Day 1:
Well the weekend started in a pool of water. Little Rock got hit pretty hard with some storms earlier that day and I thought they would be out of Memphis by the time I got there. The first couple acts I saw (Amy Lavere and Joan Jett) stayed relatively dry. There were a few minor showers, but nothing to stop the show. Later in the day I couldn't have made a better decision that to see Charlie Musselwhite in the Tennessee Lottery Blues Tent. About 10 minutes before the show the entire festival took a beating. I looked outside the tent and the edges of it created an enormous waterfall. Obviously CM wasn't upset about it, he had the tent completely packed with people trying to escape the rain. After he rocked it on stage for over an hour things began to calm down outside. I had planned to go see The Roots on the Budweiser Stage but didn't get more than 200 yards before the rain started up again. This time there was nowhere to hide and our group slowly made it back to the car parked about a mile away.
Day 2:
Well if day 1 started in a pool of water, day 2 started in a pit of mud. And I don't mean like a few spots of mud here and there, I mean like huge foot deep, get your shoe stuck kind of mud. Not to mention I was wearing shorts (it was supposed to be sunny) and my soaking wet shoes from the night before. Tegan and Sara totally rocked the main stage. I hadn't heard much of anything by them but they were impressive. They seemed real at ease on stage and completely threw the crowd for a loop when they proclaimed that one of them was 20, the other 40 and Sara was married to their longtime guitar tech. I was told later that this was all completely made up. If anything could have been more disappointing than the rain, it would have been Cat Power's performance Saturday afternoon. Its hard to explain but the backup band played like they were told about the show about 10 minutes before getting on stage. No one was prepared, the sound was extrememly convoluted and Cat Power spent 75% of the time on stage complaining to the stage hands and hovering over the monitors. It also looked like she wasn't "all there". Her actions all around the stage were all pretty skittish and she made a few completely bizarre comments. John Butler Trio turned out to be the biggest surprise of the weekend. I had originally planned on seeing Lou Reed but made it back from dinner a little too late to make it to his stage. I settled on JBT when I heard their sound way off in the distance as I was heading back into the festival. They had a huge following and a lot of energy in the crowd. And needless to say Matisyahu was worth the trip out to Memphis alone. I had the chance to see him out in San Diego but moved about 1 week before the show.
Day 3:
I had several hours to kill and went out to a AAA Memphis Redbirds game. The game turned out to be a double-header because of all the rain on Friday night. I stayed for the first game and half of the second before heading back to see Michael Franti and Spearhead. About halfway through the MF set I went back to the Sam's Town stage just in time to hear Jerry Lee Lewis. Jerry Lee played pretty well for an old man but would not shut up about how lame is backup band was. I thought they sounded great and that it was Jerry Lee that brought the whole experience down. At first I thought he was joking around with them but later realized he wasn't kidding when he left the stage with one or two songs to go. The announcer tried as hard as he could to get him to come back but he just walked right off the stage. Finally Aretha Franklin came on and was a perfect bookend to the whole weekend. She was much better than I thought and even flew out one of the original Temptations to do "My Girl" It was cool to see so many different types of people stopping to listen. She had by far the biggest band on stage and audience.
Well that's it, I definitely got my $63 worth and can't wait for next year. Feel free to add comments, did I miss anyone I should have seen?
-T
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