Voodoo Fest 2017

I hope you all had a fantastic Halloween full of candy, fun scares and hilarious costumes.

This Halloween weekend I got to spend in New Orleans for the Voodoo music festival. Voodoo fest started in 1999 and has been going strong every Halloween bringing together 74 different bands and musicians from genres of rap, pop, and rock. They also have an amazing food court, games, and a ton of alcohol for the festival attendees.

The most adorable bread rolls! 

We arrived Thursday night at a hotel that will remain nameless because their service was absolutely appalling. We arrived in the afternoon, so we were both feeling hungry so we consulted Google for a place to eat nearby. And we found Cochon! Cochon is a Cajun restaurant that specializes in pork (Cochon is French for pig). Their main selections consist of pork, but they do have a few other types of meat such as rabbit available as well. We decided to split the ham hock with greek yogurt and I got a baked potatoes as a side while my husband opted for the mac-and-cheese. The ham hock was beautifully presented, and you could tell that it had to have been cooked for a very long time because the meat fell off the bone, no knife required.  The most unique aspect of this restaurant for me though was that the portion sizes are absolutely spot on. We finished the ham hock, our sides and the adorable mini bread rolls they have, and we were perfectly content. Not over full, and no leftovers! Quite a unique find in this day and age of restaurant portion sizing.

Friday, we set out around 10:30 am to hop on the streetcar to take us to City Park for opening day. The New Orleans streetcars have been operating for over 150 years (the St. Charles line is the oldest) and they are a great, clean, and safe way to traverse all over New Orleans, and it is super cheap. An all-day pass is $3.00 per person and works for the streetcars and the buses. Cheaper than Uber, and just as efficient. So we hopped on the streetcar from Canal to City Park and it took us maybe 40 minutes.  After reaching City Park we walked for maybe 10 minutes to the festival gates, went through security and then we were THERE.

It really is as good as it looks. 

The first thing we did was to get the amazing seafood bread bowl from Cartozzo's Bakery and it was everything I remembered it being. Soft warm bread in a bowl about the size of your head filled with creamy, cheesy pasta with shrimp and crawfish. Beautifully seasoned, wonderfully filling, and perfect for the fall weather we got to have this year.

The first artist we saw for the day was Gnash (most famous for his song I hate u, I love u with Oliva O'Brien), a pop-rapper from California. He had flowers on his mic stand, and flowers on the DJ table. He came out with awesome, chill energy and got the crowd going extremely fast. Some of my favorite songs included tell me it's okay, superlit and Fuck Me Up. Fun, upbeat, poppy songs with an awesome beat and really touching lyrics (don't let the names fool you!) We also were treated to a song that has come out yet called "Good Vibrations" and I loved it, and I can't wait for it to be released!

Then we had about 3 hours before the next artist we wanted to see which was Andrew McMahon and the Wilderness.  So we decided to walk around the festival grounds and see what was new this year. We had already seen the food court, and the festival rides (a Ferris wheel and a kamikaze) so we went over to the EDM stage (La Plur) and checked out the Salted Caramel M&M stand where they were giving out free M&M's, bandanas, free hair coloring, a charging station and a claw machine (at which I was woefully unsuccessful).

The steeple of the chapel.

We hit up the Mortuary that Voodoo has set up every year, it looks like a cemetery, and there is a haunted house you can through, and this year they had actual actors wandering around like zombies to give us a little spook as we walked through. They also had a cute looking creepy chapel (complete with bride and groom zombies) set up. We then watched a few other artists that we didn't for a little bit, including Alfred Banks. Then we head to the Wisner stage to take a seat for Andrew McMahon.

