At the moment’s cats and dogs are raining all over Tom Lee Park. But it’s expected to last only another 20 minutes or so and Diane Hampton, Memphis in May spokesman, says the day’s Sunset Symphony events will continue as planned. So come on out but forget the white shoes.
Granted, I’m sure these people didn’t make it out of the park at 11 p.m. with their shoes in such pristine condition, but at the time I caught this photo (7ish, maybe?) , it was still sort of shocking to even see this shade of white anywhere in the park.
Robert ‘Wolfman’ Belfour was at the Shack but not much was going on. The rain had depleted the crowd and there was some technical thing holding up the entertainment. Except that his drummer just got the urge and pounded the skins for a while to the delight of the quite small audience. Here’s what it looked like.
Internet, let me tell you what’s awesome: Slinking into a steamy tent that’s throbbing, old-timey revival style, and watching a man named Super Chikan and his trio of bluesy ladies jam on their bedazzled git-ars and diddly-bos just enough to get the crowd all worked up into a clapping, hip-shaking frenzy before dinner time.
Oh, Memphis. How I love you.
I’ve been mucking my way through the park all evening — yes, mucking, because that’s what you do when the ground is the consistency of melting ice cream — and snapping as many pictures as possible between downpours. Downpours, plural. Have you heard? It’s been raining a little bit down here at Tom Lee. But most everyone’s got galoshes and ponchos and umbrellas and beer.
So I think the kids are all right.
How did James ‘Super Chickan’ Johnson get his name? And what is his plan for the weather (which has apparently worked)? Find out here.
It looks like the skies might just start clearing up before music starts at 6 this evening. John Beifuss has a detailed forecast, with variables included, just below. Meanwhile, a blogger named Memphis Tider points out that Jonny Lang (9:10-10:15 on the Sam’s Town Stage) has the perfect opening tune in case the inclement weather carries on.
Twenty four hours before showtime, it’s kinda desolate at Tom Lee Park. Everybody is saving their strength for a Friday that has the potential to rock out in all directions — although those pesky t-storms might have a say. Here’s what it looked like Thursday evening… Music fest eve
When the Beale Street Music Festival opens its gate Friday evening, Dale and Carlene Dockus will be among the first arrivals. They’ve made the annual pilgrimage from distant Cordova for about 15 years. They stay Downtown the entire weekend. They get around by trolley. (”After all the beer, don’t want to be driving,” Dale says.)
To say they plan for every kind of weather is an understatement. See, Dale works in the FedEx Meteorology Department. In the words of Bob Dylan, one of his favorite MIM headliners of the past, “he don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
Troubling news: he’ll be wearing rain gear Friday night. “Some of the (weather prediction) models are saying it’s going to be a little stormy Friday night,” he said, “as in a severe thunderstorm watch. We’re hoping it hits early.”
For foul weather occasions, he and his wife just wear their lawn-mowing and gardening sneakers. It doesn’t matter if they get wet — they keep several pairs back in the hotel room.
And no matter what happens this weekend, we’ll be there, too. The Commercial Appeal has raided the newsroom for its mavens of music and masochists of mud. Check out pop music critic Bob Mehr’s overview of the festival in Friday’s Playbook, with a park map and complete schedule of acts.
Party line columnist Michael Donahue will feature in a quirky online photo game, updated regularly: “Where’s Donahue?” See if you can spot Memphis’ most hirsute party-goer as he makes his way through the crowds. TRY IT OUT. You might even spot yourself. Better wear something funky.
Video correspondent Jon W. Sparks and Appeal TV creators Dennis Copeland and Lacey Winters will be scouring Tom Lee Park for moments of breathless cinema and general insanity. Free your inner celebrity.
Moonlighters Christopher Blank (our theater critic), John Beifuss (our movie critic) and Mark Jordan (our intrepid correspondent) will be hugging the speakers for up-to-the-minute updates and commentary from various stages around Tom Lee Park.
Our bloggers Bret Weaver, Lindsey Turner and Mark Richens will be posting numerous photos and descriptions of all the crazy stuff people do.
And there are even a few special guests. (We’re really pulling teeth to get people out of the office for three exciting days of music and partying!)
Be sure to visit often, share experiences, and steal our thunder if you can. It’s Memphis in May. And that means, it’s time to rock.
When the rain came — and boy, did it come — people scrambled every which way to find shelter or ponchos (which some businesses were giving away for free and others were selling along with their wares). These people are braver than I:
Shudder.
But while some people crawled beneath rickety platforms, others piled into the blues tent, where they caught the last part of The Lee Boys’ set.
The tent was packed, and there was dancing in the aisles and hands raised in praise (The Lee Boys like some gospel with their funk, see). And the ground shook like an old-time funk revival. I shimmied up close to the front to take some (crappy) pictures, and my heart started thumping along with the bass line the closer I got to the amps. A moving experience, even for a cynic like me.
… but there is a cloud the exact size and shape of Tom Lee Park pouring God knows how much rain on Music Fest. Rawk.
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