**“Live And Let ‘Leans” Thrills Bond Fans To The Uttermost**

We had a ball in New Orleans this October as Bond fans, all Bonding together. Let me tell you how it went and give you the flavor of our event:Thursday: We gathered at The Roosevelt, a Waldorf Astoria collection hotel, in their sumptuous Sazerac Bar, for, well, Sazeracs, just like Felix ordered for him and James before things went awry in The Big Easy. We spent hours meeting old friends and making new ones over martinis, giz fizzes and the bar’s eponymous drink (they serve 40,000 a year of them) before dining out together–at the nearby Felix’s Restaurant, and especially on their famous chargrilled oysters.

We then had front-and-center seats for one of the best live bands anywhere, The Yat Pack, as they did their swinging 50’s and 60’s music at the avant-garde Saint Hotel, where some of us also shot pool in the lobby and others soaked up Moore of the Sainted atmosphere.Friday: This was our first big tour day, around greater New Orleans to visit numerous train, plane, boat and car chase locations from LIVE AND LET DIE. Our tour began at 10 AM and went until almost 9 PM! The morning’s highlight was visiting the airport from the chase scene with Mrs. Bell.

We were welcomed to the airport by a corporate sponsor who offered refreshments to our group followed by an exclusive escorted tour onto the airport runways and into the hangars used during the film! We spent nearly two hours at the airport. The WWII Airpower Expo there featured a B-17 Flying Fortress, B-29 Superfortress and other planes that roamed the skies overhead all weekend. We next crossed the Lake Pontchartrain causeway, the longest contiguous bridge in the world, to dine at the aptly named Voodoo Barbecue on delicious sandwiches and platters, followed there by a Bond memorabilia sale and Bond and U.N.C.L.E. book signings by authors Matt Sherman and Jon Heitland.

Fan favorite spots in the afternoon and evening that followed included the estates “boated over” in the wedding scene and swimming pool chase scenes in LALD, two long-lost locations that were unearthed especially for this event, and reenacting “Billy Bob passes Sheriff Pepper and the patrolmen” on site in photos.

We also visited a dozen other scenes from Roger Moore’s first outing as OO7 including where Bond crashed through a bridge, blew Adam to bits, played cards with Solitaire and more. Evening took us to exotic New Orleans and off the beaten tourist path. We had dinner at local favorites Parkway Bakery and Angelo Broccato for gelato and cakes followed by our “City Wild” tour. We crossed the Mississippi and overlooked the city by night, visited celebrity homes including Brad Pitt’s, John Goodman’s, Nicolas Cage’s, Sandra Bullock’s and Anne Rice’s hangouts, the Lower Ninth Ward where Hurricane Katrina struck hard but the locals are gamely recovering, a haunted skyscraper and a haunted mansion, the Amtrak station used by Felix, James and Solitaire in LALD and even a deserted cemetery by late night.

Saturday: After a Bond gift exchange, our group spent the day and evening in film locations in the French Quarter and Central Business District. We visited Cemetary #1 and Louis Armstrong Park, dined handsomely and talked shop at The Gumbo Shop, drank at Napoleon House and at the rooftop bar of the Omni New Orleans, Bond’s hotel from LIVE AND LET DIE, and generally did the town including other hotspots used by cast and crew, with many insider stories en route on tour, ending, of course, at the site of the FILLET OF SOUL restaurant. In all, we visited over 45 locations from LIVE AND LET DIE, during four tours over two days. We finished the night on our balcony high above Bourbon Street, talking, laughing and watching the scene over drinks.

Sunday: We ended our event over brunch with live music at Red Gravy Restaurant, with its exotic mix of traditional breakfast items with mid-morning Italian meatballs and marinara sauce! Some Bondians departed for home while the rest of the stalwarts went atop the Westin Hotel for an hour, to admire the 360-view high above the city, the French Quarter and all the many Bond locations we visited.

Join us on our next James Bond sightseeing and thrilling event!