Subject: New Orleans band walking concert today
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 11:39:05 -0400
New Orleans band at School of Social Work (South U and East U)
4 p.m. today
The Rebirth Brass Band from New Orleans will have a public walking
concert (complete with Mardi Gras attire) this afternoon. The tour
starts at Kerrytown at 1:30 p.m. and ends at the U-M School of Social
Work around 4 p.m.
I'd actually been hearing of the Rebirth Brass Brand for quite some time, so how could I possibly pass this up?
When I got to Kerrytown about 1:30, there was no sign of them, until I came across their van in the parking lot around the back. It took a few minutes to figure out what was going on. Eventually they played a half-hour in the farmer's market and passed around a box for tips. I was unclear whether it was for the band, hurricane relief, or both; the two causes came to about the same thing in their case, I suppose.
Someone announced they'd be at the diag next. So I walked there and took care of a few errands along the way. There was no sign when I arrived, so after tiring of waiting I walked around a bit to make sure they hadn't ended up elsewhere. When I got back they were milling around the diag looking confused. There was a street preacher guy arguing loudly with undergraduates on the grad library steps and they didn't seem to want to interfere, so eventually they gathered at the other end of the lawn, by the nat. sci. greenhouse, and played 10 minutes or so.
So, no parade, no Mardi Gras attire, and the musicians were probably a bit tired. But they were really, really good. And though it was drizzling when I first left work, it was a beautiful day by the time they were done at Kerrytown.