Voodoo News: Chainsmokers Discussed, and Charles Bradley Out, Morning 40 In
Voodoo starts Friday in City Park, and today organizers announced that Morning 40 Federation will replace the ailing Charles Bradley Sunday at the festival.
After rain muddied City Park’s Festival Grounds to such a degree that the Voodoo Music and Arts Experience had to cancel its last day last year, this weekend’s forecast looks like payback. Predictions call for a weekend with highs in the mid-80s and lows in the mid-60, and less than a 10 percent chance of rain.
Voodoo did get bad news recently when, on October 4, Charles Bradley announced that he had to cancel his fall tour because he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. "I'm getting the best medical care and we are all extremely optimistic," he said in a statement. "I will fight through this like I've fought through the many other obstacles in my life.” Bradley was scheduled to play Voodoo on Sunday, but he won’t appear because of the tour cancellation. Voodoo veterans Morning 40 Federation will take his place at 4:30 p.m. on the South Course Stage.
In other Voodoo news, The Chainsmokers, who’ll headline Sunday night on the Le Plur Stage, are the subject of a recent New York Times’ “Popcast”—a podcast hosted by critic Jon Caramanica. He and guests Jia Tolentino, a contributing writer for NewYorker.com, and David Turner, a staff writer for MTV News, talk about the state of dance music in 2016 and The Chainsmokers’ role in crystalizing it. Caramanica is more skeptical than Tolentino and Turner, but he concedes,
"The Chainsmokers turned out to be the most pop-savant artists of 2016.”
This year, Voodoo has made a number of changes to try to improve previous boondoggles including stage-to-stage soundbleed and the genuinely scary Port-a-potty set-up. One new feature is Voodoo Cashless, which allows festivalgoers to pay with their wristbands and PIN number. Here are the instructions.
Finally, Internet-willing, My Spilt Milk will do a Facebook Live nightly wrap-up of the day at Voodoo. We’ll aim to be online after the last notes of the night sound, around 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and around 9 p.m. on Sunday. I hope we’ll see you at our Facebook page then.
