October 2023

A smoking volcano ignites at a concert, proving the old adage: If at first you don’t succeed, throw away all the evidence that you tried.

– by Nan Parati
– photos by Scott Saltzman

The hills were green, the view was vast, the crowds were coming, and the smoking volcano stood tall and quiet on the plain.

This was 1993, when time moved at a much slower pace than it does now, and just a few weeks before, I’d sat in the stands at a crowded concert at Tad Gormley Stadium when Jimmy sang out, “I hope you’re enjoying the scenery – Thanks Nan! – I know it’s pretty up there...”

True story.

In your next life you want to get in with Quint Davis, producer of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival because Quint creates magic just by waking up in the morning.

Not long before that glorious night of recognition, Quint called me to say that Jimmy Buffett was coming to town to stage a concert at City Park’s Tad Gormley Stadium, and he wanted to turn the venue into one vast Margaritaville. I was head of what was becoming the Jazz Fest art department, and Quint asked me if I thought I could do that.

I said I thought I could, and I set to thinking with a lot of good and happy music in the background. Working with Tague Richardson of Home Team Productions (the company that was the force behind the building of Jazz Fest in those days) we designed and built what Jimmy was telling me through his music, his happy place might look like.

It was the musical tropics, full of everything I could pull from his songs – all the way to a smoking 18’ volcano built of heavy cardboard and wooden risers, erupting with flowing lava created of spray-painted foam rubber.

Mr. Buffet apparently liked what we wrought there, thanked me publicly from the stage, and a few weeks later called Quint back to see if we might fold all that stuff up and take it on the road to three or four other outdoor venues he wanted to Margaritaville up.

I believe we all said, “Why sure!” to that, and that is how we ended up at the concert site up north with the hills, the vast views and just a few days to get ready for the incoming Parrotheads. At some point in the set-up, someone said, “Hey! Wouldn’t it be cool to shoot fireworks out of the volcano?”

Who’s gonna disagree with that idea? Especially when you have someone on your working installation krewe who is a licensed pyrotechnician? As he worked on national shows, Don happened to know someone in the area who could procure some legal, certified indoor-fireworks for us; indoor as those aren’t quite as boisterous as the outdoor variety are. We got the pyro, installed it alongside the sedately-puffing smoke machine inside the volcano, and continued erecting the sharks, palms, planes, parrots and pirates that make Margaritaville home.

Thirty-thousand people and their best friends poured through the gates we’d built and flowed like lava through the site. Those fans wandering the paths of Margaritaville that afternoon and evening seemed delighted to suddenly find themselves in the heart of Jimmy's own tropical wonderland.

Jimmy took the stage and I watched and wandered through the crowd, swathed in the excitement of what was happening and what I knew was coming.

Finally, the band launched into the jaunty opening notes of “Volcano,” by which time I was on the far outside of the crowd, ready to witness and be thrilled by his song come to life. I danced to its rhythm until we got to the exciting end:

“I don’t know (de da da!)

I don’t know (de da da!)

I don’t know where I’m a-gonna go when the volcano blows!” De-dump bump!

Hit the button.

The pyro shoots!

It zooms high into the night sky and the crowd raises its collective head in wonder and awe.

Nothing happens!

The pyro falls down.

And hits the wide, flowing skirt of the volcano.

It explodes!

And so does the volcano!

The whole thing – from the outside!

And I, on the far outside of 50,000 people, watch my 18’ volcano burst into flames at the edge of Jimmy’s fan base. I run, jumping on and over people, racing to the scene of the real, live volcano, shooting flames high into the night sky.

Jimmy, stuck and struck there on the stage, did what any professional faced with a towering inferno in the middle of his crowd would do: He yelled, "Get the marshmallows!” And he launched into “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” while we, the creators of the world’s largest grill, raced to put it out.

And, with the help of the surrounding crowd, who showered us and our creation with their Cokes, beer and ice, we did.

Y’all young’uns ever wonder why the world is so code-restriction happy these days? Because of the good old days when it wasn’t. When you could build a volcano in the middle of an outdoor concert venue, shoot pyro out of it and not worry that something might go cagou with the whole plan.

While I never asked, I always suspected it was that lively, volcanic night that got us invited two years later to take to the road with Jimmy on his entire tour. You know, when Jimmy Buffett asks you out on a tour you don’t question the motive, you just design, build and go with the most magical year of your life.

But that tour hit the road in 1995, the same year his album Barometer Soup came out. In one of the songs, he sings about “rockets in the air,” and “people everywhere.” He voices that magical feeling we all have at times, that “I am still a child when it comes to something wild.”

The song is called “The Night I Painted the Sky.”

Yeah, that was the night.

Oh, that was a night.

And it was wild, alright.

Thank you Jimmy, for not freaking out, for throwing the cheeseburgers on the grill, and for bringing us all – every one of us – along with you for that wild, happy lifetime of joy.