Beale Street Breakdown
“I’ll keep my eyes fixed on the sun.” -Cage the Elephant
I’ve been to my fair share of music festivals. This isn’t my first rodeo but Beale Street Music Festival was it’s own special experience. We flew into Memphis Thursday night for a free Marilyn Manson show (it’s good to know people Thanks Matt!) and aside from being approximately one thousand degrees in the little venue, he put on a pretty sweet show. I can add Manson to the ever-growing list of artists I’ve seen. I especially liked his covers of Sweet Dreams and Personal Jesus- an homage to our dancing Ground Zero days.
Cage the Elephant, Awolnation, Flogging Molly, the Pixies, the Flaming Lips, Paramore, Band of Horses and Rise Against were the acts I came to see. They all rocked-
Cage the Elephant with their Jagger-esque lead singer killed it as usual
Awolnation playing all the hits and the bad wolf song I dig off their new album
Flogging Molly with their leprechaun-like lead singer, his amazing wife on flute and violin, plus several hotties brought a tear to my eye as always with “If I Ever Leave This World Alive”
Band of Horses tore it up with their sexy beardedness
Rise Against gotta love their brand of angry rock, apocalyptic love gone wrong
Paramore rocked more break up songs and women rule anthems
Flaming Lips won the confetti contest per usual and Wayne’s frog costume was especially cute but no Beatles or Pink Floyd covers or anything off Transmissions from the Satellite Heart ( sad face )
Lips Confetti-fest
My husband’s Pink Floyd cover seeking twin
AND The Pixies– Come on it’s the Pixies! Even with a younger thinner Kim Deal stand in, they were tight!
It’s awesome to come to a festival and not have any conflicts where I have to choose between two bands playing the same time slot. My hubby was not so lucky, choosing to accompany me to Paramore instead of venturing off to see John Fogerty. He said next time he’d go with Fogerty and we laughed because there’s never going to be a next time Fogerty and Paramore play the same festival at the same time- ship has sailed. Just like I missed Wilco and Ed Sheeran for Cage the Elephant but I wouldn’t really say I “missed” either.
There were a lot of highlights to this long weekend but I wanted to note a few parts that stood out good, bad, and humorous (at least to me )
— The weather was astounding. They call this month of music Memphis in May but it’s been redubbed recently to Memphis in Mud due to the relentless rain showers and hurricane warnings that plagued this festival. We had nothing but clear skies and sunshine so thank you Mother Nature. Though I purchased a super cute pair of “Festival” wellies (actual company name) they remained in my suitcase the entire stay. Luckily, Denver will have more than enough spring showers for me to wear them.
— Memphis is a special place. I appreciated the southern hospitality we experienced almost everywhere. Maybe in Denver, I’d cringe to be referred to as “hun” but it just works there somehow and sounds endearing as opposed to grating. Also, at almost forty I’ve probably earned the title “Mam” so I took it as a sign of respect instead weeping over my dwindling youth.
— Unfortunately 80% of our Uber/Lyft drivers seemed to have no idea how to navigate their own city. I found myself giving directions multiple times to our drivers. I don’t think the visitor should be explaining driving directions but ridesharing is fairly new in this city so they’re still working the kinks out. My favorite Lyft driver Deanna drove a bright orange bitchin’ Camaro. She was fifteen minutes late picking us up at our hotel because she was busy getting an illegal turn ticket on her way over. She drove us to Southlands, a local casino and decided to come in a gamble awhile as opposed to working. When she pulled into the valet, everyone knew her name like George at “Cheers”.
— We had a lot of food recommendations and we managed to try at least half of the places we intended to. Brother Junipers boasts the “best breakfast in Memphis”. It was certainly delish with definitely the best home fries in the city. Gus’s famous fried chicken was tasty though spicier than I imagined. Central’s BBQ was ridiculously good. So much so that three of us ordered $90 worth of lunch, not that they’re expensive but because we seriously wanted one of everything including three desserts. I’m actually flying home with ribs in my suitcase at my husband’s insistence much to my chagrin.
The festival food was also pretty amazing.. I’ve been to festivals where beer and wine are the only beverages and pizza, hotdogs, and nachos pretty much sum up your food choices but Memphis did it right. I absolutely won the deep fried food eating contest I somehow personally entered. The mac and cheese was delightful, the red velvet funnel cake with powdered sugar AND cream cheese frosting was decadent and diabetes inducing. Honorable mention to the preposterous eggroll stand selling eggrolls stuffed with chicken pot pie filling, macaroni, and bacon!- some kind of serious stoner concoction that completely worked somehow.
