No video yet, but here's a play by play of the dash in front of the Acura Stage (the largest one, where Springsteen, Phish, Clapton, Santana, etc. play) at the New Orleans Jazz Fest which started this morning.
Interesting that the security guy who was ready to cut tarps to get them to the correct size. Apparently they aren't kidding - many got cut last year. And every chair in front of the soundboard was taken away. People learned the rules very quickly!
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Around 10:30 a.m., a few dozen people queued up at the edge of the Acura Stage field, waiting for security to let them dash onto the grounds and lay down their tarps. Most of these were volunteers who finished their early-morning shifts and came over to reserve an early spot.
No chairs or tarps are allowed in the buffer zone immediately in front of the stage. Thus, the spaces along the orange border painted in the grass is especially valuable real estate. "We're just gonna get the best we can," said one guy in an LSU cap.
At the signal, the land rush was on. Blue tarps blossomed all along the line as security guards explained the rules: "One foot of space between tarps, everybody!"
And no tarps larger than 6' by 8'. "I'll cut them myself," one security guy noted.
Up on the Acura Stage, local Latin jazz guitarist Javier Gutierrez and his band, Vivaz, tuned and tested instruments. The early arrivals got to watch, and listen, to this peek behind the curtain.
By 11 a.m., the gates of the Fair Grounds were open, and the festival was officially underway. A guy in the throng of early arrivals streaming in from the Sauvage Street entrance breaks from the crowd to get in my face.
"Are you smiling?" he says. "Me too."
Listening to:
Corey Ledet - an up-and-coming accodian player/singer from Lafayette, La
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