Last week New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton was suspended for all of the 2012 season for his complicity in the Saints bounty program that paid players money for knocking opposing players out of games. Faced with an entire year of no coaching, and forfeiture of $5.8 million in salary, Payton says he’ll join his friend Jimmy Buffett’s band for his Lounging at the Lagoon Tour, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton just over a week ago but Payton is wasting no time in making plans for his year off. Starting in June, he’ll hit the road with Jimmy Buffett for the Margaritaville crooner’s Lounging at the Lagoon 2012 Tour.

Payton is an “awesome guitar player” says Buffett. “Coach has rocked with me a few times at various places in New Orleans over the years and I’m really excited to have him along on the tour.”

The Saints coach is no stranger to the music scene. After a brief stint playing semi-pro football in the early 80’s, Payton tried his luck at a career in music. His band, coincidentally named The Bounty Hunters, toured for two years from 1985-1987 with Payton on lead guitar and vocals. After minimal success, Payton decided his playing career, both musically and athletically, was over and took a job as offensive assistant coach at San Diego State University in 1988.

“I was very disappointed in the commissioner’s decision, but I thought why not make the best of a bad situation and do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” said Payton. “When Jimmy asked me to join the band this summer, I didn’t even hesitate. It’s such an amazing opportunity. To get to play in front of tens of thousands of music lovers is what I wanted to do all those years ago. Plus, I could use the cash.”

Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band take the Welcome to Fin Land Tour to Florida tonight for a show at the 1-800-ASK-GARY Amphitheater in Tampa.

You can listen to the show live on Radio Margaritaville on the web or Sirius XM beginning at 8:00 pm ET.

After tonight’s show, Buffett heads to New Orleans on Sunday to play a free show at Woldenberg Park as part of the NCAA Final Four festivities. He’s then got a couple weeks off before the final leg of the Welcome to Fin Land Tour gets underway. (The 2012 Lounging at the Lagoon Tour kicks off in June)

Stay tuned for more tour date announcements coming in the next couple weeks.

Jimmy Buffett will play a free show in New Orleans as part of the NCAA Final Four festivities, reports NOLA.com

Kiss, the Black Keys and Jimmy Buffett are slated to perform free concerts in Woldenberg Park along the Mississippi River in downtown New Orleans the weekend of the NCAA Men’s Final Four. The concerts are part of a full slate of festivities throughout the college men’s basketball championship weekend.

In recent years Buffett, a native of the Gulf Coast with close ties to New Orleans, has mostly limited his local performances to hugely popular appearances at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell, as well as impromptu sets at clubs and the occasional tailgate party. The mayor of “Margaritaville” is a passionate fan of the New Orleans Saints who often attends playoff games and turns up in the locker room. He’ll perform at Woldenberg on Sunday, April 1.

Read more.

Our forum moderator Jollymon345 (Dean) was listening to Radio Margaritaville this morning and reports that DJ Steve revealed some details on Jimmy’s summer tour. Rest assured, there WILL be a summer tour this year.

Here’s a rundown of what Steve said:

1. The Welcome to Fin Land Tour is running until April in the midwest.

2. The new tour will be starting in May.

3. Tickets and date announcements will be end of March beginning of April.

4. Jimmy will be doing a lot of songs that he hasn’t done in a long time. Since Peter Mayer said earlier during an interview that Jimmy may do more albums like Volcano Live 2011 and he brought up A1A maybe he will be dipping back to some older stuff.

5. Steve commented about how people have been emailing RM and asking about the new tour and thought that Jimmy was retiring. He said it was not true.

(H/T Dean for passing this along)

San Diego parrotheads will have a place to tailgate on Saturday after all.

After initially declining to allow Jimmy Buffett fans to use the Qualcomm Stadium parking lot for a tailgate party prior to Saturday night’s Buffett concert at SDSU’s Viejas Arena, stadium officials have done an about face.

“We’ve kind of reversed course. We’ve decided to open it up for tailgaters,” Mike McSweeney, the manager of Qualcomm Stadium, said Thursday afternoon. “We’ve had such an overwhelming number of requests from people wanting to tailgate (Saturday).”

Why the initial reluctance?

McSweeney said stadium officials were concerned about costs Qualcomm would have had to absorb to pay for cleaning up the parking lot after the tailgate party and for providing Porta-Potties and security.

“Because we’re charging for parking, well use those revenues to pay for the Porta-Potties and the dumpsters,” he said. “We have a lot of space and we’ll open it up as needed.”

Tailgating at Qualcomm won’t be cheap. Officials will open the gates at noon and charge $20 per car and $60 per RV.

Get the full run-down here.