[Last] Saturday night brought together two very different acts to Tipitinas Uptown, featuring a bill of Nurses and The Mountain Goats. It was clear by the midpoint of the Nurses set who the sizable crowd really came to see.
Alabama Shakes roared into the conversation as a major breakthrough artist of 2011 via an early endorsement/introduction by Thursday’s show promoters and influential music blog Aquarium Drunkard. This first nudge in the right direction was followed by a huge overnight surge in notoriety at the CMJ Music Marathon in October. At their debut performance in the city in early-2012, Alabama Shakes proved to the people of New Orleans in a One Eyed Jacks-turned-sardine-can what all the unprecedented yammerin’ is all about. Also, as an aside, when the folks at the Toulouse Street venue say they are having an early show, they mean it. This night saw three bands’ performances wrapped up by 10 pm, causing us to miss the opening acts and arrive just as the Shakes were taking the stage. The chills-inducing set instilled pure musical salvation into what could’ve otherwise been an uncomfortable hour in the velvet-draped bordello style saloon.
Bruce Springsteen @ Jazz Fest 2006 || Photo by Michael Weintrob / JamBase
More colossal news coming in today for Jazz Fest 2012 as organizers announced the addition of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band to close out the first weekend of the Festival on Sunday, April 29. This news comes the day after it was announced that Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder will play a solo show on Thursday, May 3. Bruce’s return had been speculated for months after he revealed that the band would be returning to the road after the loss of saxophonist Clarence Clemons in summer 2011 to tour in support of their new album Wrecking Ball which will be out in early-March. Additionally, now that the talent lineups (subject to change of course) are locked up, NOJHF announced the daily schedules for this year’s festival, enabling out-of-towner fans and to start making some concrete plans and Jazz Fest loyalists amongst the local crowd to decide how many days off will be necessary this year.
The overriding WOW(!) factor that jumped out most when the 2012 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival lineup was released was the caliber of both the newer and established female artists in the lineup. This year the Jazz Fest organizers hit the nail on the head with their attention to the amazing array of new female talent to emerge in a big way in recent years. Seven of the premiere live female artists in the world jumped off the screen as I scrolled through the lineup and saw Janelle Monae, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Esperanza Spalding (who shocked the world last February by winning the 2011 Grammy for Best New Artist in 2011), Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Jill Scott, Feist and Florence and the Machine – a solid representation of the biggest female artists to ascend into the mainstream conversation as household names over the last 6 or 7 years.
