Fat Tuesday is Feb. 28, and you and I both know we won't make it to New Orleans. Let me rephrase that. YOU might make it. As I'm now inclined to be in bed by 5:30 p.m. most nights — or whenever the last serving of stewed carrots and denture-friendly meatloaf are gone, and the neighborhood cafeteria shuts down "Codger Happy Hour" — I don't think I could mentally, spiritually or liver-wise handle another Mardi Gras in the Crescent City.

However, I'll rally and howl like a beast Thursday in New London's Garde Arts Center when Marcia Ball and the Subdudes hit town for their "Boogie on the Bayou Mardi Gras Celebration." As superb but stylistically distinct representatives of what might be called the Gulf Coast Sound, Ball and the 'dudes are reliably amazing live performers guaranteed to transform wintry New England into a humid, steaming rite of Carnival.

Oh, and any sensible person's record collection requires, at minimum, the Subdudes' "Behind the Levee," "Lucky" and last year's "4 on the Floor." Ditto for Ball's "Presumed Innocent," "Let Me Play with Your Poodle" and the recent "Tattooed Lady & the Alligator Man."

Boogie on the Bayou: Mardi Gras Celebration with the Subdudes and Marcia Ball, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London; $28-$45; (860) 444-7373.