On Sunday, October 2 Variety Playhouse will host a Benefit for Tipitina's Foundation and the Preservation Hall's New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund – each set up to provide support to New Orleans musicians victimized by Hurricane Katrina. BeauSoleil (featuring Michael Doucet) will headline the diverse evening which will also include performances from the subdudes, Kingsized, The Dames Aflame Dancers and more.
Tickets and Corporate Sponsorship VIP packages are still available for this performance.
Area businesses have donated an array of items (including a pair of Avalon Acoustic speakers valued in the thousands of dollars) for a silent auction and raffle that evening.
This will be a culmination of the Crescent City Throwdown, a day-long event turning Findlay Plaza (in the heart of Atlanta's Little Five Points) into Georgia's version of Jackson Square for a day with face-painting, fortune-telling, barbershop-singing, juggling and clowns. There will even be a performance from a Vaudeville orchestra, a set of old time music from The CodeTalkers and a percussion workshop with Count M'Butu and some his students – and other live performances and revelry in area businesses (including a screen of that day's New Orleans Saints game). Volunteers from metropolitan Atlanta high schools will circulate the crowd as a "bucket brigade" accepting donations from those attending the street festival.
"Members of Atlanta's music industry want to reach out directly to our peers in the New Orleans area. The New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund and The Tipitina's Foundation will benefit those performers and performance-related professionals who have lost their homes and livelihoods," said Mike Geier, lead singer of Kingsized. We feel it's grassroots organizations like these which will ensure the people get what they need immediately to rebuild their lives and preserve New Orleans music."
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