight once again to make the trek over to City Park for the second day of the Voodoo Music Experience.

Dead Confederates

We arrived just in time to catch the beginning of Dead Confederates’ set at the Playstation/Billboard tent.  In retrospect, the Dead Confederate show was a more-than-perfect precursor to what would amount to perhaps the most testing and, at the same time, most awe-inspiring day of the festival.

A ragged gang of four fellas out of Athens, Georgia, Dead Confederate will go down as the dark horse band of The Tenth Ritual.  The electric echoes of Hardy Morris and Walker Howle’s glass-shattering guitars slamming against the chapel drones of John Watkin’s organ in songs like “Rat” aimed a psychedelic gun (“…Bang! Bang!”) at the heart of the dark, dangerous, gothic distortions of the Southern experience that have crept in and out of the likes of Neil Young, early R.E.M., Lift to Experience, and The Gun Club, blasting out what is amounting to be one of the most prolific sounds in modern American music (which may or may not be saying much, depending on who you’re talking to).

Dead Confederate played a great show under the increasing heat of the bayou sun and, clad in tattered t-shirts and worn-out jeans, their image made not even the slightest attempt to appease the audience’s thirst for an affable listen, as the raw grate of their delivery left no frivolity that tends to suppress the true essence of rock and roll.  All this came as quite a relief for someone (such as myself and my photographer) who have grown quite weary of the sweet, polished, priss and pristine of the Panic at the Discos, My Chemical Romances, and Kings of Leons that garner more press and repute in the mainstream of things.

After Dead Confederate wrapped up their set, some of the gathered made their way to the Voodoo tent to catch the Inner Party System, while others followed the smells of BBQ and Cajun to the food stands or the sounds of the Dan Dyer show over at the WWOZ/Southern Comfort stage.  I followed my thirst and free pass to the exclusive Miller Lite center in the middle of the festival grounds for a cold High Life and the chance that somewhere, someone had a television where I might catch the score of the Texas Longhorn matchup with Oklahoma State.  On Saturday afternoons in the Fall, anything outside of what happens between two end zones, two goal posts, and the hundred yards on which helmeted behemoths battle over a stitched pigskin presents a huge conflict of interest for me, and I’m otherwise completely worthless if I’m unable to keep up with games in progress to some capacity throughout the day.

Manchester Orchestra

But again, we had come to New Orleans on a mission and we could not allow football to jeopardize that mission, so we made our way back to the Playstation/Billboard stage where yet another band outta Georgia (I’m growing increasingly curious as to what sort of rock and roll potions have contaminated the water supply in that state), Manchester Orchestra, was scheduled to perform.

Hailing from the city of Atlanta, Manchester Orchestra picked up nicely where Dead Confederate had left off and offered a stripped-down, solid set of, again, raw, honest garage rock that spits in the face of high-cost production and trendy wardrobes “provided by an American Apparel.”

Although I hate to say it, appearances have a massive effect on the experience of a live performance, and Andy Hull’s makeshift, bearded visage on stage was (or should have been) a reminder to every single soul at that show that, even though he’s standing maybe four feet above the ground with an electric guitar in hand, he’s just like and no better than you or I.  (This is a very powerful point to take note of, as the very last thing that the top-dog money-mongers want all of us “fans” to finally realize is that WE ALL HAVE THE POWER TO ROCK, and these “industry” fat cats have spent the last 40 years or so doing absolutely everything in their power to keep us from acting on our own potential, because the prospect of rock and roll getting back “in the hands of the people” will inevitably mean that the business of manufacturing “money-making celebrities” (read: rock stars) will file bankruptcy and whither up and die, and tyrannical atrocities like MTV will have to actually take their cues from our revolution, rather than taking our money and souls for theirs).

Manchester Orchestra is definitely unique, yet there’s an odd homage, both a respectful nod and clenched fist, in their music to the sentiments and frustrations of an adolescent youth reared inside one of the buckle punches of the Bible Belt.  This combination of respect and angst is evident in the relentless passion of the band in their live performance as seen in the rapture of Chris Freeman’s hysterics on the keys and Jeremiah Edmond’s pounding drums.

In one particular moment, the vulnerable authenticity and substance of Manchester Orchestra was displayed when Andy Hull reminisced between songs about the band’s performance at Coachella earlier this year.  He acknowledged the pressures of pursuing rock and roll, having “grown up in a church-going community,” and the anxiety the band felt when they first performed with cameras moving all over the stage.

