JazzFest starts tomorrow and runs this weekend and next. It seems the whole city goes to JazzFest. Folks are taking off work left and right tomorrow and that damn blimp is back flitting around the city. Truly, they should just proclaim tomorrow a holiday here. Everyone just seems to LOVE JazzFest, everyone that is, except me. Yes, it has good food, great music and impressive local art. Turns out, though, that I just can’t handle JazzFest. I always make the same mistake and have lost interest in it.

CS is going this year with the “brass pass” (he’ll be blogging on Pete’s page about his exploits). The brass pass costs $350 (without the pass, it costs $45 a day–$35 if you buy in advance) and gets you in every day of the Fest (this year, that’s six days–there is usually one Thursday in there but since Katrina, they’ve cut that day out). The brass pass is a cool keyring that is, well, brass and looks like a ticket. Here are the perks of a brass pass: the ability to enter and exit the festival throughout the day; access to a hospitality tent that will provide you much wanted shade, a place to sit, and fresh fruit and iced coffee; and private portable bathrooms. The best perk: you get to skip to the front of the security check and then you have your own private gate that you can zip through.

Now, I cannot even fathom what the benefit of in and out privileges really get you. Once you are in the Fest, you are IN until you want OUT for good. That perk is just non-existent and silly. The hospitality tent: good in theory but it never seems to be near a stage I want to be by so this perk would be kinda useless to me, too. Next, fruit and iced coffee? Are they kidding? And “private portable bathrooms”? No matter how you say it, they are NASTY port-o-lets. I always opt to hike back to the grandstands and use the indoor plumbing, thank you. So I have never had (and am not likely to ever want) a brass pass.

But first you gotta get there. Traffic is hellacious; grab a Snickers, you are gonna be a while. And parking is a BITCH–when I go, I park at my High School alma mater and throw the Dad’s Club $20 to do so. Then you leisurely walk to the Fair Grounds (maybe buy a $1 beer a neighbor is selling). Then wait in line to buy tickets and get in. Once we are in, I am ready to (1) eat; (2) drink; (3) hear great music; and (4) SHOP!

I’ll take those in order. Eating. The food is good, and there is a lot from which to chose. No real complaint here. Well, maybe just one: It’s a lot of the same food you get at French Quarter Fest and you didn’t have to pay a cover price to get into FQF.

Drinking. Here’s where I really get into trouble. You see, whenever I go to JazzFest, it is HOT. And there is very little shade at the Fest. And I tend to dehydrate. So then I realize I need water for which you need to stand in a LONG LINE to get. Problem for me is once I get up to the front of the line, buying water seems so LAME. I feel I’ve earned a beer. Better make it two, maybe even three–God knows when I’ll get back in the line again. So then I drink beer and get more dehydrated. And then I need to pee. UGH! Abort all plans in order to truck back to the grandstands to take care of that task.

Music. The music is AWESOME. But the Fest has gotten SO BIG that you really can’t traipse from stage to stage to hear all of the bands you want in a day. No; instead, you pick the one band you want most to hear and you head to that stage to camp out. If that band is the last band of the day, you are gonna be sitting in the same place all day. Because if you don’t camp out, you won’t even get close enough to see the JumboTron that they have set up for the far-out folks to see the musicians. This was how I saw Sting and Bob Dylan. It SUCKED. And the crowds are really tight. And JazzFest is known for bringing out the hippies. I don’t mind that everyone (but me) is smoking pot, but can you at least BATHE before coming out? I mean, don’t even attempt to see Phish at the Fest. UGH!

So I tend to forgo the headliners and go for the smaller acts. I especially like the ones in tents (can you spell s-h-a-d-e?)! My all-time favorite JF band: The Last Straws. They are a Dixieland group that played at our wedding reception and a funeral I attended (that is worthy of its own blog). But I also like the blues and gospel acts that draw a bit smaller crowds.

And the reason I forgo the headliner bands is that I like to walk around. JF is GREAT for people watching. Truly awesome people watching, actually. And forgoing the big acts affords me the opportunity to do the thing I like best to do at JazzFest.

SHOP!! They have awesome local artisans schlepping their wares. I learned about Studio Inferno because of a piece a friend bought at JF. They do glass molds and blown glass–they even do a blown glass exhibit at the Fest. Every year, it seems I buy a new piece of theirs. To date, we have over 15 pieces. They are my favorite vendor. But we have also purchased the following over the years: dog biscuit jar; jewelry; ceramic tumblers; ceramic bud vase; photographs; and original paintings.

But that dehydration thing is really a problem for me. I tend to get drunk easily out in all that sun and then I get a headache. It starts small and gets bigger and bigger until it turns into a migraine. Then I am toast and need to get home into a cool, dark room. Yes, I am a wet blanket at JazzFest. You’d think I’d learn. Instead I have learned this: JazzFest with no alcohol is like Mardi Gras with no beads or Easter with no chocolate or seeing a movie in a theater with no popcorn. I mean, sure, you can do it, but why? And being pregnant is the proverbial nail in the coffin for me. No one has even ASKED me to join them this year! Apparently drunk, headachey Nola is more appealing than preggers Nola. And that is just fine with me.

I may have attended my last JazzFest, and that is sad to me because it is so beloved in and to my city (and the tourists). But for me, I’ll take FQF or Mardi Gras or a nice weekend alone over JF now. And I have the best of it–CS will scout the artisans’ wares for me and buy something he knows we will both like and he’ll bring me home some meat pies!