I'll be honest, though my love for Cecilia and the Satellite has been strong for like 3 years now, I had never seen a picture of Andrew McMahon, so when the first man came out on stage rocking a full beard, glasses, and a hat I was like "ok!" but that was the guy who did guitar and keyboard (very well) and then Andrew McMahon came out. Dressed in a nice pair of slacks and a button-down shirt, with no beard, and a really cool swoopity-swoop hair-do. And he KILLED it. That man can sing, he was hitting notes that I have never seen a person do live. He had so much energy, he was bouncing around the stage, he crowd surfed (I was too far back to be one of those lucky folks) he had an entire parachute sent over the crowd for us to play with, and tons of beach balls thrown out into the crowd for our enjoyment. But the best part had to be the wacky-waving-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube men! I had NO idea that they were even on stage, and in the middle of a song they just popped up! And it made me so happy! It was so cute, child-like and fun. It brought some awesome magic to that show. He closed out the show with Cecilia and the Satellite, but some other songs that I fell in love with are Fire Escape and Walking In My Sleep. They are my jam on my morning commute (super loud so that I can belt out to my heart's content).

YASSS

After that amazing show, we decided to go and get an awesome "black and gold" crepe from Crepes a la Cart which is a Nutella and banana crepe, in all it's rich, goodness was definitely a great way to end my festival day (and it went surprisingly well with my Angry Orchard).

Saturday was a short day at the festival for us because we only wanted to see one artist who performed at around 5 pm. Rich Chigga is an Indonesian rapper who got started on Youtube. He has also done songs with the Suicide Boys who made an appearance during his show! The show was fun, and the energy was good (it was at the EDM stage) but his hype man was (for some reason) set on a mosh pit happening, which made the show a little less enjoyable. Maybe I'm too old, but I know I didn't pay money to get my ass kicked.

Cream Cheese Wontons

After Rich Chigga's set, we hopped back on the streetcar to go get some dinner at Rock N' Sake a delicious sushi bar that was only a block away from our hotel. We had AMAZING cream cheese wontons, delicious sushi rolls, and the best part was that they had freakin' MOCHI icecream. Mochi ice cream is typically ice cream (of various flavors) wrapped in a mochi (sticky rice pounded into a thin shape) and it is so good. If you haven't tried it yet go out and either A) find a restaurant that sells it or you can try MyMochi, a brand of mochi ice cream that is available at Albertsons. Whole Foods often has a "mochi bar" as well. I had the strawberry flavor, and it was just perfect.

Mochi Icecream!

 Later in the evening, we met our roommates up for some beers at a local bar known as the Howlin' Wolf. It is a bar, that also serves gumbo, jambalaya, and fried pickles until closing. They also feature jazz bands in their back room venue.

Sunday was also a chill festival day for us since Post Malone didn't come on until about 6 o'clock. Post Malone is famous for his songs rockstar [feat. 21 Savage] and Congratulations [feat. Quavo]. His following is HUGE. The area was packed all around for a good 35 feet from the stage.  Unfortunately, the stage they had Post Malone on, was quite small, with no screens, and with no speakers in the air. So where we were standing we could talk at a perfectly normal level the entire show. But, we did get to see a (drunk) concertgoer climb the "no chair zone" flag and rip it down, which was quite entertaining!

About 1.5 of these does me in for the night. 

The last band of the night was The Killers. I sadly missed Mr. Brightside since they decided to open with it, instead of closing with it and I was on the other side of the grounds getting a Voodoo Unicorn (ginger beer, vodka, and red bull). But the rest of their show was stunning, the lead singer looked dapper as always and the end of the show was given an extra touch of magic with falling sparks and fireworks.

Since the show ends at 9 pm on Sunday, my husband and friends decided to hit up Bourbon street before turning in to the hotel to pack (HAHA). We got down to Bourbon where we found out that they are ripping up the middle of the road to replace the bricks with concrete due to a mishap with the sewage system that allegedly happened due to years of local restaurants pouring their grease into the sewers 🤢.  So there are a few sections where you have to walk on only one side of the road and are only able to cross over the middle at certain points. But we made it to Pat O'Briens and had some seafood cakes with the traditional hurricane. What's in a hurricane? A ton of alcohol. But it tastes delicious, looks pretty, and if you eat in the restaurant you can keep the glass! After, we stopped to pick up some hand grenades, which are AMAZINGLY delicious, and comes in a cool alien glass! After we waltzed over to Cafe Du Monde to end the night with beignets (fried dough biscuits with a SHIT TON of powdered sugar, seriously if you wear black there get ready to have it on you all day) and milk.

Have you been to New Orleans before? What are your favorite places? Let me know in the comments!