The Agony of De'Feet

Awhile back I mentioned I thought I may have broken my toes on my right foot when the dog and I raced through the dining room. That turned out to be a pretty minor deal and I'm sure nothing was actually broken. I've been long healed from the incident.

Last night, I was walking through the dining room and tripped over my suitcase (yes, we got home Monday night so I probably deserved it) and most certainly shattered some toe bone in my left foot. Oy, it's excruciating. It's the three middle toes and it hurts to even consider moving them (not that I can, I have tried). It hurts to raise them off the ground, it hurts to press them into the ground.

I've been wanting to run pretty much everyday since my last run, but couldn't muster the energy in New Orleans, and couldn't face the cold when we got back. I also am not feeling real great in general, but it's mostly the cold keeping me in. I was hoping to get to the gym if my stomach could keep me upright long enough. Alas, now I won't be running for a bit no matter how much I want to.

So since this blog started in an effort to track my progress towards running past jazz musicians, and in an attempt to explain why I was so tired in NOLA, I thought I would post a list of the bands we saw on our trip.

We went to the Voodoo Experience, which is a 3-day music festival with 6 stages. Music plays from about 11 am to 11 pm, a little earlier on the last day. They feature all types of music, which is great, because I have the most schizophrenic music tastes on this earth. All modes of transportation drop you off a mile from the closest stage to the entrance.

A lot of shows overlap, so we didn't see whole sets of most of these, but these are the artists we saw...also, there was a dance/DJ stage - we never went to it, but you could hear/feel a lot of those artists all weekend (I'm only noting one DJ below as we could clearly hear them for quite awhile).

Friday:

COOT
Fitz & The Tantrums
Creole String Beans
Miracle at St Anna (we could only hear them as we were walking around and they were AWFUL)
Johnny Sketch & The Dirty Notes
Feufollet
Stanton Moore Trio plus Anders Osborne and Robert Walkter
Eli "Paperboy" Reed and The True Loves
Rosie Ledet
Metric
Weezer
Galactic with special guests Cyril Neville & Corey Henry
Raphael Saadiq

Saturday:

Treme Brass Band with Uncle Lionel Batiste
River City Extension
Rebirth Brass Band
Cage the Elephant (I love them, this was going to be one my top shows. They should pay their producer more because they FN SUCK live.)
Florence & The Machine (like 1 song, I hate them.)
Buckwheat Zydeco
Street Sweeper Social Club (I knew Husband was going to hate this show - I only knew 1-2 of their songs, but I thought I would really enjoy. I did - it turned out to be in the 3-way tie for my favorite show. We were going to just watch half and then go watch Jakob Dylan & Three Legs. Husband went to see Jakob Dylan, I stayed for SSSC.)
Ozzy Fn Osbourne. (Hollleee Crap. I was excited to finally see Ozzy, but I wasn't expecting to be blown off the face of the earth by him. Husband informed me that Sharon mooched a couple of Rob Zombie's guys to play with Ozzy and it SHOWS. I was glad I got to see the drummer who played with Rob when Husband caught an autographed drum top which is hanging in our foyer. I feel connected to that piece now. He played everything - it was absolutely amazing. I almost fell over when he started "Fairies wear boots." I don't know exactly how I managed it, but THAT was the first Sabbath song I knew and perhaps had a hand in making me the upstanding citizen I am today. It was my gateway to the dark side. He played a couple new songs, too, which I did not know, but rocked way harder than the older stuff. Three-way tie for best show of the weekend. And SSSC was the PERFECT band to go on before him.)

Sunday was a mess. First, we stayed out till 5 am the night before. Second, something was wrong with the St Charles Avenue Streetcar - they kept going out, but none were coming back. Plus, it's the shortest day anyway. Then one of the acts had technical difficulties and it screwed up a couple shows we really wanted to see. Sadly, we didn't make it in time to see the Zydepunks. Maybe next year. We did see...

JP, Chrissie [Hynde] and the Fairground Boys
Voice of the Wetland All-Stars (including Dr. John and Tab Benoit)
Toubab Krewe
deadmau5 (this was the huge DJ act of the weekend - we were laying on the ground, across the park. There was no band on the stage we were by at that time. I could feel the ground pulsing under me. We could definitely hear it.)
Macy Gray (just barely caught the end)
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue (Blew us out of the park - perfect end to the festival. He is A- Ma-Zing. And that closes out the 3-way tie for favorite act of the weekend.)

There may have been a couple acts I missed, but I must not have been paying too much attention if I can't remember them a week later, so there you have it.

In closing, the Voodoo production team didn't even give us a week to get another paycheck (for those who actually work anyway) before putting Voodoo 2011 tickets on sale for the lowest price they'll be selling them at, $75 for the weekend. I believe they go up to $150 by the time the weekend actually rolls around, so, as Ferris would say, if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up. We didn't even see most of the "top" bands that played this year. $75 is the deal of the century for music lovers who can still hang with a festival crowd.

Till I can run again...