“Apparently, back home, my mom had cut her weekly prayer meeting short so they could all watch us perform during Coachella…and there I was cursing every other word between songs.”

He then turned to the camera next to him on stage and bashfully waved, “Hey mom!  …Miss you.”

Old 97's

Desperate to stay at the Manchester Orchestra show but bound by the demands of our schedule, we cut out of their set early and high-tailed across the festival to the WWOZ stage where the Old 97’s were already a handful of songs into their show.

I grew up in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and I have some great memories of being snuck into Old 97’s shows at the Gypsy Tea Room as an underage fan back in the mid-to late ’90s.  However, I grew tired of the band around the same time that Fight Songs came out, and I haven’t really paid much attention to them since.

Thankfully, their show Saturday reassured me that they still had the good time vibrations they’ve always had in their live shows since the Hitchhike to Rhome days.  Seeing the Old 97’s still rambling through their endless list of bar burning, cheatin’ women, losin’ women, two-timin’ women, lovin’ women, and drinking-hard-because-of-women songs brought a whole new meaning to the age-old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  There’s not a lot of things in this world you can find better than a few Texas hellions looking to get some kicks…and that is basically what the Old 97’s have been doing for the better part of the last 20 years, give or take a few and minus a lackluster attempt at a solo career.

Rhett Miller, the baby-faced, ageless leader of the band, is still the smiling, jovial son of bitch that will most likely steal your girlfriend’s heart if you stick around long enough.  The band took requests (as custom) of hits such as “The Smoker” (sung by the always entertaining Murray Hammond on bass), “Big Brown Eyes,” “Barrier Reef,” “Book of Poems,” and (the radio-friendly favorite of every lady who’s ever been left waiting on that one certain) “Question.”  The Old 97’s were a perfect getaway from what had, up to that point, been a heavier, darker, and more sincere early afternoon of Georgia’s psychedelic garage scene and a nice breather before we moved on to the sinister, mind-blowing performances that the night still had in store.

We hauled back across the park to catch the beginning of the Lil Wayne set (whom neither I nor my photographer had much knowledge of, outside of the fact that the metallic grilled and tattooed New Orleans native had been dominating the charts for a good period of time recently).  More or less Lil Wayne novices, we stood from afar to spy for ourselves what all the hype was about, and there was most certainly a hype at the Lil Wayne set at the Voodoo Fest.

Sampling the likes of Queen and Black Sabbath, the Lil Wayne show is an aggressive, intensely emotional run through the kaleidoscope of pop culture that embodies the predominant experience of a generation who satisfies their whims by suckling up on any number of informative media outlets all at the same time.  These are the days of iPhones, YouTube, and Facebook, where the entire world is merely a click away and what was once just 15 minutes of fame now seems to be more along the lines of “anytime you want it, you can get it.”

At this point, I can’t really find a personal point of connection to what Lil Wayne is trying to accomplish on a musical and performance level, yet the devotion and energy of his fans at the Voodoo Fest on Saturday afternoon perhaps warrants a reconsideration on my part…

Thievery Corporation

But first, I had to find out where the Texas vs. Oklahoma State game stood.  I made my way back to the Miller Lite center for another High Life and a prayer that I might be able to catch a glimpse of the Longhorn game.  No luck.  The LSU fans were out in force that day and had taken an impenetrable monopoly of every television in the state as far as I could tell.  I can’t blame them.  After all, I was an alien in this land, and I had no right to disrupt the social order by making a priority of my alma mater.  I came here to this musical festival to get a job done and — by God! — I couldn’t let Longhorn football ruin that now.

Thievery Corporation from Washington, D.C. sounded off from the Playstation/Billboard stage with a siren call of high-pitched electronic wails.  The masses turned their heads and I made my way towards the electronic, international, who-really-knows-what is a Thievery Corporation live show, but I was drawn in regardless.  The DJ duo of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton surrounded themselves with an impressive collection of musicians including Anoushka Shankar on the sitar, and quest vocalists such as LouLou, whose contributions (I feel) set Thievery Corporation apart from the run-of-the-mill dub, lounge, house groups out there making a living these days with electronic soundtracks to dance clubs from Budapest to Vancouver.

