It takes about an hour to drive from Baton Rouge to Lafayette. It’s been raining further north, so the deep brown Mississippi is raging and the skies lie wispy and grey as we cross the bridge out of the capital city and head west to Cajun country.
It’s nearing the end of summer and, as such, festival season here in Louisiana. They’re everywhere: Baton Rouge’s wild Spanish Town parade, New Orleans’ jazzy and vibrant French Quarter Festival and Voodoo Fest. But it’s Lafayette, the smallest of souththen Louisiana’s major cities, that often puts on the most colourful show.
That’s because Lafayette is the gateway to Cajun country. Often gruff, rugged rural people, Cajuns are descendants of French-speaking Acadians who fled from Canada in the mid-1700s. There’s around 400,000 of then nestled away in the green, patchwork countryside of southeast Louisiana, and while they’re fairly insular they, somewhat paradoxically, have a huge impact on the broader culture of Louisiana. They’re primarily responsible for keeping alive the French language in the state. Their favourite music, zydeco, is bouncing, countrified and accordion-driven, and it filters through to all other forms of music in what is an exceptionally music-focused state. They’re also both capable and willing to drink stupendous amounts of liquor all night long, something any visitor to Louisiana will come across.
Lil’ Band O’ Gold performing in Lafayette Photo: Supplied
The drinking is ahead of us when we roll into town in the early evening. I’m here not for the festival, as such, but more to see the most rocking, good-time swamp pop band in the country, Lafayette’s brilliant Lil’ Band O’ Gold. It’s not often they play at home, especially not in the divey bar they’re due at later, so I’ve roped my friend Sarah into driving us from Baton Rouge with the promise of the best show in town. She’s young and pretty, with short dark hair and more than a touch of Louisianan country wildness in her. The perfect partner for a night out, then.
Early though it may be, the party’s well under way. As we pull up to the tree lined festival grounds, the rushing sound of an accordion filters through and mixes with the spicy aroma of the local cuisine, namely jambalaya, gumbo and boudin (Cajun sausage). The overnight rain hit hard, washing out the second day of the festival and turning the walkways into mud baths, which we wind our way around as Steve Riley - “master of the Cajun accordion” - tears it up onstage with his stomping backing band, The Mamou Playboys.
He’s certainly a crowd pleaser. Local couples – the men in checkered shirts, wide-brimmed hats and boots, the women in flowing dresses - crowd the foot of the stage as The Playboys launch into another quick, bouncing zydeco number. Riley pumps the accordion and sings entirely in a Cajun dialect as locals grab each other and dance quick, twirling dances, ones that have obviously been practiced time and again in front of innumerable stages and umpteen accordion players. They’re a bit older, but the best of the dancers can still swing and slide as well as they ever likely could. On the outskirts, groups of 20-something men stand eyeing up the pretty girls, occasionally squeezing their way into the mass and grabbing someone for a quick fling in front of the ramshackle stage.
Lacking both the moves and the nerve of the locals, Sarah and I don’t dance. Instead we leave them hollering and spinning behind us because, a hundred metres away and nestled amongst the mass of white food tents and Spanish Moss-covered trees, a large tent with several screens has been set up for festivalgoers to watch the New Orleans Saints. The drinks have been flowing for a good four hours, so it’s crowded and rambunctious inside. The game’s close, and when the Saints score a touchdown one especially wobbly fan leaps onto a rickety table and, at the top of his voice, shouts the team’s catch cry: “Who dat?”. Sarah, with a sigh, has long retreated outside, but the rest of us laugh and shout back at him. “Damn,” one bearded local leans over and shouts over the noise. “I wish I was that drunk … then again, gimme a couple of hours. I’ll be shouting from the rooftops”. With that, he orders another beer.
After a quick stop to watch local favourite Wayne Toups, “The Cajun Troll”, it’s time to go. The Lil’ Band O’ Gold - the self-appointed after party - is about to get rolling down the road.
It’s a bold statement nominating anything or anyone as the best at something, but the Lil’ Band O’ Gold makes a pretty strong case for being the greatest band in south Louisiana. Led by the tall, enigmatic and exceedingly talented CC Adcock and consisting of some of the oldest and most talented musicians in this part of the state, the band plays far more overseas and throughout the rest of the country than they do at home. New Zealand, actually, is a favourite destination of theirs – at a Baton Rouge performance last year, then-drummer Warren Storm made a good natured (if slightly confused) reference to eating kangaroo gumbo while in Wellington a few months previously.
The bar’s a funky, kind of hip, kind of dive joint, with local art on the walls and flashing neon purple and gold beer signs over the doorways. We turn up early and take a seat on the outside patio, taking in the cool Louisiana air and watching the band saunter in. Sarah’s under 21, the legal drinking age in the US, but nobody bats an eyelid when she cracks open a can of Coors Light. Certain rules are overlooked in this part of the country.
In a typically Louisianan example of timing, the band takes to the stage 90 minutes late. Straight away it becomes clear that, for all the big concert halls they usually play, it’s really a small, crowded bar in their hometown where they can truly cut loose. We push past a sweaty crowd and pop out near the foot of the neon-lit stage. Adcock, wearing a tight yellow Link Wray t-shirt, prances around a couple of feet in front while short, stocky Steve Riley stands immobile to his right, making eyes at a girl standing at the back of the room. It’s not quite the straight zydeco of Riley and Toups and more a swirling, loose mix of rock and roll, zydeco and a lot of dark, swampy pop. The crowd, drinks in hand, dances loosely and sings along to the songs. The band, reveling in the intimacy, bounce off them; when, in one of their most popular songs, Adcock tells the crowd to “raise a glass to sweet Louisiana”, a roomful of beer cradling hands shoot towards the ceiling.
For an hour they play and then, with a final pull of the accordion and roll of the drums, it’s over. Adcock, drenched in sweat, jumps off the stage heads over to the bar’s record player to keep the party going courtesy of some rare, South Louisiana vinyl. “Man, you picked the right place to see us,” he says on his way over. “We play all over the place … but there’s really nothing like playing at home”. He pauses. “’Scuse me, I’ve gotta stick on some Slim Harpo”, he mutters, and then he’s gone. The record pops on, beers clink, and it’s clear that it’s going to be a long, rocking, south Louisianan night ahead.
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