NJ Crawfish Fest Recap

Man...blogging ain't easy...feel like I'm way behind..really have to try and do a little bit each day..Anyway, my wife and I did make it to Michael Arnone's NJ Crawfish Fest a couple weekends ago and had a great time. We went on Saturday June 4th- weather was overcast, cool and looked like rain but held thru the day with only a couple of sprinkles. Music was fantastic. Saw one of my NO favorites The Tin Men -featuring the one and only Washboard Chaz- which was a real treat. Also caught a lot of cajun and zydeco music including Geno Delafose, the Savoy Family Band and best show of the day, Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas. The setup for cajun and zydeco bands is really nice with the stage set indoors w/ a dance floor surrounded by chairs-the place was jumpin' and folks were dancin' - especially with Nathan Williams cranking out that "chank a chank". Other highlights included the somewhat wacky but very groovy Brother Joscephus and the Love Revival Revolution Orchestra, great guitar work by Tab Benoit, some excellent blues by Mem Shannon and finally got to check out Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes who were ok but  not really my cup of tea. I had not been to the festival in a couple years and this time, crowd seems to be bigger- think there were a lot of folks there to see the Radiators on their farewell tour. Food was ok-not great (was disappointed last time I went b/c was expecting Jazzfest level food and it was nowhere close). This time around, lowered my expectations somewhat and was pleasantly surprised by some decent boiled crawfish, passable jambalya and some really great fried chicken. We were there more for the music than the food anyway. Overheard more than one group of folks saying that they were'nt able to make it down to NO for Jazzfest , and that this festival was at least a little taste of that vibe here up north.