Photo by Noé Cugny via Pres Hall’s Twitter

Over the weekend, for the first time in three years, Preservation Hall put on their intimate and fabled Midnight Preserves benefit show. Tickets acquired by fans as far back as 2020 were honored so the shows which ran through the first weekend of Jazz Fest – Friday, April 29 through Sunday, May 1 – were sold-out immediately.

The midnight, after-festival shows were billed as “featuring the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Special Guests,” and in the past welcomed top-tier talent including the likes of Jon Batiste, Elvis Costello, Irma Thomas, Brittany Howard and many more.

This year’s Midnight Preserves special guests included The Who’s, Pete Townsend, blues torchbearer Gary Clark Jr., and Jason Isbell. Townshend who made his surprise appearance on Saturday, after he headlined Jazz Fest with The Who, played an acoustic set that included his song “Let My Love Open the Door,“ which The Who Recently revived for the first time since the ’80s, and The Who’s iconic song “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” among others. Towards the end of his set members of the Preservation Hall joined him for a set-closing “When the Saints Go Marching in.”

The evenings serve as the Preservation Hall Foundation’s biggest fundraiser of the year and ticket proceeds went to benefit year-round music education programs, like Kids in the Hall and Preservation Hall Lessons, and the PHF Legacy program which supports elder Preservation Hall musicians.

See a thank you message from the Preservation Hall Foundation below.