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After booking a two-week stay in New Orleans I spent the next several months scouring the local concert listings for a good show or three to attend while I was in town. New Orleans is, after all, one of the musical capitals of the New World and it is generally a given that there will be some epic show or another on the calendar.
And yet this time there wasn’t. Nothing, nada (unless of course one was to include a Justin Timberlake concert that was slated for the Smoothie King Centre, which I decidedly do not include). Every day I added a New Orleans concert-scour to my morning lap around the internet and every day I came up empty. Then I saw a name I recognized playing at a venue I was familiar with: The Radiators at Tipitina’s. I didn’t actually know the music of The Radiators – or anything about them at all – I just knew the name, but I had in fact been to Tipitina’s before and knew it to be a cool, classic live music venue in a city chock full of cool, classic live music venues. Anyway, name recognition triangulated with venue cred and a lack of better options and I clicked “Buy Tickets”.
I did a little digging and discovered that The Radiators had ceased playing together some time ago, save for an annual run of shows at Tipitina’s and a yearly showing at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, both of which brought out fans in droves. I also checked Tipitina’s website a day or two after purchasing tickets and found that their entire three night stand was sold out.
Aside from those few minutes of mute research I kept myself 100% ignorant about the band or their music until I walked up to the bar to retrieve my will-call tickets. When I did, I was happily surprised to find myself completely surrounded by tie-dies and Dead shirts. I guess the reason I had even heard of The Radiators was because they pulled in a jammy crowd. Heck, I soon discovered that they called their sound “Fish Music”, though the band predates Phish, or at least Phish fame.
Tickets secured, in I went, taking a spot halfway back on the floor. I struck up a few conversations and was surprised to discover that many people in the room had flown in from out of state for the show(s). The people I spoke with were equally surprised to discover that I was wholly unfamiliar with the band and that I had managed to score tickets at all.
This all boded well.
The opening act was a solo guitar player of the highly-skilled variety named Phil DeGruy. He used artificial harmonics and played behind the nut as often and naturally as most players strum a G chord. He was a chord-melody guy, doing old tunes by bands like The Hollies and The Beatles. Good player, great look; I hope I see him again sometime.
After a short break The Radiators ambled onto the stage to energetic applause, the elderly and grey musicians planting themselves on stage where they would hold court for the next two-plus hours. And while the music was pretty good I found the songwriting lacking any serious appeal, but yeah, I can understand why these guys were a popular live band back in the day. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if most people made the trip more for the inevitable reunions of old friends than for the band itself, which is understandable to me as I do that sort of thing all the time.
Anyway, I kept the bartenders busy and stuck it out until the bitter end; when the band was done so was I. Shortly after the final note I finished my drink, bought a couple of Radiators LP’s from the merch table for the low, low price of just $5 each, and shuffled back up to St. Charles Street where I waited no time at all for the late night streetcar back to my hotel ‘hood. Just the shortest of ambles later I was flopping into my four-poster bed with another great NOLA day in the books.
Todd Man Out 