San Diego's Gator By The Bay Zydeco & Blues Festival

THE FESTIVAL
San Diego's "Gator by the Bay" Zydeco & Blues Festival
May 13, 14, 2006 (Saturday & Sunday)
www.sandiegofestival.com/

MY PILGRIMAGE
Well, I finally made it out to the Gator by the Bay Zydeco & Blues festival. It was great. It also happened to be a trip back to my old stomping grounds. I was raised, from the ages of 2-19 right across the bay, in Coronado, California. Very significant years.

FLIGHT & ACCOMMODATIONS
My dance & instructing partner, Deb Clark & I found, made a non-stop flight into San Diego on Friday, the 12th of May. Since we decided to cough up the cash to stay right there at the Sheraton Inn, all we had to do was take the shuttle across the freeway from the airport, and we were there. We had just enough time to get something to eat, find our rooms and get ready for the Friday night dance with Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble.

FRIDAY NIGHT DANCE
The the dance with Curley was great, though I didn't know very many people, I did recognized a few. Some of the dancers that travel from around the country were there. And some I would come to know over the course of the weekend. The dance was held in one of the Sheraton's conference halls, and had a wooden dance floor brought in for it. I thought it was great fun, seeing all sorts of different dancers, from all over the country, try to identify where they're from by their dance style. And, many were or could've been from Louisiana, by their dance style. It was the first time I met and danced with Johnny, from Baton Rouge, and excellent dancer, and sweet person as well.

FESTIVAL / SATURDAY
As with all festival situations, the dilemma was deciding on who to see and when. Those of you who know the mental if not group discussion " X is playing over here at this time, but I've heard them recently, and I haven't heard Y. But, Y isn't as fun to dance to, and then there might be a bigger crowd over at Z, but I really really like X..."

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCE
After the festival wrapped up Saturday afternoon/evening, there was just enough time to eat, freshen up and/or change, and get down to the 'ballroom' for another zydeco dance featuring Brian Jack & the Zydeco Gamblers. This time they opened up the space to it's full size, and added more fans. That's wind stirring, dancer cooling, blowing fans. It felt so nice stepping right off the dance floor, in front of one of the floor drying fans, that it almost seem sacrilegious to be so accommodated. But hey, I wasn't about to say anything.

ZYDECO LESSON ADVANCED
Early Saturday morning I was up figuring what was I going to teach. I had a veritable laundry list, with the usual debate "people have been asking for this, but I'll need to start with some basics, but people don't know my basics. That's okay, just assume these people know the basics, but people will be walking up not really knowing zydeco very well and will get frustrated. But, I won't have much time, I'll need to get right into the advanced stuff, yet it'd be nice if people could following along well enough."