Nolaween - It’s What We Do
By Geoff Hanson
Writer’s note: This article appeared in An Honest Tune, Volume 2, Number 3. Reading it these may years later reminds me just how hard I used to run back in the day, how much fun I had doing it and how much I loved Widespread Panic(It also shines some light on why my memories of those days are a little fuzzy). Less than eight months after the Halloween show of 1999, I was actually working with the band. I think this article reveals just how much my brother Chris and I dug Widespread Panic and the scene before we set out to make LAOM and TEWSY. We were not just casual fans, we were fully spreadicated. I remember responding to a question back in those days about the band, and I responded, “Widespread Panic. It’s what we do.”
Widespread Panic creeps upon New Orleans for a third series of Halloween shows
The first thing to know about Widespread Panic’s Halloween shows is that the phenomenon can be broken down into a simple equation. WSP+10/31+NOLA= Nolaween. In 1998, the equation changed slightly. WSP (squared symbol)+10/31+NOLA=Nolaween II. And this year, you guessed it, the equation morphed to the third degree. WSP(cubed symbol)+10/31/+NOLA=Nolaween III.
Nolaween is very dear to my heart. I fell in love with my wife Alison at the first one, was engaged to her at number two and we celebrated our two year anniversary of being together, and three month wedding anniversary this year.
Let’s just say it’s my New Years. And when you get right down to it, I’m talking really getting down – like Chilly Beth Childers during Drums getting down, Halloween is the New Year for freaks.
In 1997, I dressed up as Elvis, actually to be specific, I was a Flying Elvis. I had lights inside the suit to light me up when the lights went down, but I had technical problems the entire night and only lit up sporadically.
But long before the lights went down, like 3 pm in the afternoon, I was out at the parking lot at the UNO Lakefront Arena checking in on my fellow freaks to see what they had whomped up for the night.
After hanging around for a couple of hours, I got a little antsy -- go figure. I had been coming to Jazz Fest since 1993 and the year before, had done an interview with Rick Danko of The Band out at the same venue before one of the Fest’s night shows. I knew from that experience that you could walk around to the back of the venue to the backstage area with relatively no problem.
I convinced my brother Chris to follow me. I’m dressed up as Elvis and my brother is Cupid. Sure enough, we walk around back and I give my best “I’m the king” nod to the security guards. They must think I’m with the band. Suddenly, I’m backstage, having lost Cupid along the way.
I say hello to Mikey, he gives me a “Nice to see you, Elvis” look and heads to soundcheck.
Soundcheck?
Yes, in 1997 Widespread Panic played their soundcheck for me. I was the only person in the arena not with the band. And I stood out in the middle of the floor and danced. I had my lights working at this point. And what did they soundcheck with? “Use me” by Bill Withers and “Long Live Rock.”
Widespread Panic had never played either one of these songs. I was thrilled by the first one and bowled over by the second one. “Long Live Rock,” are you kidding me, the Minnie Pearl song made famous by the Who, my first favorite band back when I was a little nipper coming around?
The band finishes sound check and now I’m packing. I’m Elvis and I know they are going to play “Long Live Rock.” For the entire night, I walked around proclaiming the gospel of Elvis, risen from the grave to deliver the message to the faithful. “Long live rock! And when they say rock is dead, you say not tonight!”
I must have said that to 500 people that evening. And at the end of the show, when the band opened with the encore, my friends all looked at me as if to say, “And we thought you were just buzzed. When JB broke into “Rock is dead…” My friends all screamed, “Not tonight!” It was beautiful.
Oh yeah, then they played “LA Woman” (which I’m convinced was Louisiana Woman) and later that night I saw Galactic at Café Brasil and got to see Jojo join them for “Just Kissed My Baby”.” And I fell in love with my wife – a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. That’s another story, but I kid you not when I say that our Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders – Alison Green, Beth Childers, Marlande Mauberret, Stacy Bowers, Kathy Sewell, Nichole “Party” Burnley and Kari Silverman – were more beautiful than the real Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.
So let’s just say Nolaween became an instant classic for me.
I was delighted when they announced a two-night run for 1998. By now, I am living in Baton Rouge, engaged to be married. I convinced Cupid to abandon his union love job and join me and our friend Bobby Silverman from Vail as a member of the Beastie Boys, from their video “Intergalactic Planetary” from the album Hello Nasty.
The music was equally inspired at Nolaween II ( I wrote about that run for Relix Magazine). So that brings us to the main event – Nolaween III, Halloween night, exactly 62 days before the millennium. Highlights for me included the beautiful “End of the Show” encore Friday night and the “Driving>Riders on the Storm>Driving” on Saturday.
