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Voodoo Experience 2009
| October 30,31 & November 1st,209 @ City Park |
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by Courtney Campbell
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So if you were looking for a place to spend Halloween, where would you pick? New Orleans and the 2009 Voodoo Experience was the perfect place for earplugsrequired.com to spend Halloween weekend. First off, it's New Orleans - the home of the French Quarter, Haunted Houses and Voodoo. Add on to that a three day music festival that included Eminem, KISS, Jane's Addiction, Lenny Kravitz, Flaming Lips, Pogues, and many more and you have the makings of a great weekend.
The festival kicked off on Friday and as always there are those artists that you might not go out and see on their own but are just blown away when you see them at a festival. Janelle Monae was one of those. Having missed her set when she came through town with No Doubt over the summer, I'm glad I didn't miss her at Voodoo. She is an artist that you cannot pigeon hole into a genre; she's R&B, indie rock, alternative and soul all wrapped up into a petite body that is full of energy. This girl has a long career ahead of her! The threat of rain for the first day of the festival didn't stop the fans of the Silversun Pickups who huddled under ponchos to await the band. The temperature  had dropped 20+ degrees just an hour later and by the time the Silversun Pickups hit the stage, everyone was soaked. This was the band's first time ever playing New Orleans and the crowd was loving it. Only a handful of photographers were approved to shoot Eminem and while I love Eminem since I wasn't shooting, I headed over to the Bingo Parlour to cover Fischerspooner. Glad I did as I caught the end of the The New Orleans Bingo Show and Guests. They are a theatrical caberet and music band. Definitely entertaining. Fischerspooner closed out the night in the Bingo Parlour and what a fun performance. We left Friday night, cold and wet to the sounds of Eminem. Off to rest up for another day. Oh and to stop and get shoes to deal with the mud the next day.
Saturday was Halloween! Now mind you people have been in costume all weekend, well maybe they weren't costumes? Since today was Halloween, more were in costumes and there was a set up to attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the greatest number of zombies assembled. All you had to do was sign up and you were given the makeup to do your face like a zombie. The lineup today had KISS and Jane's Addiction headlining with The Black Lips, Mates of State, Mutemath, Gogol Bordello, and George Clinton all leading up to them. Earlier we learned that K’naan cancelled so there were a few stage changes that occured and left us scrambling to find where we were headed next. Traversing through the festival grounds  was a bit harry since the rain the night before had turned it into a mud-fest so my schedule for the day changed drastically. My favorite of the day was Jane's Addiction as they always put on a good show. Great to finally see Wolfmother and Mutemath (who are local btw). I wasn't shooting KISS tonight since I had shot them back home so I just enjoyed the music. Lasted the entire day in a dress running around a festival with day of the dead makeup on - not bad!
The final day of Voodoo Experience had Lenny Kravitz headlining but we had many bands to cover before we got to Lenny. We checked out All Time Low who are from our home state and they sounded great! Gotta tell the Nola girls screaming that they are no way as loud as the hometown crowds! Brand New played in the early afternoon and just blew me away. Wasn't sure how they were translate to a festival stage but it was a great set. Caught the Pogues set that had most in the barricade wondering were Shane McGowan was until he came out at the beginning of the fourth song in the set to a bit of controversy.  Things settled down on stage and we remained in the barricade to photograph one song with him. The Flaming Lips kicked things up a notch with their performance which included the usual bubble enclosed frontman Wayne Coyne as well as a nude girl running on stage to hug him later in the set. Confetti and bouncing balls were abundant as this was just a party set. Closing out the night was Lenny Kravitz who is just an amazing performer.
Another Voodoo Experience in the books.
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