Angeline Domangue
October 6, 2015
Trevor’s miracle: Injured Tarpon now out of the hospital
October 6, 2015
Bigger and better than ever… Voice of the Wetlands Festival is here and seeing some major changes to the free, music-heavy event.
After 11 years at Southdown Plantation, blues musician Tab Benoit’s pride and joy finds a new home on a 200-acre grassy plot owned by the Rouse family on West Park Avenue. The new location not only offers more space, but also provides festival-goers the opportunity to camp close to the action.
“This is where the original location was going to be but we weren’t able to do it in the beginning,” Benoit says of the new digs. “At this spot, we can do camping and go later than 11 p.m. It will allow us to grow and get bigger… It’s the biggest area of any festival in the South.”
At the heart of this event is, of course, the music, the medium for which Benoit and a slew of his talented friends proclaim the message about our fragile coastlines to anyone willing to listen.
The lineup is so huge, in fact, the festival added a second stage to give festivalgoers a wider selection of genres.
Mia Borders, wickedly funky yet stylishly cool, kicks things off at 6 p.m. Friday on the main stage and the always-popular Friday Night Guitar Fights, a musical duel between Benoit and six-string superstars Mason Ruffner, Lightnin’ Malcolm, Randy Jackson, Albert Castiglia, Josh Garrett, Tyrone Vaughan and Bart Walker, pull up the rear from 9-11 p.m. Over on the Red Dog Saloon stage, bluesman Johnny Sansone, local Cajun modernists None Nu & Da Wild Matous and a jam session will keep the music going from 7 p.m. to the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Guitarists Mason Ruffner and Josh Garrett return Saturday, with appearances from musicians like guitarist Samantha Fish, who’s third studio album, Wild Heart, dropped in July with VOW festival mate Lightnin’ Malcolm among the special guests on the 12-song record. Raw Oyster Cult, a New Orleans supergroup made up of members of the Radiators, Papa Grows Funk and Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes, and hometown soul singer Jenna Guidry are also set to appear.
Sunday is a particularly special treat with performances from Royal Southern Brotherhood, a blues-centric group including Cyrille Neville and Gregg Allman’s son, Devon, the always-entertaining Chubby Carrier and his Bayou Swamp Band, and The Fuzz, a Benoit, Todd Adams, Steve Junot and Corey Duple-chin-backed tribute to The Police.
“The goal has always been to celebrate the culture and coast of south Louisiana and to bring people from out of state and let them meet the locals and see that there are people that live south of New Orleans,” Benoit explained. “They don’t know about [our eroding coastline] until something happens on the news. My goal has always been to bring people down here to see it for themselves; have the locals and the land tell the real story.”
