You couldn’t Big Chief Experience your way out of this one. If you wanted to see the festers’ Kurtz, Neil Young, you had to wade in the water. “Cortez the Killer” became more than a magnificent piece of sound sculpture more than the fantastic/ironic story of the greatest and most brutal of the Conquistadores. “Dancing across the water” was a fair description of the hardy souls who attended the event standing the much and mire and horseshit and sewage and god knows what else was making up the landscape at the Fairgrounds. The sounds system and its electronic agony contributed the parts than sounded more like Arc/Weld.

The track hasn’t looked like this since Lake Pontchartrain decided to move south 11 years ago. At least the water won’t sit there for weeks. Back then it took tons of gypsum to restore the infield and racetrack before the next racing season. The grounsdskeepers have their work cut out for them. Amazingly, people complained when they shut it down Saturday afternoon, so no one should have been surprised that the Fest opened up for business again Sunday. But a lot of people found it astonishing based on the social network buzz about where all those bands were going to play.

I have never been more impressed by the Jazz Fest staff. Putting on the Sunday shows in the middle of an often driving, day-long rainstorm was an amazing feat. The potential for catastrophe loomed large and, even with the heroic job of making it all happen, you have to say there was some degree of luck involved that nothing went horribly wrong. Aside from Stevie Wonder’s $800,000 piano, that is.

Here’s to all the musicians who played for the determined fans who made it out there. Rock festival culture has its built in rites of passage, making the difficulty of attending the event part of its stoic enjoyment. Tales will be told for a long time of the obstacles overcome to see Jazz Fest ’16.

But of course there is never a shortage of tales to be told in New Orleans. Friday night at Mimi’s Sarah Quintana and Mark Bingham were scheduled to perform. The place was fairly full for the opening act; I walked down the street to Feelings for a drink. Before I could order the lights were out. “Typical Marigny blackout.” Back at Mimi’s just about everyone had cleared out. There was Bingham, sitting at the far end of the room in candlelight, playing acoustic guitar and singing at barely a whisper level. It was eerie, and it was perfectly beautiful. Bingham sang anything that came to his mind. “Fortune Teller.” A song from “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.” An amazing version of “When You Wish Upon a Star” complete with a whistling chorus. “I Must Go Where the Wild Geese Go.” Finally the lights came on and the place started to fill up. Bingham conducted a Beatles sing-along. Rod Hodges dropped by, picked up a guitar and Bingham launched into the raucous sea shanty from one of America’s greatest songwriters, Antonia Stampfel, “Fucking Sailors in Chinatown.” Everyone sang along. It was so good he did it again.