I must confess right now that the sort of scene and demographic subsets that sign the dotted line on Thievery Corporation’s paychecks are not cut out of the same mold of the kind of shady folks I tend to associate myself with and I am not about to begin to even act like I can take a viable critical angle by which to fairly judge their music.    I thought it was a great, very entertaining albeit interesting show; and I was thoroughly enjoying myself at the novelty of it all (the high-octane stage presence of their bass player most notably,) when a shirtless fellow in designer jeans with a tribal tattoo wrapped around his upper right arm and two golden rings dangling from his nipples pushed me aside to get a better view.   For an instant, I considered making an issue of the situation but, being that the show was a good half way through, he outweighed me by an easy forty pounds, and I was thirsty, I opted for another drink.

A few more High Lifes hit the spot for both my tiring photographer and myself.  “Drink up!” we thought, “We’re gonna need it.” For we both knew that The Mars Volta was the next act on the bill and we’d need a good bit of drink to make it through the duration of their set.

Experiencing The Mars Volta live is more a test of the human will than an enjoyable, melodic jaunt through the nostalgic feelings we get when we see and hear bands play the songs that we listened to with our special others; to survive past heartaches; or that we played on college spring break road trips to Big Bend.  From my point of view, The Mars Volta was the most impressive show of the entire Voodoo Music Experience, as I found myself literally checking the rate of my pulse only fifteen minutes into their performance.

I had heard lore of The Mars Volta’s live shows as well as first hand accounts of the now legendary At the Drive In performances (Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriquez-Lopez’s critically acclaimed but ill-fated first project) where (according to hearsay) the possibilities for complete violent anarchy breaking out in the venue seemed just at the brink of being a very harsh reality.  From what I witnessed at the Voodoo Festival, I can’t say that too much has really changed given the unpredictable turns of the Mars Volta performance.

For one thing, there are no songs (as far as I could tell) but rather an hour and a half of constant improvisational solos with Omar shredding his guitar with the same virtuosity and restless vengeance as Beelzebub on a fiery lyre while Cedric whips, wails, and convulses his body off and on the stage provoking the crowd with a destructive angst not seen since Iggy Pop pissed off a crowd of drunken redneck bikers at the Michigan Palace in ‘74.  Honestly, the combined talents of Cedric and Omar are enough (maybe even too much) for a healthy and fully functioning human to handle in person and there ought to be surgeon general’s warnings handed out to all fans before their show if these guys are accompanied by a band chock full of equally talented musicians hell-bent on paralyzing you from the waist up with a white squall of ungodly noise cranked up to a near deafening volume.

It’s truly amazing.  The Mars Volta are unlike anything I’ve ever seen or heard before, which helped to explain a lot of the accolades they’ve received from the likes of Rolling Stone for being “the best progressive rock band” etc., etc. over the years.  Yeah, there is no questioning that The Mars Volta are “progressive” – God help us – there is nothing for the crowd to hold onto, to move to, or to sing-a-long to unless you’ve spent hours in the dark with their music blaring through your headphones and mapped the horribly complex genomes of their various musical arrangements for yourself.  And I concluded Saturday evening, upon noticing a small handful of scrawny indie types who were more or less dancing and singing along to The Mars Volta, that there are young people in this world who are insane enough to have actually done just that.

I can’t seem to wrangle any sort of metaphor to pin The Mars Volta down or whip out a hip-shot reference we music journalists like to stockpile in our Rolodex to describe these “new” acts that would give you, my readers, some sort of adequate vantage point from which to comprehend what this band is like in the flesh (assuming, of course, that you haven’t seen them already.)  At the moment, the best I can offer is to ask you to imagine William Friedkin casting Geddy Lee as Regan in The Exorcist and recording the sound of rabid wolverines in heat locked up in a china closet for the soundtrack…then push fast forward.

There were several points in the show I didn’t think I’d make it through the whole thing.  As Cedric started to pick up various pieces of equipment and toss them across the stage or as he attempted to strangle himself with the mic chord and Thomas Pridgen mercilessly beat the love out of his drum kit, I would turn to my photographer who was also showing the signs of near-fatal exhaustion, screaming, “I don’t think I’m gonna make it!!! Dammit!!! This is amazing!”

The band ended their set abruptly and exited the stage with only the feedback of Omar’s guitar left to remind everyone in the crowd that they had just witnessed firsthand for more than an hour the same sort of physically debilitating effects one suffers in that one split second when they suddenly realize their left arm has gone numb and they’re having a heart attack.

Ghostland Observatory

We needed more High Life, yes we did: one, because we were relieved to still be alive and two, because we knew that Nine Inch Nails lay on the other side of Ghostland Observatory.

