re: Your favorite Jazz Fest show this year

Bruce Springsteen and not even close, IMO. Saw the Eagles, didn't see Florence (although I heard it was awesome). .

Biggest surprise and second favorite set was the "Guitar Masters" on the small Lagniappe stage the second Saturday. Below is a review of these four guys--These guys were simply phenomenal, and maybe the four best guitarists I've ever seen on one stage at one time.

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New Orleans Jazz Fest unites Guitar Masters at the Lagniappe Stage

By Doug MacCash, The Times-Picayune

New Orleans Jazz Fest presented a concert titled Guitar Masters, featuring the nimble-handed Jimmy Robinson, John Rankin, Phil DeGruy and Cranston Clements, who produced a dizzying demonstration of virtuosity on the intimate Lagniappe Stage. Perhaps the defining moment of the show came early, when the quartet set out on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." The George Harrison classic was the perfect vehicle to observe the four men's skills, since the familiarity of the tune made their stylings apparent. In their retelling, the pulsing ballad runs the gamut from intricate electric rock to a sort of driving chamber music. It's hard to say precisely what each partner contributes, but basically the group breaks down like so. Playing a 12-string guitar, Robinson produces thrumming rhythms and mandolin-like fills in addition to an absolutely stunning variety of finger-stretching chord patterns. Robinson seems to play in an alien language, every chord and progression is incomprehensible. DeGruy employs an apparently custom-made solid body electric to produce swoops and slides as well as blizzards of soft, clear notes. The conventional six-string neck of the mahogany-red instrument is augmented with a sort of built-in harp that DeGruy turns to occasionally to produce chiming sweeps of high notes. On six-string guitar, Clements contributes clear, penetrating, high-speed melody riffs and/or energetic rhythm parts. Rankin generally holds down the low end, using his classical six-string like a bass to produce a sonic substructure to it all. Together they weave an interlocking musical web in which everyone seems to be playing solo simultaneously, yet the results are in complete agreement. The style they achieve in instrumentals such as "In Walks Bud Light," "Six-Eight" and "Hurry Home" brings to mind everything from Celtic tunes to Bebop. DeGruy is apparently the eccentric of the outfit - at one point Rankin said he would join DeGruy in a duet, just to "normalize Phil." DeGruy's musical collage of fragments of familiar hits titled "Pop 40 Goes the Weasel," included everything from "Stairway to Heaven" to "Day Tripper" to "Louie Louie, to the James Bond theme, to "Layla," all delivered with utter authority as well as a measure of satire. It was only one magical moment of many. Funny thing, despite these guys' crazy skills, there's no guitar hero vibe to the act. Instead there's a sense of almost nonchalant confidence. From time to time, the crowd actually gasped at the groups' casual achievements.

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This one doesn't feature their virtuoso skills as much as the other songs, but is the amusing collection of almost every famous guitar riff all in one song.

Pop 40 Goes the Weasel