[Trash-talk] Times-Picayune NO review

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Voodoo vibes ; The 2002 Voodoo Music Experience offered 'a little bit of 
everything,' from hip hop to gospel. Together with a trio of Widespread Panic 
concerts, it solidified New Orleans' standing as the place America rocks at 
Halloween. 
Times - Picayune; New Orleans, La.; Nov 5, 2002; Keith Spera Music writer; 

Start Page:  01 

Full Text: 
Copyright 2002, The Times-Picayune. All rights reserved. 

Review

The 2002 Voodoo Music Experience opened Saturday morning with an invocation 
from esteemed gospel group the Blind Boys of Alabama. It ended 13 hours 
later, when the heavily tattooed members of hard rock band Down finally shut 
down the party in their backstage RV.

Pondering the two moments that bookended his festival, producer Steve Rehage, 
whose Rehage Entertainment staged the Voodoo Experience for the fourth 
consecutive year in City Park, said, "It doesn't make a lot of sense when you 
look at it like that."

But a line-up that encompasses hard rock and hip-hop, evangelists and 
electronica, Galactic and Gwen Stefani, did make sense. Voodoo, Bonnaroo and 
other equally broad-minded festivals are far ahead of tightly formatted radio 
playlists when it comes to catering to most music fans' varied tastes. Those 
tastes are shaped in part by MTV, which brought up a generation equally 
inclined toward "Yo! MTV Raps" and "Headbanger's Ball."

And so it was that tens of thousands of people streamed into Marconi Meadow 
and Scout Island on Saturday for a little bit of everything. With most 
pre-sale tickets purchased by out-of-towners, Voodoo is fast becoming a 
national event. Along with Georgia jam band Widespread Panic's annual 
sold-out, three-night stand at the UNO Lakefront Arena, Voodoo has helped 
make New Orleans a major music destination for Halloween. While not on par 
with the 10 days of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Halloween now 
rivals Mardi Gras in terms of musical density.

Without Eminem or Tool lording over the Voodoo lineup, as each did in 2000 
and 2001 respectively, the '02 roster felt even more like the diverse mix 
that Rehage first envisioned. And it made for some curious sights out among 
the cypress trees and lagoons.

Here's the reigning Miss South Africa, in town for a cultural exchange, on 
her way to see Garbage in the company of her escorts.

There's the singer from Sum 41, careening across the Harrison Avenue bridge 
in a commandeered golf cart.

And isn't that Trent Reznor, lurking anonymously in the Playstation 2 Trance 
Tent during the deejay Z-Trip's set?

In the week leading up to the festival, organizers scrambled to counteract 
the effects of days of rain that had pooled on the low, already sodden ground 
of City Park. The cranes that erected the two mammoth stages tore gaping ruts 
in the earth; standing water in front of and behind the stages would have 
grounded both attendees and performers in a muddy quagmire. The counsel of 
environmental scientists, coupled with truckloads of limestone, dirt and hay 
and some last-minute sweeps with water vacuums, eliminated most of the 
trouble spots.

When the gates finally opened Saturday morning, most attendees likely didn't 
notice the improvised dry ground. Here's some of what they did see and hear 
at Voodoo '02.

. . . . . . .

The members of Galactic must have been inspired by the North Mississippi 
Allstars' set earlier on the Rollingstone.com Stage.

Galactic opened not with the groove-centric funk that is its stock in trade, 
but by barreling through a blues-rock instrumental, with Ben Ellman bearing 
down on a harmonica, Jeff Raines shooting off slide guitar squalls and 
Stanton Moore thrashing his drum kit. They backed down for the funkier second 
song, with Ellman on his more familiar tenor saxophone. Later, vocalist 
Theryl deClouet led a reimagining of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love."

That Galactic performed at Tipitina's the previous night until around 4 a.m. 
had no appreciable effect on the band's energy level.

. . . . . . .

Scheduling the scary Down after Canadian adolescent punk-pop quartet Sum 41 
and before Garbage and No Doubt made for the day's most jarring transition. 
Down, fronted by bellicose Pantera frontman and north shore resident Phil 
Anselmo, canceled a show in Austin to accept an invitation to perform at 
Voodoo. That invitation was extended after Saints offensive tackle and hard 
rock fan Kyle Turley personally lobbied Rehage.

