Friday in NOLA

Friday was the beginning of the French Quarter Festival. The festival started off with a parade down Bourbon Street to Jackson Square. The parade featured a few local brass bands as well as one high school marching band - from Latrobe, PA oddly enough.

After the parade, we hit our first festival music event at the zydeco/cajun stage: the Jimmy Thibodeaux Band (who we saw play and really enjoyed when we came down to NOLA with Wendy and Brian in April 3 years ago).

We then got muffulettas at Central Grocery and ate them on the banks of the Mississippi. Muffulettas are delicious Italian sandwiches with meat, cheese, and olive salad - truely amazing!
Next, we moved on to see a few shows including the Lost Bayou Ramblers (Cajun band) at the Zydeco/Cajun stage and Shamarr Allen (trumpet player) at the Abita Stage near the river.

Finally, we went to see the last show of the night: Big Sam's Funky Nation at the Abita Stage - they were terrific!

After the festival ended for the day, we caught a jazz band Cotton Mouth Kings at The Spotted Cat on Frenchman Street and then watched a few street performers doing some fire dancing.