All photos by David Hampton

The sun rose particularly early on Sunday, the 1^st of November, on account of the notoriously glorious “fall back” of the western timezone.  I opened my eyes to the sunlight shining bright through the living room windows onto the couch where I had been sleeping.  I rolled over, got up, took a piss (in the toilet, of course), and fixed a pot of coffee.

The clock said, “7:04 a.m.”…what?

Honestly, I felt amazing.  I walked back into the living room with a nice hot cup of French Roast and turned on Sportscenter to catch up on what I missed of college football the day before.  I pulled out a few of my notes and feigned an attempt to write about what exactly happened yesterday.  My photographer, for all I knew, was more or less unconscious in the backroom where he’d all but passed out last night around 2:00 a.m.

Poor bastard.

You can imagine my surprise when, after no less than a half-hour, Dave came strolling into the room clad only in his boxers and spectacles.  He looked every bit of a man who’d been canoodling the bosoms of death no less than five or so hours ago.

“Ah…man…” he scratched his stomach the way most men do when they wake up from a chemical-induced coma.

“You alright, man?” I asked.

“Ah…ahaha…man…I haven’t slept that good in years…man…I feel amazing!!”

I was relieved. “Good, good, man…I was afraid I was gonna have to leave you here today…or call the doct…”

“No…no…nope, I’m good, man…I feel so good!!  Man, for weeks my psoriasis has been killing me, man…but…dude…I feel no pain right now…medicinal…man…medicinal.” He was now turning on his laptop to upload his photos from Saturday’s shows.

“Dude…haha…these pics, these pics are amazing!!”

I now turned my eyes from the television set to get a good look at my photographer who was sitting on the floor perusing his concert photos.

“Dude…man…Dave!!  You’re still messed up, aren’t you?”

“…Hm…ha…yeah, man…I just feel so…so relaxed, man…mellow.”  He was laying down on the recliner now, head back, staring at the wall between the ceiling and the television across the room.

I couldn’t help but laugh at this point.  We were here to do a job, and my photographer, by all appearances, was already punching in his time-card.

I got up, fixed the man a cup of coffee, and handed him a bottle of water from the fridge.  I opened a High Life.

JJ Grey

We had about 45 minutes before we were scheduled to meet my old landlord for breakfast at Camillia’s Grill on Carrollton Avenue.  I had intended to send these reviews to the publishers as the festival was unfolding, but I was hopelessly naïve about the chaos of these music festivals (again).  There was no hope of getting work done.  Not now.  I abandoned my goals that Sunday morning somewhere between another High Life and a bit of tobacco.

We rolled a sweet and easy 30 mph along Carrollton with the windows rolled down.  It was a perfect 70 degrees outside and, despite the fact that, in the backs of both of our minds, we knew there were still bombs exploding somewhere in Afghanistan at that very moment, for a moment in time, sometime around 10:00 a.m. in a beat-up Accord driving aimlessly through the Mississippi Delta, everything in the world seemed at perfect peace…perfect.

We pulled up to Camillia’s Grill — a staple breakfast joint of New Orleans — where a line stretching down the sidewalk of nearly 30 or so people had already formed in front of the restaurant. My landlord had already been waiting, so Dave and I just walked in and, in no time, we were seated.

I tried in vain to minimize my photographer’s condition, but the speed at which he devoured a huge plate of waffles, two eggs “sunny-side-up,” home fries, bacon, and a few cups of coffee made it painfully obvious that this poor fellow was either famished in the clenches of extreme poverty or hopelessly reeling from the latter effects of some sort of crippling chemical dependency.

I paid for the meal.  We sent our best wishes to the former landlord and then we headed toward City Park.

We made a detour close to the festival grounds to walk through one of the graveyards of above-ground tombs.  It was, after all, All Saint’s Day, and I had a notion that a nice time spent in the company of the un-living would help to bring some much-needed clarity to my photographer’s condition.  I was also inspired by the glaring parallels between our predicament and that of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda.  Perhaps, I thought, he might hear a word or two that these dead souls have been trying to say for the last century.  He was certainly toeing that thin line between the “here-and-there,” and I, for selfish reasons, was curious as to what kind of effect it might have on the poor bastard.  He seemed to be content just taking photos of the tombs while I read the stones and took inventory of the flowery respects that had been paid.

