Last year our intern, Clare Welsh,  wrote a great piece on her first Jazz Fest. This time around we enlisted our French intern Marine Laval to share her thoughts on her first Jazz Fest experience. – Ed. 

This weekend was my first Jazz Fest with my roommate, another French student doing their internship in New Orleans.

I come from western France, where there are a lot of music festivals in the area during the summer (Vieilles Charrues, Francofolies, etc). Some are even known on an international scale, such as the Hell Fest, one of  the biggest European metal and hard rock festivals. I am quite aware of the big events going on in my region, and have been to some of them, which were really small compared the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Nevertheless, my roommate and I (she lives in Paris, born and raised in Strasbourg on the German border) found Jazz Fest quite different from other festivals happening in France. What made this festival different from what we can find in France was, first of all, the different genres of music played there. Another difference was that people from different ages got along together and danced, had a drink and had fun—because you would rarely see that happening in France. Everyone would be with their own group of friends, still having fun but not trying to meet and get to know other people. This was something that we both really appreciated: people were so nice to us in a way that you would never see back in our country.

We loved to see all of the different cultures present in the food, the music, and the crafts, especially the skirts made out of ties and the Houma jewelry. One of the things we enjoyed the most during the last two weeks was the vibe that spread around the city during that time. In France you wouldn’t find free concerts around the city during a festival, which is a shame because it would attract so many people and make them discover new artists. It’s actually nice to head home from your internship and hear music coming out from bars (not sure I’ll say the say same thing two and a half months from now though, but it’s fun).

Speaking of discovering new bands and musicians, it was one of the reasons why we wanted to go to Jazz Fest. That and the fact Kings of Leon were playing and I wanted to see them. We were also looking forward to seeing Trombone Shorty, who we saw two weeks earlier at the Louisiana Music Factory. My roommate has had a growing crush on him since that day (please don’t tell her boyfriend), but we enjoy his music as well. We got to listen to music from bands that we didn’t know before coming to New Orleans too, like Cowboy Mouth, Galactic and El Septeto Santiaguero. Overall, we thought they were good and that some of them could do well in France.