New Orleans by the Bay Food and Music Festival
Sat/22-Sun/23, Shoreline Amphitheatre

PUT ON YOUR baggiest pants and best boogie shoes and head on down to the 14th annual New Orleans by the Bay Food and Music Festival. The two-day celebration brings some of the Crescent City's finest zydeco, jazz, blues, and brass music to the Bay Area. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band's hand-clapping, booty-shaking ditties will help you understand why New Orleans is famous for its parties and parades. The band's wilder and sweatier sounds invoke voodoo dance freakouts, while its renditions of traditional tunes inspire even pious audience members to kick up their heels and praise the lord. Other festival performers include blues musician Taj Mahal, Cajun legends BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet, zydeco god Geno Delafose, and the Oakland Inter-Faith Gospel Choir. It's a hot bite of sausage, any way you cut it. When you need a break from the boogie-ing, do a second line on over to the food booths for some award-winning Cajun, creole, and Southern cuisine. Traditional N'awlins dishes such as gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, crawfish pie, pralines, beignets, and café au lait are on the menu. Don't miss your chance to sop up the culture of New Orleans right here in your own backyard. The crazy sounds and tastes of this festival will leave you asking, "Where ya at?" Noon-7:30 p.m., 1 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View. $15-$20, free for 12 and under. (650) 967-4040. (Angie Edwards)