AV's 14th Annual Mardi Gras Parade and Party Roulez Into Town This Tuesday

Photo: Rose Mattrey, Masks: Andrea Masse-Tognetti, Models: Janet and Alyssa Yavener. Look for a larger version of this photo on this week's print edition.

Everyone is talking about stimulation and regulation, the louche past and the austere times to come. Our economy is suffering mightily for the greed and wantonness of a relative few, and now we all must prepare to do without, to sacrifice for the greater good. But that grim, puritanic prospect is brightened somewhat, as it is every spring, by the promise of one more drunken turn round the carousel. One final, 24-hour fling before the clampdown. One more wild night. The Lenten season is hard upon us, but first comes Fat Tuesday—that last hurrah before that cold, bleak stretch of deprivation that leads to spring and rebirth.

We borrowed the idea from places like New Orleans and Memphis, Rio de Janeiro and Venice. But now we do it here in Buffalo, too: Let loose. Let it all hang out. And let it all be done in the name of sweet charity.

This is our 14th year hosting the Artvoice Mardi Gras celebration, a revel filled with floats, food, beads, masks, drag queens, live music, intoxicating drink and company. As always, the debauch commences with a parade that sets off promptly at 5pm from the the corner of Elmwood and Forest Avenues. The motorcade—about 40 floats piled high with costumed merrymakers—cuts a noisy, drunken path down Elmwood Avenue, turns left on Allen Street, then jogs down Main Street to the Chippewa Strip, before returning to Allentown and finishing at Kleinhans Music Hall.

All along the way, participating bars, nightclubs, and restaurants—more this year than ever before—will be packed with bead-bedecked people sipping drinks, taking in live music and sundry entertainments, and eating good food—because they all know, as you do, that the next day the belt-tightening begins. They’ll be eating barbecued alligator at Lagniappes, turtle soup at Shango, barbecue at Fat Bob’s and the Lafayette Tap Room, where the Sauce Boss will also be cooking up some gumbo onstage—and washing it all down with that most appropriately named cocktail: the hurricane.

Your ticket to this annual bacchanal is a five-dollar wrist bracelet, available at all participating venues (which are listed for your convenience on the following pages, along with a map of the parade route), as well as at Mardi Gras Central, our headquarters in front of Quote nightclub at 236 Delaware, just north of Chippewa. That five-dollar bracelet buys you entrance everywhere you go, and a garland of beads at each door you pass through, courtesy of our gracious volunteers.

And, as we say every year, don’t be afraid to buy those volunteers a drink: These folks are giving six hours of their night to raise money for Hospice Buffalo, and that is thirsty work.

That’s right, the whole affair is for a good cause: Every penny of that five dollars goes directly to Hospice Buffalo, which for 30 years hase been providing care and comfort to those nearing the end of their lives, as well as to their loved ones. The Artvoice Mardi Gras is one of the largest philanthropic Mardi Gras events in the country—and growing—and we cannot imagine doing this for anyone but Hospice, nor could we do it without their help.

We owe others a great debt, too, of course. Our sponsors include some stalwarts who have been with us for years: Southern Comfort, Labatt, 103.3 the Edge, Mix 104, 97 Rock, and BuffaloBarfly.com, whose intrepid correspondents will document the debauchery and post it online the very next day. We also thank the Buffalo Police Department, all the good folks in Buffalo’s City Hall, Comfort Suites, Elmwood Taco & Subs, Quote, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Curt Rotterdam, Ilya’s Belly Dancers, and of course the indefatigable Chevon Davis and her friends.

Thanks also to the heavenly host of float-builders, club owners, musicians, costumers, parade route volunteers, and the rest of those who toil to make the whole thing go off without a hitch, year after year.

Finally, thanks to all of you who come out in cold weather every Fat Tuesday, to make the Artvoice Mardi Gras celebration one of the city’s best parties, year after year.

—geoff kelly

Click here to download our Mardi Gras 2009 spread as it appears in our February 19th print edition (PDF format). Keep it handy - it includes information on special events and performances throughout the night, and contains a map of the Mardi Gras parade route and locations of all 44 participating bars, clubs and venues. Visit our Artvoice Mardi Gras website for information, video and photo slide shows from past Mardi Gras, and an interactive club map.