— Our Quality Inn, while being located in some kind of Uber maps black hole, was filled with other out-of-town festival attendees who congregated every night in the courtyard ( directly outside our room of course) that turned into a Mignight in the Garden of Good and Evil after party which my overly friendly chatty husband loved and I , the almost 40 cranky wife not desperately clinging to youth, loathed. Luckily, the AC unit in our room was loud enough to drown out most of the pre-sunrise courtyard shenanigans. Our hotel also had continuously daily roundtrip shuttles down to Beale Street, fantastic because post show Ubers were fleeting and high-surging but dreadful because the return trip pickup location was six blocks from the festival , a long trek after most of us had already walked several miles between stages throughout the day on swollen, often mustard covered feet. Saturday night after the show, when we’d finally made it to the pick up point, patiently waiting for our shuttle to arrive, secreting counting the incoming stragglers and knowing we were getting on the next bus goddammit! a horse drawn carriage (bountiful on Beale Street apparently) pulled up on the sidewalk effectively blocking the entrance to the parking lot. We could see our shuttle bus valiantly cutting through the backed up traffic trying to reach our weary, wasted crew. Fourteen of us watched helplessly as our van tried to turn in causing even more of a jam while this carriage driver obliviously tried to cash out her customer. When one irate man not so nicely asked her to move, she snapped back causing his PETA activist wife to tear into her about the mistreatment of her horse. I feel like I can’t accurately describe how hilarious this was to those of us inebriatedly waiting for a safe ride home but the best part was after she FINALLY moved so the van could enter and load us in, we had to flip around in the parking lot to exit and by the time we reached the street again, she had pulled her carriage forward to block the exit. There was a collective “you’ve got to be f#cking kidding me!” shout from almost everyone on board.
— We spent most of our time in the crowds far stage right near the backstage entrance. After Flogging Molly performed, one of their super cute guitarist (from Boulder no less) came out with a four pack of Guinness and hung out in the crowd with us for a bit which got this fan girl’s heart beating fast.
— One thing new to me in the crowd at Beale St.- people who lay a blanket down in the middle of a crowd of thousands, literally believing that their space should not be trespassed or trampled on. One group actually put four blankets together, covering almost twelve square feet in the crowd like their ticket was somehow different from mine because of their “VIP” blanket, even going so far as to yell at people for stepping on it. This is not a Jazz in the Park picnic people!
Not that Denver is perfect, but I seriously love my town even more so when I leave it. I love that none of our restaurants or bars are smoking facilities. I love that the majority of tattoos I see at home are great ones and not sad roses or transformer logos. I’d borrow a few things to bring back from Memphis like the sausage&cheese plate appetizers, the close proximity of a Goodwill store to nearly all the restaurants we tried, rum punch drinks with dry ice bubbling like a witch’s cauldron, the strange eggroll experiments from the Gouda Boys food stand and the sense of I’ve-still-got-it ness I felt from the twenty something boy/man hitting on me at the P & H lounge pool table even after he told me he was a “chef” at Red Lobster. I also love the anonymity I feel in any strange town that grants me the courage at the mike stand in a seedy karaoke bar to belt out Journey and somewhat butcher Black Crowes ( but come on! Hard to Handle IS hard to handle after so many rum punches ) Side note: the extremely enthusiastic plaid-shorted Carlton-esque boy dancing by the stage was a definite bonus.
I’m writing this aboard my flight home which was delayed over five hours. They let us board only after the maintenance crew spent at least ninety minutes on the plane, after rumors at the increasingly irate gate of a possible test flight watching our original departure time change from 7:15 to 10:54 finally to somewhere before one in the morning. Our perky flight attendant even thanked us for our patience quipping “sometimes planes need work too”. Seriously, should we have even boarded this plane!? Clearly, I’m exhausted and want only to land safely and kiss my children after five days of playing hooky but I can say this trip was astounding, funny, awesome! (and I’m too tired to think of a better word really )
Like I said, I’ve been to a LOT of festivals. My swollen feet say I should retire the wristbands. My bleeding eyes say if I never see another dipshit in a flowered headband or ridiculously unflattering cut-off shorts trailing threads like tampon strings, it will be too soon. My anger management coach advised me to avoid any show where some stupid girlfriend will try to spend the whole concert on her poor beau’s shoulders like this is not rude to the thousand people standing with two feet on the ground behind her view-blocking high-waisted short wearing fat ass! But I LOVE seeing bands play live. I couldn’t even pick a favorite this weekend but I’ll always remember Paramore closing their set by pulling one young girl out of the crowd to come onstage and sing a verse with Hayley Williams, belt it out like a rock star in front of thousands of people, some of them her peers who skipped their prom to come to this show. I’ve always dreamed of being a singer, having the crowd sing my lyrics back to me as I rule the stage at Red Rocks where I once walked to receive my high school diploma twenty plus years ago. I loved watching this young girl having the best night ever with Paramore singing-
“Just watch my wildest dreams come true,
Not one of them involving
You…”
Deliriously signing off as I patiently await the Riotfest lineup and pray for a safe landing in my Mile High city. Dreaming of Milwaukee’s quarter machine foot massagers and my comfy travel pillow conveniently unpacked in my laundry room.
