Playing Memphis

As they say, third time is the charm. Well this was my third time in Memphis, and I finally got to stay a week and play a show. The other two times I visited Memphis were on last year's leg of Wizard when we spend the night en route to Fayetteville, and the other time was a lunch stop en route from Fayetteville to Nashville. From those two visits, I had been much looking forward to our week in Memphis on Wizard of Oz Year 2!

After such a long stretch of split weeks and one nights, it was great to finally have a week long engagement again. I took advantage of the week and did a bunch of fun things. I also got to explore Downtown Memphis more. The skyline is really not so impressive, but I thought I would take a picture anyway.


I am not sure what happens in the pyramid building. From the looks of it, not much.

Obviously one of most famous reasons to visit Memphis is to sample the food especially the ribs. Sadly I cannot eat ribs. I don't generally like smokey barbeque, and I am sickened by bones so no ribs for me. I did make due though and went to places like the Flying Fish. Mmm chicken po boy and hush puppies!!

On a couple of different occasions, Chris has talked about doing one of these extreme food challenges. The problem is that generally we have a show at night, and one cannot play when one's stomach has been stretched to the exploding point!

Apparently Rendezvous is the place for ribs. For once I had a bit of a brainstorm, and sent Glenn a Rendezvous Ribs and Pulled Pork Sampler for Christmas. I figured since I cannot enjoy the food someone should.

The other big attraction in Downtown Memphis is Beale Street and all of the music clubs. I did not make much of an effort to go hear live music sadly, but I must say that one night we happened on a great band. A group of us had decided to visit The Flying Saucer in Memphis, and there was a stage set up. Now my initial reaction to this is always, "Oh no." Well after this band started to play, my reaction changed to, "Hell yes." It is not often that I find myself really enjoying music that is not of the theatre or classical worlds, but I had a great time that night. Plus is turns out that one of the saxophone players was a semi famous jazz musician (one that a person can look up on the internet and actually verify!).

I covered Beale Street in a previous post. It really is not much different. The restaurants and clubs are the same. The panhandlers still follow you up and down the street trying to guilt you into giving money. I guess that is part of the experience though.