Brand New

We made it to the Voodoo Festival just in time for All Time Low’s set at the PlayStation Stage, for which I had little to no interest.

Seeing and hearing All Time Low up there on the stage and the piercing shrills of teenage female screeching after every song threatened my mental and physical stability, which was already on the fritz as it was.  I ducked into the press area in search of a cold beer and some football scores while Dave bravely endured awaiting the Brand New show that was next on the schedule.

(Before I continue, I will not apologize for the shameless subjectivity of these reviews.  We all experience music subjectively, and any coward who cowers behind the thin, transparent veil of “objective” music criticism doesn’t have the sand to really put his pride out there on the table and disenfranchise a few wayward fans.  The sheep must be led by someone…)

Brand New is another horribly dispensable band.  Honestly, it’s killing me to go to show after show of regurgitated self-aware sincere acts who feign some sense of oppression or philosophical/relational/emotional depth.  I’d like to blame it all on Kurt Cobain, but that route would just be too easy.  The problem, these days, involves much more nuance and reaches far beyond the small confines of music or the music industry.  It’s a cultural problem in the West (and when I say “West,” I may or may not mean “the world”).

Getting down to brass tacks – I just want to rock!!  I want to hear pure, unfiltered Rock and Roll that bursts like electric geysers straight from the groin of whoever is delivering it, male or female…or some androgynous mix of both (i.e. Ziggy Stardust).

Ah…my, my…this is getting redundant, which is why we have The Pogues.

The Pogues

The Pogues took the stage sometime around 2:30 p.m., and the crowd was ready.  By my measure, this was the show people dragged their weary bodies out of bed for on this the final day of the Voodoo Festival.  The majority of the festival-goers exhibited the same depraved characteristics of marathon runners somewhere around the 23^rd mile.  Their faces were red, drooping.  Their eyes were bloodshot and half-shut.  They couldn’t walk straight and their knees seemed to be unable to bend in any consistent, stable manner, opting instead to just wobble under their thighs like limp linguine being inspected over a hot, boiling pot of water.

The Pogues were ready for the fight.  At least, the band was.  Spider Stacy had to carry the brunt of the burden, singing a good majority of the songs, from “Thousands Are Sailing” to “If I Should Fall From Grace with God,” as the famously infamous poet and notorious booze-hound Shane MacGowan stumbled (many times with help from a stagehand) to and fro between the stage and (what seemed to be) a bar located somewhere behind the stage.

The band was incredible — a pounding Irish symphony of accordions, guitars, harmonicas, and fiddle.  Beautiful.  But seeing MacGowan at such a state of decline became cumbersome.  Most depressing.  What at first was a sort of comic tribute to the debauchery that more or less creates such an artistic vision as MacGowan’s gradually became a horrific portrait of a man desperately trying to pick the lock at Death’s darkened door.

As much as I wholeheartedly enjoyed The Pogues’ set, I couldn’t help but ponder while noticing the saddened expressions of MacGowan’s band-mates as they watched him stumble from where he was sitting, barely able to hold his own cigarette. What is it about the human condition that feels so inclined to applaud or even exalt these ambassadors of self-destruction, self-annihilation?  Why do we insist that our rock stars, superstars, actors, or artists bear the responsibility of our own lust for excess, abuse, or debauchery? It all seemed so sadistic to see how many of us, consciously or unconsciously, crucify our prophets by projecting our degenerate expectations onto those who speak so poignantly to our finite, mortal condition.  Are we, the fans, somehow to blame for the deaths of our artistic heroes?  Are we so desperate for cultural martyrs?

Whew!…enough, Ramus!!!  This is music journalism…right?

Widespread Panic

My photographer and I made a dash for the press tent shortly after the Widespread Panic show started.   We were in no shape or form to hear an hour and 45 minutes of guitar solos and other jam-band trademarks.  (Dave would later notify me that his “high” ended at about the same exact time that Widespread Panic finished their first song.)

The Flaming Lips were next on the schedule and, after catching a few songs of JJ Grey and Mofro at the SoCo tent (who, by the way, were exceptional), we joined the throng of Lips fans at the PlayStation Stage once again.

