Saints Super Bowl Parade-Lombardi Gras

Re: Saints Super Bowl Parade-Tuesday

Yesterday was "Dat Tuesday," the parade that kicked off the "Lombardi Gras" season in Drew Orleans, Breesiana!!! They have two parades tonight, three parades tomorrow, six parades on Friday, seven parades on Saturday (including Endymion with Tom Benson), nine parades on Sunday (including Bacchus with Drew Brees), three parades on Monday (including Orpheus with Coach Payton and Reggie Bush), and then 11 parades on Fat Tuesday. This whole Lombardi Gras week is going to be the biggest party New Orleans has ever seen!!!

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that's scary, i pictured it going down the EXACT same way you just described.

 

Re: Saints Super Bowl Parade-Tuesday

Even had Brees fallen, angels from Heaven would have caught him and returned him back to the top of the float!!! Saintslogo Saintslogo Saintslogo But seriously, he did the same thing where I caught the parade on Convention Center Blvd, and he easily could have fallen (but he would have been easily caught by the sea of people below him, just like a rock star who jumps off the stage). One of his linemen tapped his leg and had him get down from the railing. We, along with a huge throng of people, followed Brees' float along the whole last 5 or so blocks of the parade route. Brees was going freaking nuts the whole time. I've never seen anybody follow a float like that, especially a whole throng of people like we had. We did the same thing for the Orpheus Smokey Mary train float that held Payton and the Lombardi. It reached the end of the parade route at 9:45 pm. Payton never stopped waving that Lombardi trophy and pumping it up and down. It was the greatest.

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Re: Saints Super Bowl Parade-Tuesday

Nobody throws a parade like New Orleans!!! Saintslogo And this is just the beginning of the Lombardi Gras week!! New Orleans is going to literally explode this weekend, Fri thru Tues, the high point of Mardi Gras, when everybody is off from work!!!! Should be the most highly-attended Mardi/Lombardi Gras week in New Orleans history!!!!!!


Canal Street, Mardi Gras, 1900


Back of card reads: "Mardi Gras time, frolic and fun, a spectacle of a city of 500,000 people, virtually all the populace playing in the streets, half of them masked and costumed, while the other half watches, their hearts and minds at play." c. late 1910s or early 1920s. View of Canal Street looking lakewards from the French Quarter side around Chartres Street from a building roof or high window. Visible buildings include the Tudor Theater, Grunewald/Roosevelt Hotel building, Jung Hotel building in distance.


Crowds, like the one in this photo of Canal Street on Mardi Gras day. An estimated 800,000 people came out to the streets last year, and the number has topped 1 million in the pre-Katrina past.

 

Re: Saints Super Bowl Parade-Tuesday

I feel you. It was so packed that I couldn't see anything in the parade that was at ground level... the only part of the parade I could see was the people on the 2nd-level or higher on the floats... including Drew Brees... and Coach Payton with the Lombardi... and that is all that mattered. I've never seen so many adults reduced to childlike-wonder at a parade like I saw last night (heck, all day today, people have been calling up WWL's radio shows talking about how great their experience was last night). It was Magical. As for catching throws, I had no chance... I was so far back behind the sea of people lining the route that I was thrilled just to catch my only catch of the night... a lowly, average, green, small-sized Mardi Gras bead thrown by one of the Saints (and people were fighting me for it when I went up for it). I did see Brees sign a black Saints jersey and throw it to someone he was pointing to up in the front, and based on the pics of the parade I saw today, Saints players on the 1st level of the floats were signing everything that people were handing to them with sharpies... even Mardi Gras umbrellas!

But this is just the beginning!!! You have a whole week of parades until Fat Tuesday to catch commerative Saints beads and special throws. The Saints are going to be the toast of the town the rest of the Mardi Gras season... for all of Lombardi Gras week!!! Brees highlights Bacchus, Benson highlights Endymion, Payton and Reggie highlight Orpheus. I'm sure more Saints players will be invited to ride in every parade. The city that throws the biggest party in the USA has finally won a Super Bowl, and the party is just beginning!!!!!

As for parking garages, they had one on the route by me, and that is the first time I've seen people up on all levels of the parking garage hanging out the windows/sides like that. It was awesome. Saintslogo

 

I've been reading how the Celtic players were watching the parade... you think they were thinking that Boston has nothing on New Orleans when it comes to throwing a party for a Championship!?!? And this is just the beginning of the city-wide street party until Fat Tuesday!!! Saintslogo

 

Re: Saints Super Bowl Parade-Tuesday

Where are your pics?

I think the most impressive thing that this all went off without incident. I remember hearing some folks talking about how Katrina wouldn't have sh!t on what would be done to the city if the Saints won. I was quick to correct them by saying the people of New Orleans and the Gulf region are professional party-ers who know how to celebrate without rioting or burning sh!t. Cities that resort to that are amateurs.

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Re: Saints Super Bowl Parade-Tuesday

Only 'off' by ~600k or so.

 

Re: Saints Super Bowl Parade-Tuesday

i unfortunately wasn't there but my mother was there (a veteran of about 50 + mardi gras and born and raised in the irish channel) said it was a bigger crowd than she has ever seen.