Anselmo and Turley share a fondness for the tattoo artist's needle and public 
displays of machismo. So it was that Turley rode his monster blue Harley 
chopper onto the Cox Communications Stage to introduce Anselmo and company. 
The vocalist was considerably more lucid than when Down played the House of 
Blues in May, but he was in no mood to play nice with the other bands. 
Confronted with an audience of teeny-boppers awaiting the arrival of Shirley 
Manson and Gwen Stefani, Anselmo said, "I guess I'm not jumping up and down 
and rapping enough for you."

His appeal to the partisan Down fans elicited cheers and upraised fists. Then 
Down guitarists Pepper Keenan and Kirk Windstein peeled off the unforgiving 
opening riffs of "Temptation's Wings." It followed the equally blunt "Lifer," 
"Ghosts Along the Mississippi," "Lysergic Funeral Procession" and "New 
Orleans Is a Dying Whore," which, Anselmo once said, should be subtitled, 
"But I Love Her." He saluted his home state with an ad-libbed "Sweet Home 
Louisiana," and explained that the title of Down's first album, "Nola," 
indicates that "we're very proud of our heritage."

The affable Keenan, who spent part of the afternoon at the Rollingstone.com 
stage looking up childhood buddies Stanton Moore and All That keyboardist 
Davis Rogan, traded licks with Windstein, as Pantera bassist Rex Brown and 
Eyehategod drummer Jimmy Bowers rocked unapologetically and Anselmo bellowed.

In deference to his buddy Turley, Anselmo asked for "a moment of silence to 
commemorate the (Saints') winning of the next six games." He wore his 
permanent outsider status like a badge of honor. "We ain't . . . whatever is 
coming up next," he said. "We ain't that."

Clearly.

. . . . . . .

In an interview five days before Voodoo, Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson 
promised that her band, known for its carefully crafted studio albums, would 
rock surprisingly hard onstage. She wasn't kidding.

Not to be outdone by Down, Garbage guitarists Duke Erickson and Steve Marker 
and drummer Butch Vig attacked their polished arrangements, roughing them up 
with slashing guitar chords and percussion loops transformed into relentless 
acoustic drums by a hard-working Vig.

Manson herself was the spitfire focal point, stalking the stage and charging 
up the short ramp to the point that she was winded between songs. Even those 
lyrics delivered in the sweetest of voices are often barbed; she rendered 
them onstage with a hearty aplomb and enough panache to carry off the 
dichotomy.

And so it went through "I Think I'm Paranoid," "Special," "Shut Your Mouth" 
and the rapturous bridge of "Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)." As if on cue, 
raindrops fell for the first time at the conclusion of "I'm Only Happy When 
It Rains." "Is that Voodoo or what?" Manson said.

She advocates and exemplifies a type of girl power not dependent on 
sexuality, and takes a dim view of those who do.

"As for girls who look at Christina Aguilera on the cover of Rolling Stone 
and think that's female empowerment," she said, referring to the portrait of 
Aguilera wearing only a strategically placed guitar, "think again." By 
fronting a full-bore rock band, Manson offered her own convincing treatise on 
the point.

. . . . . . .

The same could be said for Gwen Stefani. No Doubt and Garbage, two of the few 
prominent rock bands fronted by women, are touring together, carrying the 
torch passed on by Blondie and the Pretenders. Though Stefani is inclined to 
show considerably more skin than Manson -- does Stefani even own a top that 
covers her midriff? -- she does so more out of athleticism than sensuality, 
and with a confidence that negates any boy toy-ishness.

She opened "I'm Just A Girl" with a round of push-ups, then capped it by 
scaling two stories' worth of scaffolding, her cordless microphone tucked in 
the waist of her plaid pants. From her vantage point high above the stage, 
she led a girls-only singalong. Back safely at ground level, as her crew 
breathed a sigh of relief, she romped through "Spiderwebs," then invited a 
beefy male audience member onstage and rode him piggy-back up the runway.

