VooDoo Music Experience and Rehage Entertainment presents… The Raconteurs, Cheap Trick, Ray Davies and many more in City Park, New Orleans, Halloween weekend 2011.
VooDoo Experience day 3 was a beautiful day, nice sunny weather in the 60′s, a great day to check out the final plethora of musical acts. Throughout the morning and midday, highlights from the second stages included The One Am Radio, Swiss Chris, Christoph Anderson, King James and the Special Men, Mannie Fresh, The Limousines, and the Givers. Preservation Hall stage set the jazz tone with Leo Jackson, Glen David Andrews, and the namesake Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Beer flowed and food was abundant as crowds made their way to their stage of choice for the midday acts.
The BudLight stage hosted the Stone Foxes out of San Francisco, a band that has musical roots in the 60′s and 70′s vibe of bands like the Faces and Stones. The band has been garnering notice since their 2010 full length release Bears & Bulls, and was listed as a “must see” from the festival reviewers. Also getting a big buzz with attendees were the Sheepdogs, who made history as the first unsigned band on the cover of Rolling Stone. The Canadian bands’ brand of 70′s inspired psychedelic rock brought fans out early to catch their set and check out the new hottest band from the Great White North.
Fishbone made an impact on the Red Bulletin stage for fans up early enough Sunday to catch the havoc. Fishbone’s ska/punk show always has a way of getting just close to out of control without any real injury, and this year frontman Angelo Moore ended up surfing in the wild crowd. The band played through a long set of prior hits and also new music from recent release “Crazy Glue” to an enthusiastic crowd.
Sunday being a short festival day, the stages and showtimes bottlenecked little in the later day and it was hard to get to see everything, but the afternoon lent performances from Jackmaster, Morning 40 Federation, A-Trak, Odd Future, Dr. John and Portugal, The Man before the Preservation Jazz Band took the stage and showed a little cajun flavor to the crowds. Closely following PJB was Ray Davies, and fans crowded the area to see the rock legend perform classic hits like “All Day and All of the Night” and “I Need You”. It was amazing to see someone as influential as Davies on a small stage and so intimate a setting, and the fans sang and danced to “Where Have all the Good Times Gone” and “Too Much on My Mind”. Davies was joined by guitarist Bill Shanley center stage for a more stripped down “Full Moon,” “Sunny Afternoon” and “A Long Way From Home” before pulling out the stops with “20th Century Man”, “You Really Got Me” and finally “Low Budget” (with a stage play on the bullet in the butt incident) before the end of the show.
Bingo stage hosted Cheap Trick close behind Davies as the crowd moved across the field to see another group of legends rock out the last day of Voodoo. Cheap Trick played on probably their smallest stage in years as the fans got an up close and personal show starting with “Hello There” and cranking into “California Man”, “70′s Song” and “Baby Loves to Rock”. Vocalist Robin Zander was dressed to the hilt in the classic Sgt. Pepper-esque regalia, and the band let loose on some of their greatest hits with “I Want You To Want Me”, “She’s Tight”, “Ain’t That A Shame”, and “Surrender”. Guitarist Rick Nielson cavorted and high kicked (still) and the cheering lasted long after the set ended with “Dream Police”, Gonna Raise Hell” and a final “Goodight”.
Across field the stages still were going with Fatboy Slim on the Red Bulletin rave stage, the Original Meters and Bonerama (with Dave Malone from the Radiators) on the BudLight stage and and TV On The Radio hitting the main Voodoo stage prior the the last headliners for the night. The Nervous Wrecks closed out the Bingo stage and the crowd headed to the main Ritual field for the final show.
The Raconteurs blasted on to the main stage as the headliners of the final day of Voodoo, and the crowd was pressing the barricades to see Jack White and co-frontman Brendan Benson on stage for a biting blues rock show starting with “Consoler of the Lonely” and “Hands” as the vocal and guitar prowess of both shined. White and Benson traded vocal and guitar duties, and joined by Patrick Keeler and Jack Lawrence played through “Many Shades of Black”, “The Switch and the Spur” and “Broken Boy Soldiers”. Jack White made Rolling Stones top 100 guitar greats list, and was readily apparent why as White ripped through “Rich Kid Blues” and a blistering solo in “Blue Veins” from the bands first LP as the last song of the set. The Raconteurs are playing only a handful of shows in 2011 and this was a real experience to get to see this band live and White’s guitar prowess in the festival setting. Amid endless cheering and chanting the band returned for an encore and final “Salute Your Solution” and “Carolina Drama” before the end of the show, end of the night, and the end of another New Orleans VooDoo Experience.
