By Mark Jordan
Special to The Commercial Appeal
MEMPHIS — Memphis heavy rockers Egypt Central probably faced the greatest obstacles of any band performing at this year’s Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival.
Playing Sunday afternoon in the second slot on the trouble-plagued AutoZone Stage at the north end of Tom Lee Park — a venue that suffered a power outage on Friday and technical delays Saturday — the band had to perform during the weekend’s first notable rainfall, a light shower, more petulant than drenching, that pelted festival-goers off and on throughout the 65-minute set.
To make matters worse, the group’s lead singer was immobile. John T. Falls broke his ankle last month, an injury that has cost the band a string of shows. But as Falls told the several thousand people who came to see Egypt Central Sunday, canceling their hometown appearance at the BSMF was never an option.
“There was no way, even if I broke both my legs, my neck and my back, I was going to miss Memphis in May,” Falls told his appreciative crowd.
Egypt Central proceeded to play an energetic set that ranked with the shows of Social Distortion and Iggy & the Stooges as among the weekend’s best, and set the bar high for the stage’s remaining acts, including Daughtry, fronted by “American Idol” finalist Chris Daughtry, and heavy-metal heroes Hinder. Confined to a wheelchair, Falls spurred fans on with his arms and powerful voice. The audience responded enthusiastically, crowd-surfing to the anti-conformity tale “Different” and, when the rain picked up during a performance of “Over and Under” from the soundtrack to the new film “The Condemned,” cheering and dancing even more energetically.
To the south in the TN Lottery Blues Tent, the problem was less the rain than fire. Florida sacred steel band The Lee Boys, made up of three brothers and their two nephews, already had the audience jumping with their rocking brand of gospel soul blues when their performance literally caught fire.
One of the monitors at the front of the stage started to smoke as lead singer Keith Lee (no relation to the Memphis State Tiger basketball legend) tried to fan the flame out with his towel. Stage technicians quickly pulled the faulty speaker, but the fire had already spread to the audience, a packed crowd seeking refuge from another brief storm. They cheered the Florida band onto an encore, a rare thing on a tightly controlled festival schedule where such honors are usually reserved for headliners.
The Lee Boys were just one of the highlights at the Blues Tent early Sunday. The first act of the day, Clarksdale blues artist James “Supa Chikan” Johnson, proved one of the most engaging performers of the event with his set of down-home R&B, including his own distinct version of the soul standard “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love.” For his last song, Johnson brought up Memphis guitar phenom Eric Gales.
“There’s fixin’ to be some rooster funk up in here,” Johnson told the crowd before he and his guest launched into a souped-up version of “Boom, Boom, Boom” that had the two talented guitarists trading solos.
The AutoZone Stage started the day with a set from local blues-rock singer Alison Heafner, a sort of blond Alannah Myles, whose boozy bar set had a strong regional touch with lyrics like “Remember when Elvis died/And Van Zant went down/Everybody said rock and roll was dead/But it was only heaven bound.”
Following Egypt Central, multi-platinum hard rockers Papa Roach played, peppering their solid performance with new songs like the tuneful “Time Is Running Out” alongside hits such as “Scars.”
Expertly executed set by Steely Dan
Late Saturday’s schedule featured Steely Dan, with an expertly executed set of some of their classic songs as well as newer, Grammy-winning material.
The group, which has always shown a deep love for jazz in their musicianship and in the complexity of their otherwise pop compositions, started their set with a big-band arrangement before segueing into the recent Two Against Nature and “Bad Sneakers” from Katy Lied.
Lead vocalist Donald Fagen fronted a 12-piece band that included himself on keyboards and his longtime partner Walter Becker on guitar. With sunglasses and a strained physical swaying, Fagen looked more and more like Ray Charles as he belted out hits including “Peg” and “Babylon Sisters.”
Usually in the background, Becker stepped up to sing the lead on the obscure Pretzel Logic song “Monkey In Your Soul.” And on “Dirty Work,” one of the few songs in the Steely Dan oeuvre on which neither Steely Dan partner sang lead, the pair handed the spotlight to their two female backup singers. The group closed out the set with “Kid Charlemagne” before coming out for an encore of “Bodhisattva.”
Wolfmother and Godsmack closed out the Budweiser Stage Saturday with particularly rocking sets, while just a few hundred feet away on a median in the middle of the closed-off Riverside Drive, local blues guitarist Richard Johnston held his own with an unannounced and unsanctioned solo performance that drew hundreds of people and eventually earned the grudging permission of MIM officials.
No comments yet.