For lovers of New Orleans music, the best reason to go to Bacchanal Fine Wine and Spirits is still to see Helen Gillet’s solo cello-and-loop-pedal performance on a Monday evening.

Sit up close and let yourself get lost in the slowly building, lushly looped layers of soaring
melody lines, plucked strings, on-cello percussion, multilingual vocals, and the tireless performer’s perpetual motion, and be prepared for an ecstatic sensory overload.

The unorthodox virtuoso performed a range of material on a recent Monday night, from the French “J’ai Rendez Vous Avec Vous” to Patsy Cline’s “She’s Got You” to a tense rural folk tune she learned from a Hungarian musician in exchange for teaching him some music in French.

Gillet’s style is truly singular, an amalgamation of classical, avant garde jazz, and French pop, with plenty of folk, North Indian, and mystery influences thrown in.

Her rendition of the Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes” was almost unbearably moving, starting out hauntingly and ending with a mind-shattering crescendo of multi-layered vocal lines, breakneck percussion, and wailing cello strains.

Her ethereal solo act is perfectly suited to the lush, twinkly-lighted setting of her Monday night venue, one that holds a special place in the artist’s heart.

Bacchanal opened in 2002, and Gillet has been playing there since the early days, when it was still an anarchical, fly by the seat of your pants neighborhood hangout.

Things have changed a lot since then. Business is booming, everything’s a bit swankier and more organized, and the licenses are all in order.

“They even have a stage now!” Gillet says with a laugh.

“Before, I played over there,” she says, gesturing toward the shadowy fence along the side, “and it was just like, the silhouette of a cellist.”

Not all of the changes are for the best, though.

The overall vibe of the clientele these days seems to be straying from the community-centered, music-worshipping (and somewhat piratic) values central to the venue’s inception (and to the spirit of New Orleans) and more towards self consciously hip, insular little groups that hop out of their United Cabs and hop back in again a couple hours later without trying to talk with anybody else or bend to the local culture at all.

Even though it’s easy to get spoiled in a city where you can walk out of your front door and hear world-class music for free any night of the week, I can’t really fathom how you can be hunkered down mere feet from indisputable artistic genius and not be totally enraptured.

Overall, Bacchanal is a really cool establishment. The design is beautiful, the food is delicious, the wine selection is fantastic, and the employees are friendly and helpful.

It’s just that certain patrons, at Bacchanal and throughout the city, need to be more conscious of how to behave in a music-oriented, neighborhood venue. It’s important to consider whether you actually want to be out at a particular event, or if you just like the idea of being there.

For the record though, you probably want to be at this particular weekly event. Helen Gillet is absolutely mind blowing!