No, it was not hot out therre. Not by a long shot. Nonetheless rapper Nelly capped off an exceptional opening night to Mobile’s Mardi Gras season, as the Reese’s Senior Bowl amplified the festivities of 2023′s first downtown Carnival parade on Friday.

The case might be made that the evening’s first parade consisted entirely of tow trucks, as an armada of them worked to clear the parade route and some nearby streets of parked vehicles. According to the Mobile Police Department, 64 parking citations were issued and 34 vehicles towed. With the route and nearby emergency corridors duly cleared, Senior Bowl players, coaches and other participants got a short parade of their own that started at 6 p.m.

Related: Mardi Gras parade season opens in Mobile, as the Conde Cavaliers roll (with photos)

After a brief interval, the Conde Cavaliers proceeded along Route A, appearing to enjoy strong crowds despite the fact that temperatures were diving into the 40s. The overall crowd estimate from the Mobile Police Department was 59,136, which is well below the 2022 estimate of 93,000 but within a whisker of the 59,080 estimated for the Cavaliers’ pre-pandemic (and Nelly-free) turnout in 2020.

Normally the cleanup caravan that followed the Cavaliers’ last float would have signaled the end of the evening. But Senior Bowl organizers had presented a little something extra, an hourlong Nelly show that drew several thousand people to Mardi Gras Park.

The concert was a percussive, more or less nonstop performance, with the rapper moving rapidly from one song to another. He repeatedly thanked “each and every one of y’all that’s been holding your man Nelly down for 22, 23, 24 years … I want to thank each and every one of y’all for that.” In particular he wanted to thank all those “who’ve been riding with Nelly since Day One.”

Nelly’s biggest hits came between 2000 and 2010, including “Ride Wit Me” and “Hot in Herre,” and that material got the biggest response from a diverse all-ages crowd that evoked memories of Mobile’s long-gone BayFest music festival. (In fact, Nelly was among the headliners of that event in 2010.) But he also touched on newer material, such as “Cruise,” a collaboration with country group Florida Georgia Line.

“I cannot say this enough, I’ve been saying this since the first day I stepped on stage, I’m going to say it until the last day I step on stage, I’m going to say it all throughout this show: It’s truly and honor and a pleasure to be out here in front of you tonight, Alabama,” the St. Louis star said.

With the show over by 9:30, the crowd seemed eager to find someplace warmer to be. But the broken beads and damp confetti still in the streets after the first pass of the cleanup crew bore witness: The season has begun.

A schedule of area parades is available here.

For continuing coverage, visit www.al.com/mardigras.

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