Pat's Weekly Diary: 2/22/2021
No gigs again… naturally. (Sounds like Gilbert O’Sullivan.) I was thinking about this… Last week… Mardi Gras 2021 weekend, for the first time in (ohhh) I don’t know how many years… we didn’t play a single gig. Not one. Mardi Gras of 2020… as I said last week… we played four gigs on Mardi Gras weekend alone. Well I stand corrected as I had to go back in my notes to look it up (And yes I have kept the diaries since November of 2010. One day I’ll write a book… LOL. Anything prior to 2010 will have to come from my memory. Maybe that will be the title… “If my memory is correct… and I think it is”) Anyway… the week of Mardi Gras 2020 we actually played the Kamp on Wednesday night. A wedding on Friday night. Endymion Samedi Gras on the Orleans Ave. We rode on the captains float in the parade. Sunday we played the Bacchus Bash. Monday morning was the Lundi Gras Celebration in Kenner. Quite a lot. Right? Hold on a minute now. I went further back to look it up… A typical Mardi Gras season for the Topcats 10 or 15 years ago looked something like this…Mardi Gras of 2012… Wednesday at Legends. (Sometimes Thursday could have been Boomtown or the Treasure Chest) Friday afternoon was a pre parade party for Centurions in the Clearview Mall parking lot. Friday night was in the Superdome for Endymions Beans and Jeans pre parade party. (For many years we played for Argus in the Pontchartrain Center on Friday night.) Saturday was Endymion… the neutral ground and the parade. (For some years in a row we would also play in the dome after getting off the float.) Sunday evening was the Ernst Cafe Bacchus Bash. Late Sunday night (actually it was Monday morning) we played the Bacchus Ball in the Convention Center. Monday evening was the Lundi Gras Celebration at Spanish Plaza. And that was Mardi Gras 2012. Whew!!! Occasionally we would play the Orpheus Ball in the Convention center as well. We would also occasionally drive over to Mobile to play Mardi Gras festivities there during that week as well. Those were some very busy years for us. Thank you very much. Who knows if we’ll ever get back to anything even remotely close to that again. Well… here’s to you. Thanks for hanging in there with us. We certainly appreciate your support over these many years. Here’s hoping we’ll see you soon.