New Orleans Jazz Fest: More Hipster Than You’d Think
by Karen Dalton-Beninato
Now that the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival has hit forty-something, the regulars have found a groove. What’s unexpected is the extent to which a new generations of festers is making it their own.
Saturday’s acts included Cee Lo Green, Feist, DJ Soul Sister, Kristin Diable, Empress Hotel and an accompanying field scattered with hipsters. I don’t consider the label hipsters a pejorative, I consider them Us 20 Years Ago. Think long-haired boys, short -haired girls and outfits that would require a mumu intervention on anyone who comfortably wore them the first time around. The classic elements of a Jazz Fest experience are all still there. I’d list them, but regulars know what they are and why spoil the surprise for first-timers?
Jazz Fest has not reached the uber-hipster level of a Bonnaroo Lollapalooza Coachella, and we like it that way. But it is evolving. Chances are the kids were never going to pick up the red bean cabana shirt mantle; they’ll probably come up with Jazz Fest hankie shirts or something undreamt of as yet.
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