Photo: Erika Goldring/Retna
With the presidential election fewer than two weeks away, Barack Obama was in the air at the tenth anniversary of the Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans. On Friday, the first day of the three-day festival in City Park, Erykah Badu saluted him as a “human being for change,” and DJ King Britt worked part of his DNC speech into his set. A local group even rewrote a Mardi Gras Indian chant as “Handa Wanda Obama.”
(Check out photos of Nine Inch Nails, R.E.M. and more from Voodoo right here.)
Voodoo merges the national and local on six stages, with music ranging from traditional brass bands to the New Orleans Bingo! Show, which includes a trapeze performer and yes, a game of bingo. Friday night, TV on the Radio relied more heavily on Return to Cookie Mountain than their new Dear Science. Singer Tunde Adebimpe’s left arm had a mind of its own as he paced the stage, waving wildly when it wasn’t pressed behind firmly behind his back, but his voice was low in the mix, so those who didn’t know the songs didn’t know what animated him.
Scott Weiland took the stage for Stone Temple Pilots’ set in a leather bolero hat and oddly cut red paid jacket, doing a slow-motion “wax-on, wax-off” dance for much of the set. Ray Luzier subbed for drummer Eric Kretz, whose father died recently, leaving the group’s tempos a half-step sluggish. (more…)






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