Musical Memories of Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Posted about 4 years ago

*Sturgell* did a "*post about the crowd getting out of hand at an Australian festival*":http://mog.com/Sturgell/blog_post/140944 (not really violent, apparently, just sort of a crush - sort of like the deaths at the WHo concer in Cincinatti years ago. It reminde dme of an experience of my own that was similar on a smaller scale, so i did a comment - and here it is as a musical memoir as well:About twenty years ago i was in the pit at a Mardi Gras show at Jimmy's in New Orleans - Dash Rip Rock was the headline; it was while Fred leBlanc (now fronting Cowboy Mouth) was still their drummer. DRR shows tended to be pretty rowdy anyway - Bill once remarked that people in the mosh pit should be careful, and then muttered "I think we're the only country band that *has* a mosh pit...", and, since *Jason and the Scorchers* were on hiatus at the time, i suspect they were... (Jimmy's used to be decorated with posters for previous shows, and one was for a show featuring Jason & the Scorchers, DRR and [i think] *Stray Cats* [or someone similar]. Wish i'd caught that one...)Anyway, they'd played for about two hours (and i'm not joking - i mean that literally - i was at one DRR show where their closing song ran forty-five minutes), and people were still yelling for more. Bill stepped up to the mike and said "Well, we've played all our own stupid songs - I guess we'll play some other peoples' stupid songs."And he struck up Pinball Wizard.And the crowd rushed the stage even more energetically than they had before.And all i could think was "Thirteen dead at Cincinatti Legion Stadium..."And i don't know how i got there, past the barrier in front of the stage, but i listened to the last half hour of the show from on top of one of the cabinets.The stage was blocked off with a line of those portable metal barriers that cops use to block off an area - you know, sort of shaped like metal gates, and they lock together?

After the show, they were bent back at a 45 degree angle just from the crowd pushing against them...

Comments (4)

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RGM says They mosh to anything now a days... Cool tune, great post... :)

Permalink posted 01/30/2008
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fairportfan says Shake That Girl used to be DRR's show closer - it's the one that mentioned once running 45 minutes - they's play averse and then Bill would stop in mid woprd leading into the chorus and they'd play something else for a wehile - the time it ran 45 minutes, i recall that they included a metal version of *Revolution*, an absolutely killer version of *Smoke on the Water* and a rockin' version of And here's the original of that one:

Permalink posted 01/30/2008
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Bartleby says My goodness, you survived the mosh and stampede. Pretty impressive.

Permalink posted 01/30/2008
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fairportfan says Well;, i'm six feet tall, in those days i weighed about 210 and could vault a six foot fence from a standing start (as long as it was strong enough for me to do that). So i sort of had a bit of an advantage in the pit. I remember another DRR show at Jimmy's - where they didn't have the barricade up - where i spent the whole show leaning forward with my hands braced on the edge of the stage to protect Stacy-the-leftover-hippie from over enthusiastic moshers. (Since this meant that i had to pretty well press up against her back to do it, i didn't mind a bit...) But what's really impressive to me is that when Bill started *Pinball Wizard*, i went over the barricade and straight up on top of a six-foot high speaker cabinet without thinking about it in advance or being able to remember doing it afterward. It was as if i teleported up there. (Over the years, i've observed that sometimes i seem to exhibit reflexes that ought to belong to someone else - like the time i was walking along Bardstown Road in Louisville Kentucky at 11PM and someone passing by tossed a couple of firecrackers out of their car at me. Before i even had time to think, i had swept back my coat with my right hand and my left hand was very sincerely trying to do a cross draw of the gun i have never in my life carried on my hip...)

Permalink posted 01/30/2008

Musical Memories of Mardi Gras in New Orleans

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