New Orleans: Jazz Fest

Each year the third oldest race track in America is converted into a mini New Orleans with tastes of its culture celebrated for two gloriously hedonistic weeks: Jazz Fest.  Restaurants haul grills, stoves and pounds of fresh ingredients out in trucks to cook up crawfish pies, gumbo, jambalaya, blackened turkey legs (yes, the whole leg), fried alligator, seafood stuffed mushrooms, fried oyster poboys, beignets and just about every other local specialty.

 

 

Artists bring the aesthetic of the city into the fairgrounds by displaying their paintings of vibrant neighborhoods, musicians playing the night away, personified wood shacks abandoned after the hurricane and Mardi Gras celebrations.

Most of the 500,000 plus attendees pour into New Orleans for the festival for the major music headliners. This year's included: Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, The Black Keys and Frank Ocean.

 

In addition to the stages reserved for the biggest acts there's set ups devoted to African/ Caribbean music, Blues, Gospel and Jazz. If you're tired of being smooshed between thousands of people with beers in hand to get a glimpse of Stevie Nicks (it's inevitable at every music fest, right?), you can always bail to see an often equally as talented, but less acclaimed band tearing it up elsewhere.

              

                Native American musician Pura Fé

Many people that go to Jazz fest have been attending for decades. It's not a fad like Coachella, South by Southwest or Lollapolloza. In fact most years it pours for most of the event turning the walkways into an ankle-deep mud pudding. Most people sport hiking boots with good traction or a pair of cheap, ugly sneakers they don't mind ruining.

During monsoons, a raincoat or a plastic poncho are essential unless you want to feel like you've taken a shower with your clothing on. Despite the unluxurious circumstances, people of different ages, races and nationalities all head to New Orleans each year because they love its rich culture and the festival that was founded to celebrate it.