Paul Sanchez

Paul Sanchez and The Rolling Road Show

Voodoo Experience: The Tenth Ritual
New Orleans City Park 
New Orleans, Louisiana 
October 24-26, 2008

Billed as the 10th Ritual, The 2008 Voodoo Experience in New Orleans featured top-shelf headliners Stone Temple Pilots, Nine Inch Nails, and the festival closer, REM—each a chart-busting superstar act that ostensibly delivered what the crowd expected and came to hear.Lie," and "Echoplex" as well as the best of their old and new catalogue.

Although the performances by these bands realized the potential of which each is capable, setting inspiring examples for the shows by Dashboard Confessional, Panic! At The Disco, Joss Stone and Lupe Fiasco, it was the less heralded acts that made this year's Voodoo especially memorable. Away from the big stages in City Park, off to the sides of the festival area and located on the WWOZ/SoCo Stage and in the Preservation Hall Tent, less visible acts such as former Cowboy Mouth guitarist Paul Sanchez with his Rolling Road Show Band, The Iguanas, Ivan Neville's Dumpstafunk, The Old 97s, Bonerama, The Leo Trio featuring Leo Nocentelli, John Boutte, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Irma Thomas plied their trade to dancing, screaming, smiling and enthusiastic fans. In fact, among the best performances at The Hidden Voodoo were those by Sanchez, John Boutte, Bonerama, and Dumpstaphunk.

Friday's performance by Sanchez featured new songs from his latest CD Exit To Mystery Street and old songs like the incendiary (pun intended) "Light It On Fire," which was introduced as a song he performed at his very first Voodoo Fest and was guaranteed to not be the last time it would be heard at the festival. Featuring former Cowboy Mouth bassist Mary LaSeignne, Glen David Andrews on trombone, Andre Bohren pounding the skins, Alex McMurray (of the Tin Men) on lead guitar and Sonia Tetlow on mandolin and guitar, the band was tight, fluid and clearly enjoying themselves. Their best performance was "Door Poppin,'" a song about a New Orleans tradition of popping one's nose into a neighbor's screendoor to just say "hello" and quickly socialize. Co-written by Sanchez, Vance Vaucresso and John Boutte, the song, as Sanchez explained after the performance, was about his big sister, the famous jazz singer Lillian Boutte, who is something of a neighborhood gadfly. Also of note was the always relevant "Hurricane Party" and the rollicking yet poignant "At the Foot of Canal Street," which Sanchez introduced as a story about the similarities he and John Boutte shared while growing up in New Orleans in the Irish Channel (Sanchez) and in the 9th Ward (Boutte) during the 1960s.

Boutte's performance on Saturday was, as is every performance he gives, stunning. Born into a musical family, he's an accomplished singer whose work has been featured on compilations as diverse as Doctors, Professors, Kings and Queens: The Big Ol' Box Of New Orleans (Shout! Factory, 2004), a 4-CD set, on which he appears with Sanchez, which details the history of music from the Big Easy, andMardi Gras Mambo: Cubanismo! in New Orleans (Hannibal, 2000). Additionally, Boutte has won numerous Big Easy Awards as best Male Vocalist. His performance was both electric and eclectic.