From the archives- April 27th, 2009

The Following blog is about Eric Lindell and Zachary Richard. Since I am headed out tonight to see him at Ruby's Roadhouse, I thought it would be good to see this again: 
Starting on Monday the 27th of April, 2009l: I exited work in LaPlace at 2:10 headed towards NOLA. I waited for 40 minutes at Home Depot for Dan to meet me and he did not show up. We had crossed communication wires and I left without him knowing we would argue about it later. At 2:55 I drove off toward NOLA (I winced at the thought but made a decision to go anyway because I LOVE ZACARY RICHARD'S MUSIC!) I drove into the Quarter and parked at One Canal Place headed over to Louisiana Music Factory. I walked up to the place about 3:30 to catch the in store shows. On that day they had Eric Lindell playing followed by Zachary Richard.
Eric Lindell's band was up and the crowd was thick. At first I was disappointed that the Jazz fest out of towners were there crowding the place out, but they were very nice and they turned out to be very gracious co-lovers of music and I forgave their presence when I saw how allowing they were of other people's wants to get in or get out of the place. The only negative I saw was that some had brought beer into the place and had spilled it on the floor-hopefully not on the merchandise. I probably was one of the only locals there except for one annoying "lady of the evening" that shows up frequently at live music shows trying to "date" men she seems to think are high rollers.  Well she is obnoxious and rubs me the wrong way, dancing up to men and flipping her hair around and such. She got right in front of me and flipped her hair into my face twice. She kept bumping and grinding  trying to catch the attention of a man next to me with lots of gold jewelry on. I reached my hand out and grabbed her hair gently, got up to her ear, and said, "Don't  do that to me again."  She was very much intimidated and went away from where I was, thankfully.
I was then able to get into the show. Eric Lindell's band was tight and knocked me out with that song "Lay Back Down." It's the kind of love song that hit home and made me cry over past love lost (probably 37 years ago now) when I walked out of a relationship that was going just like that one in the lyrics of that song!  It is a killer Rhythm and Blues love song of a very intimate sort, like you are right there in bed with the couple as they argue.  I was standing in a crowd of about 150 people and some lady handed me a tissue.
When they exited the stage I spent the minutes waiting for Zachary Richard to get on stage composing myself. I was thinking, "Thank God there are all tourists and they probably won't see me ever again." Then the man next to me with the gold jewelry said," I wouldn't cry over that whore if I were you." I started laughing hysterically trying to explain to him that it was the song "Lay Back Down" that made me cry.
He started laughing too and we exchanged names and hometowns and in a few minutes I was telling everyone around me where to get a good meal, which clubs and shows that night were best bets, and all about free things to do in the Quarter.


I was really enjoying myself and Zachary Richard got on stage and of course by then I had wiggled right front and center as I always manage to do at music shows. He was with David Torkinosky on piano. He started with "Dance" and sang the first five cuts on his new album Last Kiss. It was a special set and it was stunningly beautiful poetry type music. I especially love his song about the Purple Martin couple living in a tree on the banks of Du Lac de Bijou (Lake Jewel.) It is sung in French and it is a simple song about watching two birds raise their young in a tree over many years. Most of crowd had come to NOLA to see a different type of music and were stunned and excited  after the show. I heard someone  say, "Wow. At first I thought, oh no, a stupid folkie...Man he IS good!"


I slipped out to get fresh air and a swoosh of cool breeze. It was hot in there. I drove home playing Last Kiss on the CD player. It was a special hour and a half. I went home to face the music about the missed communication about what time to meet with Dan. We had a brief argument, (YOU said 3:15-No I said 2:15 type of argument that went back and forth for a short while ) I apologized profusely for leaving without him, cooked dinner and Dan relaxed once he ate. If I had waited until 3:15 when he came to LaPlace, I would have missed the show all except maybe 15 minutes of Zack. I felt badly that that I had felt the need to leave without him, but I really enjoyed the experience I had seeing the music. Dan is really a sweet guy. He quickly forgave me and within a few minutes we were laughing and planning our next musical adventure after I assured him that we would try harder to plan out our timing.

For weeknd Jan 21-22nd : My picks of the best possible shows

Friday Jan 21 -  Ruby's Roadhouse- Mandeville La -Eric Lindel cover $8.00
                        Chelsea's - Baton Rouge - Anders Osborne
                        The Blue Moon Saloon  - Lafayette  -  Pine Leaf Boys Grammy send off
                        Topela - Hammond La - Patrick Catania - free show for a drink 7:00
Sat   Jan 22       Rivershack - NOLA - Big Al and the Heavyweights
                        The Blue Moon - Lafayette - Chubby Carrier  Grammy send off party
                        Ruby's Roadhouse - Mandeville La- Beausoleil
                        The Kerry - NOLA - Wilson and Moore-early show Invisible Cowboy
                                                           later show   free show for a drink 
                        The Shed- Hattiesburg Ms - Buddy Flett - show for food purchase
                                                           barely adequate quality barbecue
                                                           great sound system