Her athleticism matched that of her band, which was augmented by two 
auxiliary keyboardists/horn men. The shirtless Adrian Young flailed away at 
his multi-colored drum kit. Tony Kanal pulled elastic lines from his bass. 
Guitarist Tom Dumont, stoic behind comic shades and skinny tie, turned out 
the clipped, ska-style licks that mark "Sunday Morning" and the other 
Jamaican-tinged anthems in the No Doubt catalog.

Stefani radiated star power as she pogoed, stretched and contracted in time 
to Young's beat. So far she has resisted what must be a constant temptation 
to shed the boys in the band and go solo. Here's hoping she continues to 
dance with the ones that accompanied her this far.

. . . . . . .

The oversize Playstation 2 Trance Tent, positioned in a field near the corner 
of Harrison and Marconi, presented a succession of A- list deejays who drew 
sizable crowds all day and into the night. Speaker stacks positioned outside 
the "rave tent's" corners and green lasers that pulsated toward the 
Rollingstone.com Stage loudly announced its presence.

Deejay Cut Chemist of Jurassic 5 saluted Voodoo's host city with a sample 
from Ernie Vincent & the Top Notes. Later, the deejay Z- Trip paid homage to 
Run-D.M.C.'s Jam Master Jay, who was murdered in New York last week, by 
splicing the guitar break from Guns 'n Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine" to lyrics 
from Run-D.M.C.'s "Wake Up," a plea for peace and understanding.

The much-ballyhooed hip-hop combo Jurassic 5 took a decidedly chill approach 
at the Rollingstone.com stage. J5 mostly makes due without the macho 
posturing, bling-bling one-upmanship and thug life imagery of gangsta rap. 
The four rappers, backed by two deejays, worked in pairs; all four came 
together briefly on kazoos. They led the audience in the "J5 exercise" -- an 
open/close hand motion -- and reprised "Some of Us," from their new "Power In 
Numbers" CD, postulating that, "if you want to fight the power, get the power 
to fight." The 20 minutes I saw midway through their set were cool, if a bit 
too laid-back.

. . . . . . .

Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz made good on a promise to spend much of 
Voodoo hanging out at the stage his band would headline. When it was his time 
to shine, he mostly dispensed with the small talk and plowed into his rich 
catalog of songs.

With an eruption of dreadlocks his only distinguishing characteristic, Duritz 
is a sort of intelligent every-man rock star, engaged in the task at hand but 
matter-of-fact about it. With six instrumentalists -- seven when Duritz took 
a turn at the piano -- the Counting Crows are able to texture their 
arrangements with many possibilities. They filled out "Hard Candy," the title 
track of the band's most recent album, with two electric guitars, an 
accordion, piano, bass and drums. For "A Long December," the instrumentation 
shifted to include a mandolin, with Duritz at the piano.

The band pulled back further for the ballad "Holiday In Spain," then fired up 
"Rain King," in which Duritz detoured into the traditional "Oh, Susannah." 
They raced through Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi." The overwrought "Anna 
Begins" never quite took off, and the outro of "Miami" was not as big a 
finish as Duritz would have hoped.

For the last song of the night, Duritz invited three dozens fans and friends 
to join him onstage for the singsong "Hanginaround." Together, they raised 
their voices and clapped along on a joyous meeting of the famous and the 
not-so-famous, the skilled and the not- so-skilled, the local and the 
international.

It was a fitting Voodoo finale.

. . . . . . .

Music writer Keith Spera can be reached at kspera@timespicayune.com or at 
(504) 826-3470.

[Illustration]
Caption: STAFF PHOTO BY MICHAEL DEMOCKER Widespread Panic guitarist George 
McConnell (left) performs with John Bell (right) during the band's concert at 
UNO Lakefront Arena.STAFF PHOTO BY MATT ROSE Concertgoers, many from out of 
state, mob R. Prophet of the Kentucky hip-hop sextet Nappy Roots during their 
performance at the Voodoo Music Experience.STAFF PHOTO BY MATT ROSE Funk band 
Galactic surprised the fans at the Voodoo Music Experience by opening their 
set with a powerful blues-rock instrumental.