After a long drive across Mississippi through drizzly, wet weather, I was late getting into New Orleans, and thought I might actually miss the start of the To Be Continued Brass Band‘s weekly Sunday night gig at Kermit’s Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge. But Darren Towns, the bass drummer for TBC told me they might not get started until 9 PM, so I decided to try to grab a dinner before heading to the venue. I got off on Veterans Boulevard in Metairie because I knew they had every kind of restaurant along that route, but I forgot that there could be parades in Jefferson Parish too. When I got to Clearview Parkway, the police had the road completely closed due to a parade, and there were only two restaurants in the area, Don’s Seafood and Saltgrass Steakhouse. I like Saltgrass, but was more in the mood for seafood, so I chose Don’s and it was quite good, and rather crowded, to my surprise. From its parking lot I could hear the music, yelling and laughter from the parade to the east on Veterans.
I feared that the Sunday parades could cause traffic gridlock in getting to Kermit’s, which is on North Claiborne Avenue, but the journey was remarkably uneventful. I parked under the I-10 overpass, walked into the lounge, and found to my surprise that TBC was just setting up and had not started playing yet. Their weekly Sunday night gigs often attract crowds, but with so many people off work on the following day, Lundi Gras, the crowd was the largest I had seen at Kermit’s. The band played a number of its newest songs, including “I Heard Ya Been Talking” which was aimed at the Big 6 Brass Band after members of that band had been allegedly talking down on TBC. As is always the case at Kermit’s, at a certain point during the night, a female dancer appeared on the roof of the lounge, and Kermit Ruffins himself came outside to shoot off fireworks over the patio. The weather was warm, and with its banana trees and tin-roofed outdoor bar, the patio had the ambiance of Jamaica or somewhere else in the Caribbean.
However, the biggest surprise of the night was after the TBC Brass Band had played their final tune and were putting their instruments away. The crowd, as usual, begged for one more tune. To oblige them, Brenard “Bunny” Adams started a tuba bass line which Darren Towns picked up on the bass drum, and soon the whole band joined in. The unfamiliar tune proved to be the Meters’ “Fiya on the Bayou,” a tune I had never heard TBC play before, and a fitting way to close out a Sunday night before Mardi Gras.
Later Bunny, Darren and myself met up at the Cafe du Monde in the Quarter for some coffee and beignets, since my old favorite spot in City Park is no longer a 24-hour establishment. There was a fairly big crowd in the Quarter too, but it was late and I was tired. As is so often the case in New Orleans, the next day offered endless possibilities.