Cashless Sales Upstage Stars on First Day of Jazz Fest 2023

Denise Carlos of Las Cafeteras, by Alex Rawls

The lines became the story on a star-studded day at the Fair Grounds Friday.

We can talk about Lizzo, Wu-Tang Clan or Robert Plant and Alison Kraus on a beautiful first day of Jazz Fest, but all anyone could talk about Friday was the transition to cashless purchases and the slowdowns that came with it. Problems were to be expected. Between new technology and a connectivity infrastructure that showed signs of stress from simple cell phone usage in the past, you could predict the results. I used Apple Pay and two of my purchases have yet to show up on my statement, and one had to be run twice. All of them took place before the Fair Grounds really got busy. Ian McNulty reported at Nola.com that festival had created “a new, private network engineered specifically for and dedicated solely to Jazz Fest business during the event.” It sounds like it may not have been the network they needed.

My purchases went about as well as they could. It sure looked like the sellers’ software slowed things down. Part of that appeared to be due to the learning curve, but it looked like a sale needed to go through a number of screens including one asking buyers if they wanted to add a tip, which slowed the interaction. Those steps didn’t add a lot of time to each sale, but add an extra 30 seconds to every purchase and the lines got long enough to affect foot traffic in some places. I see reports on social media of ridiculously long lines. I stopped trying to buy food around 2 and traveled the track, so I didn’t see them for myself.

I don’t hate the idea of a cashless Jazz Fest, but I’m not sure what urgent problem it solves. It’s certainly on trend, and I can imagine that when the bugs are worked out, it will result in more money spent per person when festgoers don’t have the limited cash in their wallets to help them stay on budget.

I also wonder what the experience is like for those who needed to convert cash to a card. Did anybody go through it? If so, I’d love to hear how it worked. The whole switch seems a little presumptuous and un-inclusive in a city with a substantial cash economy to force patrons to buy on plastic or its proxies.

That said, the borderline glee with which some people on social media posted messages saying, essentially, It fucked up just like I said it would was almost as off-putting as standing in the lines.

glbl wrmng with Pell on the mic, by Alex Rawls

Also at Jazz Fest:

- There were times where Lizzo in concert essentially gave the audience Lizzo on record, and many songs didn’t gain much in performance. Elements added useful pieces to appreciating her though, starting with her voice. Lizzo foregrounds her persona, which helps explain why she played to a packed Festival Stage audience. But dramatic, anguished moments in her performance say that she could have been a blues singer, or maybe she is. But instead of turning to the bottle, God, or a meaningless affair to deal with heartbreak, she gets her nails done and turns to her girls.

The context of Jazz Fest made it easier to see her in that context, and her set further framed her project on Friday. She located herself in a specific lineage when her backing singers, the Little Bigs, sang Lauren Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)” and later quoted Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman.”

The show worked and clearly made a lot of people feel seen and heard, but around me there was some watch-watching in the middle half-hour, perhaps because one of Lizzo’s strengths is that she’s so clearly in charge. In practice though, that the concert experience felt pre-determined. It was, of course, which is why the crowd snapped to attention when she went off-script and started shouting out flags she saw in the audience. Since Lizzo’s descriptions of what she saw weren’t always accurate, it took the holders a few moments to realize she was talking to them. She clearly had an unexpected emotional moment when she read from the inscription in a book that a fan gave her as a birthday present and was moved by “Julie” telling her how much Lizzo meant to her.

For those directly plugged into Lizzo as a star or a project, the show spoke strongly to them and they responded in kind. The last half hour and the run of “Truth Hurts,” “Good as Hell,” “Juice” and “About Damn Time” simply killed. “Truth Hurts” was one of the rare moments when the star turned the song over to the fans to sing and it worked. Her best songs have the kind of specificity that people can remember and develop a dance move for. Watching everyone around me do their hair toss and check their nails made the middle half-hour worth it.

- The glbl wrmng set had the great vibe you get with 15 to 20 people onstage who are all happy to be there. While Pell and Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph sang a duet, everybody else stood off to the left but still on stage, grooving. They were an audience, a support system, and a bench in case someone was needed. When Tank and the Bangas’ Albert Allenback—also one half of SaxKixAve and part of the collective—heard the need for a saxophone, he stepped in and played. When someone saw an opening for hype man, he stepped up to work the crowd. When they finally got to “504” from the Vol.1, to close the show, the antic energy was infectious as people bounced around the stage, clowning with each other and the audience in what felt like a victory lap.

- Big Freedia brought not just a band but a big band to Jazz Fest this year, including a string section and backing singers. The addition made it possible to hear echoes of Philly soul in “$100 Bill,” the single with Ciara that dropped on Friday. The strings didn’t mean Freedia has turned over a classy new leaf; it means that twerking contests have never sounded more elegant.

- Las Cafeteras testified to the power of a good roller skating jam. The last-minute addition to the Jazz Fest lineup used a wide, loping, skate-friendly groove to drive a #BlackLivesMatter song that is nakedly political,. When they land on the idea that change has been “a long time coming,” it felt emotional and powerful. It was also great stagecraft as it energized and engaged the crowd from the start. Within 10 minutes, they had people trying to two-step.

They concluded with a more traditional version of “La Bamba” but framed it with the fanfare from Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love,” and it was entertainingly audacious as the Chicano band from East L.A. presumed to repurpose Beyoncé. That kind of sampling is the fundamentally revolutionary an subversive idea in hip-hop, which gave life to the most familiar Spanish language song.

- It was Liberation Friday on Jazz Fest’s Festival Stage, and The Seratones’ AJ Haynes set the table when she announced from the stage that “All liberation is bound together.” That thought resonated in greater and lesser degrees all day long there, and it was striking how not-striking it was to have a day of music by LGBTQ-associated or allied artists on the biggest stage at Jazz Fest.

Saturday at Jazz Fest

I see a lot to like but little appointment viewing on Saturday. I want to see if people are still as crazy for Ed Sheeran as they were in 2015 when girls were so excited that they snuck into the stage’s guest enclosure to get 10 yards closer. Or has eight years made him more of a dad?

I also hope that the ’90s style in this video by Puerto Rico’s La Tribu de Abrante translates to a fun, club-oriented sound.

Also on my radar on Saturday

Sweet Crude

1:55 p.m., Festival Stage

Samantha Fish feat. Jesse Dayton

3:50 p.m., Gentilly Stage

Jazmine Sullivan

6 p.m., Congo Square Stage