A&E

Creole String Beans bring NOLA spice to DTA

by Walter Pierce

Recently nominated in the "Best Roots Rock Band" category of Gambit's annual Big Easy Awards, New Orleans' Creole String Beans will bring a repertoire that ranges from Fats Domino to Duke Ellington to Bobby Charles to the Downtown Alive! stage Friday in Parc Sans Souci.

The Creole String Beans, from left: Rick Olivier, Travis Blotsky, Bryan Barry, Derek Huston, Brian Rini and Rob Savoy.

Recently nominated in the "Best Roots Rock Band" category of Gambit's annual Big Easy Awards, New Orleans' Creole String Beans will bring a repertoire that ranges from Fats Domino to Duke Ellington to Bobby Charles to the Downtown Alive! stage Friday in Parc Sans Souci.

The concert is a homecoming for String Beans bass player Rob Savoy, a Lafayette native who for several years before forming CSB was a member of Cowboy Mouth at the height of that band's popularity. Rob is also no stranger to the DTA! stage, having appeared in the concert series from its inception in the tiny Parc du Lafayette on Jefferson Street a quarter century ago with groups like Shady Moon, The Rocking Shapes and later, when DTA spilled out onto a flatbed trailer at the Vermilion/Jefferson intersection, The Blue Runners.

"There is nothing like the energy on a Friday afternoon in the Spring at DTA! Everybody is ready to get their yayas out and shake it, but most certainly not break it," Savoy says. "As we all know, nobody dances like the people in Lafayette. It has a flow and a rhythm like nowhere else. The sight of the entire dance floor gliding in a perfect circle always makes me smile a little deeper."

Concession sales for Downtown Alive! begin at 5:30; the music cranks up at 6 and lasts until 8:30. DTA! is free and concession sales help keep it that way so please leave ice chests at home.

DOWNTOWN ALIVE! SPRING 2013

March 22: Creole String Beans (Parc Sans Souci)

March 29: Good Firday No DTA!

April 5: Cowboy Mouth (Parc International)

April 12: Dege Legg and Black Bayou Construckt (Parc Sans Souci)

April 19: The Band Courtbouillon featuring Wayne Toups, Steve Riley and Wilson Savoy (Parc International)

April 26: Festival International de Louisiane No DTA!

May 3: Rue Boogaloo (Parc Sans Souci)

May 10: Louisiana Red (Parc Sans Souci)

May 17: Mercy Brothers (Parc Sans Souci)

May 24: Sassafras Jubilee (Parc Sans Souci)

May 31: Generationals & LillyBrave (Parc Sans Souci)