The 2022 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival kicked off just minutes before the scheduling cube changed.
Jazz Fest director Quint Davis was taking questions from reporters after a staff member pulled over after a Tuesday afternoon press conference at Fair Grounds Race Course.
The employee showed Davis a tweet from the Foo Fighters, the stadium-filled rock band to be held on the main stage of Jazz Fest on Sunday, May 1. The tweet said the band had canceled all upcoming concerts following the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins last week.
Aware of the cancellation, Davis returned to reporters and provided an update in real time, even as "TBA" replaced "Foo Fighters" on the festival's newly posted cubes.
"It's a terrible, sad situation, but it's news," Davis said. "We'll replace them and we'll move on."
Bending into tragic circumstances was another turning point for the Foo Fighters jazz fest after two years of plans, then dashed, by the coronavirus pandemic.
Governor John Bel Edwards commended the plight of the festival. "Quint, I know the decision was not easy" to cancel the 2020 and 2021 festivals, Edwards said during the press conference. "But you did the right thing."
Full speed ahead
As Davis clarified on Tuesday — just 30 days before the Jazz Fest's scheduled opening on Friday, April 29 — the 2022 festival is in full swing.
"We have an important message," Davis said at the start of the press conference. "Jazz Fest is back."
The release of Cubes, with 13 display areas at the top of each day's schedule, made this clear.
The names of some stages have changed. Acura is no longer sponsoring the biggest stage of the festival. So far, no other corporate sponsor has stepped in. For now, what was the Acura stage called the "Festival Stage".
Shell, the title sponsor of the entire festival, is also exclusively sponsoring Gentlely Stage. Now it's the "Shell Gentlely Stage".
Transfer interview
The only significant format change for the first jazz fest since the start of the pandemic is that the Fair Grounds grandstand will no longer host its usual slate of musician interviews at the Allison Minor Music Heritage Stage.
Instead, a handful of musical heritage-style interviews will take place elsewhere. Such a move is not without precedent: after Hurricane Katrina damaged the grandstand, the musician interviews temporarily moved to the Lagniappe stage inside the paddock area.
With COVID still in the ether, Davis was ready to fill the grandstand's indoor bleachers to interview with fans and listen to unplugged performances.
"Bringing all those people into grandeur ... from the beginning, what wasn't really going on, being inside," Davis said. "So we figured we'd wait a year and then bring him back. It's a lot of moving parts."
Otherwise Jazz Fest should look, sound, feel, smell and taste like Jazz Fest.
Big drama
The release of Cubes revealed a change in the Congo Square stage. Rapper Ludacris has been replaced as Congo Square headliner on Friday, May 6, by fellow rapper Busta Rhymes.
But the Foo Fighters were literally leaning in as the Cubes were posting online, the big drama of the day.
The cancellation was not entirely unexpected. The Foo Fighters were on a tour of Colombia late last week when Hawkins was found dead in his hotel room. His bandmates immediately canceled their remaining South American concerts and flew to Los Angeles.
They were not scheduled to perform again on April 29 at the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis. From Memphis, they would travel to New Orleans for the Jazz Fest, then to other shows in America and then Europe.
It's all closed. Hawkins was the lead foil on Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl's stage and a major part of the show. In his recent memoir, "The Storyteller", Grohl described Hawkins as one of his closest friends.
Main work
Hawking's sudden death at the age of 50 would make it difficult for his bandmates to recover. In a statement he tweeted on Tuesday, he read, "It is with great sadness that Foo Fighters confirm the cancellation of all upcoming tour dates in light of the staggering loss of our brother, Taylor Hawkins. We are sorry And share in the despair that we won't see each other as planned. Instead, let's take this time to grieve, to heal, to bring our loved ones closer, and to appreciate all the music and memories that we have. We created together."
Work began immediately to book another major rock band to close the main Jazz Fest stage on the first Sunday. Davis and his production partners at AEG Presents have close ties with many of the band managers and agents. They'll tap into those resources to find a new headliner.
This is not the first time he has had to change a major act. When the Rolling Stones were canceled in 2019, the festival booked Fleetwood Mac to step in. When Fleetwood Mac later canceled, there was widespread panic for them to fill.
Years ago, Earth Wind & Fire as a last-minute replacement saved the day when Aretha Franklin canceled the day before their scheduled performance.
Before and after Tuesday's press conference at Fair Grounds, trumpeter Kermit Ruffins performs with the Kinfolk Brass Band. Late last week, the Ruffins' pregnant girlfriend was shot while standing outside the home the couple shared on Trem Street. The baby was delivered by caesarean section and remains hospitalized as doctors treat injuries caused by bullet fragments.
In the wake of the tragedy, Jazz Fest staffers reached out to the Ruffins to see if he still wanted to perform at Tuesday's event. He has done.
"He wanted to be here," Davis said.