The band entered the stage through (what appeared to be) the front genital orifice of a dancing human female, or a lady’s vagina.  A new birth?  Was I supposed to draw some sort of parallel between this entrance and Wayne Coyne’s shameless endorsement of the Obama Administration?  It could be done, I suppose, but pointing out such biting political analogies seems superfluous at this point, and juvenile to boot.

Coyne did everything you’d expect from a good Flaming Lips show.  The band played all the standards, such as “Do You Realize?” and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” while also finding time to sneak in a few new tunes off their latest double-album, Embryonic, including “Silver Trembling Hands” and “Convinced of the Hex.”  Coyne strolled over the crowd in his traditional inflatable clear ball while a storm of streamers, confetti, giant balloons, giant balloons filled with confetti, and lasers dowsed the crowd, who, despite their fatigue, seemed to have also been given a new life at the moment this band first slipped through the digital birth canal.

They also played “Taps” (as the band has vowed to do every show until the war in Afghanistan is over), with Coyne confessing, “Looks like we may be playing this song forever, Steven.”

Yet The Flaming Lips show was far, far from a set of nihilistic musings.  Coyne told of how KISS bassist, Gene Simmons (yes, Gene Simmons), had told him that the Voodoo crowd would have their minds blown five times more by The Flaming Lips than by KISS.  Coyne used this KISS endorsement to rev up the audience…which seemed to work considerably.  By now, their minds and bodies were hopped up on so many various poisons on top of pure, old-fashioned fatigue, you could excite the whole herd into a stampede just by snapping a twig at the right opportune moment.

The Flaming Lips

The most talked-about moment of The Flaming Lips show, however, had little to do with the band or Coyne.  After the band had played a few songs in their set, one of the 25 or so people dressed like snow bunnies or polar bears (I don’t know — it all sort of went blurry there for a while) who occupied each side of the stage stripped off her suit and danced around Coyne and various other band-members completely naked.

Personally, I didn’t know it was a lady dancing up there au natural until overhearing someone talk about the incident some time later.  From my vantage point, all I could see was the backside of some naked person up there that looked like a skinny little malnourished man dancing along with The Flaming Lips.

Strange, I thought to myself — strange to have a skinny naked man up there now.  It didn’t seem to gel with the whole “vaginal” direction of the show…if it was intentional, of course.

But all these oddities seem to be a trademark of the Voodoo Fest, and one does best not to dwell on what they think they saw or might have seen.  It is just to be enjoyed for what it is — good, unwholesome entertainment.

After The Flaming Lips, Dave and I were beginning to wear down.  I knew we still had a long trip back to Austin awaiting us later Sunday night or early Monday morning.  We made our way over to the Lenny Kravitz show at the main stage, but it was becoming painfully obvious that the festival was winding down, slowing its tempo to close out what had been a most incredible weekend.

We caught a good bit of Kravitz’s performance, which marked his long-anticipated return to New Orleans from a recent two-year expatriation to Paris to record his latest album.  As one of the highlighted stops on his tour commemorating the 20^th anniversary of his album Let Love Rule, this New Orleans gig offered Kravitz an opportunity to pay his respects to the fan-base he fell in love with back in 1991, when he played with Aretha Franklin during the New Orleans Jazz Festival.

My photographer and I managed to see “It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over” and “Fly Away” before we moved over to the WWOZ stage for a brief peek at The Meat Puppets’ show.

The Meat Puppets

Although our minds were telling us to stick through The Meat Puppets set, our bodies were begging us to retire and get outta town.  The unsung heroes of grunge were incredible and, while any other day I would have been out of my head with excitement to see them, I knew the festival was starting to get the best of me.  Not that this is a bad thing.  Ironically, I find the “burnout” one experiences at the end of a three-day music binge very satisfying – the way one might feel a sense of accomplishment after a hard day’s work framing a house in the hot summer sun, or chopping wood in a forest chilled by the winter’s snow.  It’s a sick, twisted, masochistic sense of accomplishment, but it’s accomplishment nonetheless.

Dave had completely regained his senses by now.  As great as it was to listen to his drug-addled ramblings, I was happy to have my co-pilot back on the same planet again.

We drove back to our apartment to clean up the place.

At 2:00 a.m. Monday morning, we packed up the Honda and, once again, for the second year in a row and one year older (at least) than we were last year, began our overnight journey home from New Orleans. Alive.

‘Til we meet again, New Orleans, till we meet again…