Jazz Fest festivities undampened

• By JOHN WIRT
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Apr 27, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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NEW ORLEANS — Despite the clouds that hovered above the Fair Grounds Race Course throughout Friday, the 2008 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival was spared rain during its extremely successful opening day. The festival wasn’t so lucky Saturday. 

The sprinkles that fell through much of New Orleans  band Jon Cleary and the Monster Gentlemen’s funk-filled mid-afternoon set at the Acura Stage became a steady rain during his final song. 

The rain became a downpour by 3:20 p.m., but Dr. John, following Cleary at the Acura Stage, still started right on time. It rained throughout the always good doctor’s set and then rained even harder. 

Nonetheless, the festival’s music continued, including Billy Joel, another piano man at the Acura Stage. Joel started 10 minutes early with a piano instrumental of “Dixie” that segued into one of his many hits, “My Life.” 

“I wanna thank you for hanging out in the weather,” Joel  later told the drenched crowd. “I know you’ve seen worse.” 

Many festgoers came prepared with plastic ponchos. And once the rain got really serious, people swamped a festival stand selling official Jazz Fest ponchos. Many others simply got soaked by what had become an intense, cool rainstorm. 

Matt Chappellie, however, a relatively new resident of New Orleans who was attending the festival for the first time, improvised by wrapping himself in the blue tarp he’d originally brought to sit on. It was the exactly the same blue tarp that covered thousands of roofs after Hurricane Katrina. 

Rain is usually bad news for an outdoor festival, but the Jazz Fest has proven resilient. The fact was brought home during an on-site afternoon news conference including Jazz Fest producer-director Quint Davis; Randy Phillips, president and chief executive officer of the festival’s partner, AEG Live; and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu. 

“Jazz Fest is fully back,” Davis said, noting this year’s strong advance ticket sales, the return of Thursday programming and the May 4 grand finale performance by the Neville Brothers, their first since Hurricane Katrina.

Davis didn’t release attendance figures, but he said an enormous crowd attended Friday, including big walk-up sales.

“Yesterday had a wonderful feeling and vibe to it,” Davis said. “The real stars of the festival are the people who come.”

Landrieu attributed 144,000 jobs to Louisiana’s cultural economy while praising the significance of Jazz Fest.

“There’s not another event that better captures the importance of Louisiana and its people,” Landrieu said. “It reflects the resurrection of New Orleans in a beautiful way.”