Stevie's Crowded, Badu Makes History at Jazz Fest, and Sunday's Picks

Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff

This weekend COVID affected Jazz Fest; on Saturday at Stevie Nicks, so did the crowds.

COVID snuck into the second weekend of Jazz Fest, with Melissa Etheridge and Willie Nelson having to cancel because of positive tests in their crews. Locally, Jason Mingledorff had to miss the New Orleans Nightcrawlers gig after testing positive, and last night John Gros announced that he tested positive after playing, and will have to miss Sunday’s tribute to Dr. John. 

Saturday was certainly the first day I had anxieties about it when faced with the crowd for Stevie Nicks. The audience to see her spilled out on to the track in such numbers that there was a single lane through it, which meant anyone walking through would be in very close contact with others for a prolonged time. In general, COVID is most commonly spread indoor airborne exposure, but there were so many people in a limited space that spread certainly seemed possible. A number of people I talked to on social media changed their plans when they saw the crowd.

Nicks certainly made the audience happy with a career-spanning set that hit the highlights of her solo career and Fleetwood Mac years and finished with a version of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll.” For me, it didn’t work, though I concede the reasons have a lot to do with the specifics of her career.

The band supporting Nicks at Jazz Fest led by guitarist Waddy Wachtel was objectively good, professional, and talented, but it lacked the eccentricities of Fleetwood Mac. Without their specific touches, the songs lost a little of what made them special. The most compelling moments came with “Stand Back” and “Edge of Seventeen”—two songs from her solo career—and “Landslide,” which was so sparse that it seemed even more like a solo vehicle for Nicks than it did on Rumours.

It doesn’t help that for me, Fleetwood Mac songs by one of the members without songs from another feel like someone trying to tell you their side of the drama without any interruptions from a contrary point of view. I had a similar reaction to seeing Lindsey Buckingham perform solo, and while that might not be entirely fair to their music, they’re the ones who made internal melodrama central to their musical story. 

For the encore, she sang the well-meaning “New Orleans” from 2011’s In Your Dreams, and introduced by saying that it was about Hurricane Katrina, and how wrapped up in it she was, and how for a while she felt like she lived here. All of that was very sweet and I’m sure genuine, but people who feel like they lived here but didn’t can keep that to themselves because feeling like you lived here and living here were drastically different experiences. 

Another sweet gesture was a cover of Tom Petty’s “Free Falling,” and I’d argue it landed better in part because it’s such a good song, and because the sense of loss in Petty’s passing was more personal. She had recorded with him. 

Objectively, Nicks’ set was fine and it’s understandable why so many people were made happy by it. But because she entered my musical world through Fleetwood Mac, the band’s musical story is a context I have a hard time shaking for its members outside of the band. Since I like a lot of their work, I keep hoping I’ll find them satisfying outside of the band, but in concert, it hasn’t happened yet. 

When Jazz Fest booked The Rolling Stones, part of producer Quint Davis’ excitement was that he convinced the band to play it without the usual production. All of the usual lighting that accompanies concerts is of no use at Jazz Fest, where the show takes place in the daytime. There have been rumors of bands that refused to perform without their production, which made the Stones’ willingness to play without theirs meaningful.

On Saturday though, Erykah Badu brought production to Jazz Fest. She had a video screen set up on the stage blocking the stage backdrop, which projected a nature video on bees behind her to start the show, and a screen saver-like psychedelic squiggle at others. 

Badu packed the Congo Square Stage close to the way that Nicks packed Festival, and people were listening to her everywhere, even over by poster tent with the Congo Square marketplace between them and the show. Naturally, Badu found a way to make an entrance. After a tech poured her a cup of tea and waved the smoke of burnt sage around the stage, Badu came out from backstage under a golf umbrella covered with scarves. “Hello,” she said, then repeated the greeting, then did it again. It’s the start to “Hello” from Badu’s 2018 mixtape But You Caint Use My Phone, which she performed without Andre 3000’s rap. On its own, her part is a very cool, very psychedelic cover of Todd Rundgren’s “Hello It’s Me.”

Best first song of the fest, hands down.

Usually there is a contingent at the main stages that stake out spots during the day so they have a place for the closing set. The slim crowds at the Shell Gentilly Stage suggest that Lauren Daigle doesn’t yet the fan base that’s willing to put down roots to see her, which meant that Hurray for the Riff Raff was genuinely responsible for the respectable crowd at the Gentilly Stage for their set in front of Daigle.

Alynda Segarra rewarded them with an uncompromising show that drew entirely from their new Life on Earth. The set treated the material well, but the crowd seemed to be checking Hurray out until “Saga,” an unlikely choice to win over an audience. Even if the audience didn’t know that the song is about being sexually assaulted, the line “He pushed me down on the concrete” unmistakably signaled that this was a scary story, but the insistent, subway train-like surge and the buoyant chorus of “I don’t want this to be / the saga of my life” broke through and got the crowd in motion. 

In Mia Huber’s review of Life on Earth, she writes about how Segarra feels like they’re writing about right now, and when they sang, “It’s been a terrible news week” in “Saga,” I thought about the release of the Supreme Court’s draft decision and agreed. Obviously, Segarra wrote that line months if not years ago, but it made so much sense in the context of the song that I couldn’t separate the connection in the moment.

Sunday finishes with two traditional closers—Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, and Frankie Beverly and Maze—and The Zac Brown Band replaces Willie Nelson on the Shell Gentilly Stage. Brown is nowhere near as iconic as Nelson, but at this point he is likely more reliable. When Nelson last performed Jazz Fest in 2013, he phrased lines even more idiosyncratically, singing lines the way a jazz saxophone player might play them. That made the set very interesting, but fans who just wanted to sing along to songs they loved were frustrated. Brown is unlikely to frustrate audiences in that way. 

Sunday’s Picks

Charlie Gabriel and Friends - On 89, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band bandleader stretches out in directions that don’t make sense in his home gig.

(Economy Hall Tent, 12:25p)

Yvette Landry and the Jukes - Honky tonk music doesn’t get enough play at Jazz Fest, but Landry does it well with a band that knows how to move.

(Sheraton New Orleans Fais-Do-Do, 12:30p)

Khari Allen Lee plays the Music of Grover Washington - This set has possibilities. I’m hoping it will help me hear more in Washington than I do already, but if it leans into his danceable, soul jazz side, I’m good with that too.  

(WWOZ Jazz Tent, 1:30p)

Nicholas Payton - Payton lives the #BlackAmericanMusic concept by refusing to be pinned down by jazz conventions. Even when he makes an album that can be heard as jazz in The Smoke Sessions, he released a remix version that runs counter to one of jazz’s fundamental beliefs by taking spontaneous music and reconstructing and rearranging it in a studio. 

(WWOZ Jazz Tent, 4:05p)