My friend Coors was cracking me up Saturday night with his Jojo-isms, a few of which included the chant, “Mo Jojo, Mo Jojo, Mo Jojo for yo soul.” And my favorite description of Jojo pounding the keys – “Slapping it like a bad girl. Bad girl! Bad girl!” I was laughing about that all night. And for some reason, I could not stop saying WHOMP!
WHomp! WHomp!
As in, the band was clearly prepping the crowd for some serious whompitude on Halloween night. I closed the Relix review in 1998 by writing, “Next Halloween, the Panic might very well have to bring a blow torch.”
Heeding the blowtorch metaphor, the only way I can describe the 1999 Halloween show was that the band was dropping bombs on us all night.
But before the explosive music, Todd commenced the evening with an inspired rendering of Pop Staples life-affirming blessing from True Stories that immediately proceeds the playing of ”Papa Legba” in the film.
Here’s what Todd laid on us.
“Divine order, take charge of my life today and everyday. All things work together for good today. This is a new and wonderful day for me. There will never be another one like this one. I am divinely guided all day long and whatever I do I will prosper. Divine love unfold me and wrap me and I will go forth in peace. I am going to be a wonderful success in all my undertakings today and you are going to be happy from now on! Yambee, yambee, siblaa, voomgenba!”
Right on.
The stage was designed to resemble the French Quarter and the moon began rising after Todd delivered his soliloquy.
True to their own story, Panic delivered us an equally inspired “Papa Legba” opener. They followed with a rocking “Space Wrangler,” yada, yada, yada. It was great. Listen to the tapes. For me the highlight of the first set was “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” my first ever with Panic.
The bomb dropping started at the beginning of the second set with a “Misty Mountain Hop” bomb. And then the band blew the roof off the joint with a “Won’t Get Fooled Again” bomb to end the set.
I’m not a violent person and do not promote dropping bombs on people. I’m talking musical bombs here, peace bombs, love bombs. It was as if the band summoned the oxymoronic line from the Vietnam War and musically said, “we have to destroy the village in order to save it.”
Unlike two years earlier when I cheated in my calling of a Who bust out, I called this one. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Jojo was teasing that riff all weekend, and I’m too much of a Who fan not to have noticed it. (I must admit, since Halloween I’ve been a bit horrified to hear that most excellent synthesizer from the original song – a song about revolution – used in a Nissan car ad on television. But hey, “meet the new boss, he owns a car dealership!”)
As the moon disappeared over the quarter, the boys whipped out a “Wind Cries Mary” that would have made Jimi proud. As a friend of mine said after the show, “Boy not only does the band suck but I wish they would stop playing Led Zeppelin, The Who and Jimi Hendrix. Heh! Heh! Heh!”
This year, I went as One Arm Steve. Alison was my nurse. Of course, there were a bunch of yellow jackets out there who got their Greta, Cupid/Mike D went as the trippy Doctor from the “Till the Medcine Takes" poster from Red Rocks (the guy handing out the medicine from Blue Indian, and I was happy for him when the band rolled that one out. There were also several actual Blue Indians in attendance. My brother Chris, normally a reserved guy, was in rare form that night.
I danced next to Mr. Potato head, boogied down with Spy vs. Spy (along with a full auditorium of Freak Shows!), and ended up seeing every character of the Song “One Arm Steve” represented in the crowd. There were a couple Bert and Ernies, and a few Austin Powers ensembles, including some of those “she-bots,” with the day-glo pink ruffles around the breasticles.
After the show, I was more than disappointed when the Funky Meters left the stage at 4 am at the Howling Wolf. My posse and I had just gotten there and we had laced up our collective pairs of boogie shoes when the band left the stage for what we thought was a set break, never to return.
After that “meteoric” disappointment, the plan was to head to Tipitina’s to see Karl Denson. However, we never made it. Just as we were about to get in a cab, Evel Knieval appeared outside the Howling Wolf with a miniature dirt bike and began jumping off ramps and over freaks. I kid you not. Evel jumped five freaks, a po boy and a Hurricane. I saw it with my own large eyes.
Well, that’s about how I remember it. Every person reading this who was there has their own account of the craziness that goes down in Sin City on Halloween. New Orleans has more nicknames than any city I know, a testimony to it’s greatness: The city that care forgot, Nawlins’, the 504, the Aquarius of the Americas and the Big Easy are just a few that come to mind. Pairing it with Widespread Panic and Halloween was a stroke of genius, like red beans and rice. Here’s hoping that the tradition of NOLAWEEN continues for years to come. Yeah you right.
