Crawfest 2012: No sunshine, no problem

Crawfest — for many Tulane students, it's “the best day of the year” (Mardi Gras aside, of course). What could be better than great music, endless crawfish and warm sun to awaken the student body from its library-induced pre-finals daze?

The crowd typically rolls out of bed at the sound of the first band tuning up, slaps on some sunscreen, shorts and bikinis, and gets ready to party. But this year, the students arose to a different sound: thunder. Crawfest 2012 may very well be remembered in the popular imagination as “The Year It Rained.”

By 11 a.m. on the fateful morning of (Saturday) April 21, the quad was not filled with the normal swarm of students and community members catching their first batch of early-bird crawfish, but rather buzzed with barefooted, poncho-clad workers traversing the muddy plain of the quad in a desperate effort to get the party started.

From the top of the Newcomb Hall steps, one student looked out at the absent, rainy abyss and questioned the possibility that anybody would even show up.

But, no worry, the crowds finally came. Where there's a will, there's a way, and where there's crawfish and live music in New Orleans, there will inevitably be people.

Bands continued to rock the day away from Los Po-Boy-Citos to Galactic, with each band delivering their own brand of sunshine and positivity.

Zach Gill, front man of the California-based, self-described “perpetual college band” ALO, declared that he was even happy with the overcast weather. The formalities of the interview rapidly dissipated, becoming a regular old conversation. We started texting his “famous” musician buddies, because something about Crawfest, the weather, the people, made us want to remind them that they should really write more songs about New Orleans.

Michaela Gibboni is a senior at Tulane, majoring in communication and Spanish.