Day 20 – April 25

Goin’ back home, fe nan e’
To the land of the beautiful queen
Goin back to home of my baby
Goin’ back to New Orleans

[Spoken:]
On the double, here comes the Neville Brothers!

Seeing na-na, my parin,
Couzine and my ma and pa
Want to plant my feet on Rampart Street
Be there for the Mardi Gras

Goin’ back home, fe nan e’
And never more will I roam
Goin get me fill of that etoufee
Cus New Orleans is my home – Goin’ Back to New Orleans – Dr John

NOLA Brewing Crawfish Festival

Breakfast today is at the greasy Clover Grill diner. When in N.O you need to visit the Clover at least once. Besides Kate likes the toasted chicken breast sandwich. The menu speaks for itself noting ‘If you are not served in five minutes, relax, it may be another five minutes. This is not New York. Also ‘Our chilli speaks for itself. Sooner or later.’

Got back to the apartment and sat out on the stoop with Mickey and caught up on all our block’s gossip.

Well we have got through 3 days of Jazz fest but are still up for some more music and partyin’. I booked tickets from home for the inaugural NOLA Brewing Co. Crawfish Festival http://www.nolacrawfish.com The festival runs for three days from 3 P.M. to 11 P.M. each day. I have booked for the first day only and went for the V.I.P. pass which gets us seats plus three beers each and 3 pound of crawfish. A cunning plan you may say as the girls don’t drink beer! The music for the day (in order) will be Johnny Sansone, Colin Lake, Mike Zito and the Wheel and then the Honey Island Swamp band. How is that for a great day. Also for ye beer groupies back home, Terry, Phoebe, Rob, Ang, Ted Bear and Jo you can check put the brews here http://www.nolabrewing.com

Kate got us a Uber for 2:30 for the 20 minute drive over to the Irish Channel where the brewery is located. V.I.P pass collected and we are in. Very big complex. Two stage areas and four different bars and an outdoor setting. The warehouse stage has a seated balcony area where us VIPS are allowed. Great viewing area for Johnny Sansone. My first beer of the day was the ‘No Doze Off’, a blonde beer with orange, lemon and ginger. It is noted as being an easy drinking beer for a hot day. Johnny puts on a good set as usual and the day is off and running. I mentioned that this is the inaugural NOLA brewing Crawfish Fest but I am sure it will build into a must do between the two weekends of Jazz Fest.

We moved over to the next stage for the Colin Lake band. I went and got two serves of freshly boiled Crawfish which comes with a corn cob and whole potato. I got stuck into mine with gusto. They are pretty spicy and to be honest very fiddly for the amount of tail meat you get. I like them but Wendy gave up after ten minutes as she said it was not worth the effort. At one stage when I ripped the head off a Crawfish I sent juices flying all over Kate and she was not impressed. Any way I managed to eat the lot although it took me nearly the whole of Colin’s set to do so. I gave Kate’s Crawfish ticket to Johnny Sansone and he was appreciative.

We went back to the first stage and our seats. Mike Zito and the Wheel are up nest. Mighty fine effort for the band as they flew in from a European tour only last night. Mike’s band includes N.O. saxophonist Jimmy Carpenter who is one of the best in the business. I met Jimmy on my first N.O. trip and he hooked up with me on Facebook a few months back. Mike’s set was scintillating. Texas blues with a N.O. feel. Oh how I wish this band would tour downunder. I am trying a different brew, the Tea Birth which is a Rebirth Pale Ale – dry hopped with citrus hops and Earl Grey Tea. Not bad. Johnny Sansone got up to play the harp for a few songs. Sure was a lot of fun to catch Mike again. We hung around for a while and had a chat with Jimmy. I bought a copy of the Wheel’s new C.D which Mike signed and we got a group photo taken.

Back to the alternate stage for the Honey Island Swamp Band with accompanying ale being the Irish Chanel Stout (how am I going with the beer choices, Terry?) The music is great but the vocals are real bad. Where are Tony Bishop and Dave Padroth to sort this sound issue out. Took them ages but finally the vocals are acceptable.

Kate called us a Uber and we were home by nine. If I get over this way again I will make sure I go to this festival again.