Jazz Fest, Day 3

My apologies for the delay on this last section--I went to visit my parents for Mother's Day, so blogging wasn't exactly my top priority. Happy Mother's Day, by the way!

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Check out Days 1 and 2 if you missed them.

The morning of our last day in NOLA wasn't super eventful. I'm pretty sure I snoozed our alarm for about an hour. We got up, packed, ate breakfast (I don't think I mentioned that our hotel had really good waffles), and checked out.

We wanted to wander around a little more before heading to the fairgrounds, so we went over to the Riverwalk where there were all these shops and restaurants. Not too much was open (we kept forgetting it was Sunday morning), but the building was air-conditioned, so we walked the length of it for funsies. Then it was time for our last bus ride to the festival!

We'd been trying to see people in the Blues tent all weekend, but it was packed every time. So we sat down there right away and saw a really good local band, followed by Corey Harris and Phil Wiggins. This is also when Laura and I ate the surprisingly good Vietnamese food (I believe I mentioned this earlier).

The local band--all of these guys were really good.

The saxophone player's daughter got up and played the tambourine.

Phil Wiggins & Corey Harris.

They were really great, but we wanted to leave early and head to the Acura Stage to hear Trombone Shorty, who is somewhat of a local legend (and known elsewhere, too). Our friend Stephanie said he's like "the Kanye West of trombone players," which is pretty much true, haha. At the end of their set, his band all switched around and started playing completely different instruments, which was awesome. We also spotted him walking through the festival later. The accompanying security officer confused us until we figured out who he was.

It was packed, so these are just pics of the screen. And someone's head.

Next, we again followed the advice of the Scooby-Doo gang and split up (harhar). The boys went to see a blues guitarist while Laura and I went to save a spot for Iron and Wine. Sam did some old and new stuff--it was a nice mix. He also joked about putting all the good songs at the beginning because everyone was going to leave to see Bruce Springsteen.

We knew there was no way we'd be able to get remotely close to Bruce Springsteen since people had been camped out there all day long, but we decided to give it a shot. We stayed for a very squished 4 or 5 songs, then decided to eat dinner and call it a day. But of course, what we heard was awesome.

The Boss.

I'll spare you the details of our 7-8ish hour drive back, except to say that we got back around 3 a.m., I read almost an entire book, and there was much coffee and some Taylor Swift involved (only while Brad was sleeping).

And that's the story of my first-ever music festival!