Mardi Gras Parade and Party
19th Street and The New Parish
Oakland
Feb. 13, 2024
The Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans can be a little overwhelming if you’re not prepared for it — the week of parades, parties, music, crowds, food, and good times can seem endless, the drunken revelry a bit too much. When I was there ten years ago, the people spilling constantly into and out of bars, restaurants, and Bourbon Street for days already began to wear thin after a couple of days. But celebrating Fat Tuesday in a hyper-focused, seemingly spontaneous parade for one night only on 19th Street, in a Bay Area town a couple thousand miles away from the Big Easy felt like the perfect amount of encapsulated joy — part Fellini film, all good times, a slice of a celebration that keeps you wanting more.
I wasn’t sure what to expect walking towards Snow Park, but I was reassured by the groups of stragglers in glittery hats and layers of beads heading in the same direction.
At a corner of the park, MJ’s Brass Boppers — a Bay Area band with members from New Orleans — were assembled, alongside happy celebrants and a couple of women in spangled outfits on stilts hovering above us. The party atmosphere was already palpable, and we hadn’t even started marching.
The parade started promptly at 6 p.m., with the Brass Boppers leading the way down 19th Street, away from Lake Merritt. If you’ve never listened to a New Orleans-style brass band play, you should catch this band. Having opened for acts like George Clinton & Funkadelic, the O’Jays, and other NOLA brass bands, they’re well-versed in inserting the bright, loud, raucous joy of that Big Easy atmosphere. It’s sort of like a high school drumline turned up to eleven and showered with Hurricane cocktails. I recognized the refrains of Destiny’s Child’s “Bootylicious” and the Beach Boys’ “Help Me Rhonda” filtered through a rolling band with drums, sax, and trombones. As we strolled down the street, spontaneous marchers broke out into dance and crowds spilled out of restaurants and bars to take pictures and cheer the hundred or so marchers on.
Spontaneous cheers and hollers and whoops rose up every few minutes; the marchers sang out “Na na naaa, gonna have a good time!” as we ambled down the blocks. There didn’t seem to be any concerns for negotiating traffic or blocking off the street. Cars had to stop to let us pass, but no one seemed to mind, at least from our perspective.
I wondered briefly if the city gave approval for this parade, but by this time I was fully invested in letting the good times roll and kept marching on.
Why can’t we have this kind of joy every day? The call-and-response singing, the beads and colorful costumes and cheers and dancing, the families and couples and children and pets and bicyclists who joined in our ranks, all brightened up the Oakland night for a few precious moments. It felt like just the kind of remedy for any of Oakland’s current ills.
The parade eventually moved on to The New Parish courtyard to continue the party with live music, food, and drinks. I had already left to check out another Fat Tuesday event, but luckily the good vibes were portable. Laissez les bon temps roulez, always.