I sent my photographer over to catch some good shots of Austin’s own Aaron Behrens and Thomas Ross Turner otherwise known as Ghostland Observatory over at the Playstation/Billboard stage.  The set was perfectly scheduled as darkness overcame the sunset’s fading and Ghostland Observatory’s light and laser effects dominated the night sky and illuminated the festival grounds.  From where I stood I couldn’t even see anything that was going on down on the stage but the band sounded as tight and well produced as their light show.  The crowd relished in the energy that Ghostland was emitting as they danced to the electronic, heavily distorted beats and power chords like a swarm of mosquitoes buzzing around a black light shining disco ball somewhere off in the swamplands of the Mississippi Delta – thousands upon thousands of human bodies being recharged in the bayou’s shadows for the headliner act at the Voodoo stage no less than an hour away.

Nine Inch Nails on Saturday night in many ways completed the perfect bill at the Voodoo Music Experience 2008 – especially for a kid who came of age in the 1990s and who had just seen Stone Temple Pilots reunited the night before.  I’m not sure if the brain trust who put this festival together had the “24 to 30” age slot in mind when they started compiling their list of artists for this year’s Voodoo Fest but the trip reintroduced a handful of bands from my past that had unintentionally seemed to fall by the wayside over past decade.

Trent Reznor (who, I had heard from some locals, had forced himself to move out of New Orleans due to the city’s frustrating his attempts to overcome his alcoholism – go figure?) and his diabolical group of undead (see: Robin Finck) took to the stage (if you could say that) amidst a array of glowing digital images and effects that sparkled off a sheet of fiber optics (I suppose) draped behind them covering the entire expanse of the stage setup.  Literally, a Nine Inch Nails show is more intriguing visually than the sound yet there is no denying the correlative interchange behind the stage effects and the songs they play.

Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails wasted no time getting into the new material off their latest LP The Slip covering “999,999”, “1,000,000”, “Letting You”, and “Discipline” in the first four songs of their set.  The new tracks were seamlessly interwoven among Nine Inch Nail’s classics such as “March of the Pigs” and the crowd shouted in unison reaffirming in all our minds that this band is a force unto itself and still occupies a good bit of real estate in our current musical landscape.

The political energy of the weekend found it’s most poignant expression in the gigantic image of George W. Bush’s face that beamed against the fiber optic sheets behind Trent Reznor during his performance of “The Hand That Feeds”.  The masses were riled to a ravenous state at the massive mug of our infamous Commander-in-Chief and the meaning of the song struck a sharp new chord in the already hostile collective disposition of what you’d expect at a Nine Inch Nails show.  However, as Reznor sneered and snarled, “What if this whole crusade’s a charade/And behind it all there’s a price to be paid/For the blood which we dine,” the President’s face slowly began to morph and by the time Reznor was belting out the closing repetition of “Will you bite the hand that feeds you?/Will you stay down on your knees?” an sudden hush came over the crowd they noticed the wily grinning face of George W. Bush had become none other than the face of John McCain.  The obviously Democrat-leaning audience then erupted, shouting the refrain over and over with Trent as the song had taken it’s cause and unified the collective experience of the concert under the signs of the highly partisan times in which we Americans now find ourselves.

The encore closed with a powerful, heartfelt and much quieter rendition of “Hurt” and “In This Twilight” capping off what had been a spectacular ode to the soul and the spirit of the city of New Orleans and The Tenth Ritual of the Voodoo Music Experience.

You really can’t quantify the amount of stamina it takes for a man to handle a string of shows with the muscle and force that Voodoo Music Experience threw at the cerebrums of all the weary festival goers that Saturday.  Dave and I were beaten.  Blown away with the greatness we’d just encountered from Dead Confederate to The Mars Volta to the Nine Inch Nails, but beaten within an inch of our lives nonetheless.  At 11pm Saturday night, my photographer and I could think of nothing better, nothing else worth living for than taking off our shoes and finding some soft surface somewhere where we could literally lay down and pass out.

“Let’s grab a few beers and just go back to that house…no one should be there…the guy was heading to Baton Rouge.  We’ll just watch ‘Halloween’, recharge this damn camera, and go to bed.”

Perfect.

Little did we know that for the next two hours we’d be fending for our very lives amidst a barrage of drunken, incoherent strangers in a strange house where roommates were cheating with each other’s girlfriends; one guy had thrown himself from a moving vehicle and (from I gathered) was wandering the streets in bloody inebriation; and the uncomforting noises of fornication from the upstairs loft left us both in a state of hysterical paranoia and at least one eye open for the entire night.

Be sure to check out the Buzzscene photo essay!