Lostus Festival 2005

i went the Lotus Festival over the weekend..it is a international cultural music festival...i had such a great time going, i went with a few reporters from my newspapers sister paper...and we had a great time, and i had the best raspberry cosmo at this place called the Crazy Horse (and it was only $3)...The festival is held annually downtown...you pay for a bracelet which get you in all the venues over the weekend...i went thursday and friday night and saw so many musicians...so here is a little recap of the groups i saw...


the Wailing Jennies is a folk group from canada..im not much into folk music but these girls had some really nice harmonies and a few really nice songs...


Ruthie Davis was AMAZING...she is a singer/songwriter from Texas and has this really souful voice and she does this mix of soul and gospel...she was very big on crowd interaction and had folks singing along with her and some were even up dancing in front ot the stage...


Tlan Huicani is a group out of Veracruz who play traiditonal Spanish music...they played this one ballad with a harp that was wonderful...


Lura and her band from Cape Verde was wonderful...she sang in French and had the crowd up on there feet the whole time...the crowd really went wild when she did this booty shake....she was gorgeous in this orange dress and just looked so comfortable on stage...


Mamar Keasey is a group from Niger and they sounded really good, although we didnt stay long because there was another group starting that we had to get too..but the 2 women backup singers/dancers really made the crowd want to get up and shake sumthin....i enjoyed the group, what i didnt enjoy was the goofy looking white guy who kept smiling back at me...


Balkan Beat Box turnt it out at this club called the Bluebird....i didnt think they were going to be that great but they really did it up...got a couple of the girls i was with shaking it on the dance floor...i sat back and nursed my midori sour with another girl i was with...they mixed their live music (sax, guitar, drums, trombone) w/ electronica..they held it down nicely...the group members are from N. Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans.....the drummer was cute and decided to take his shirt off...and while he is definitely on the skinny side (not my cup of tea) he was workin what he had...


Funkadesi, a group out of Chicago got me out of my seat...and it wasnt just the sexy ass sax player with the penetrating eyes (and no that is not him in the pic, lol)....they had a really good sound and they had the dance floor packed at the convention center...


our last stop was the Creole Cowboys, a group out of Southern Louisiana...they worked it out too..the violinist had this great voice...it was funny because before they performed, we didnt know they were performers and one of the ladies i was with bummed a cigarette off one of them...they played zydeco and creole music...the guy playing the instrument that looked sumthin like a washboard was eyin me...and u cant tell me any different...we was kinda hot too in a teddy bear kinda way...