We Saw This: Nude Beach and Roky Erickson

So this past weekend I went to Memphis, Tennessee, to help my GIRLFRIEND celebrate her 30th birthday. While we were there, we went to a lively little live music establishment called Hi-Tone to see Nude Beach open for Roky Erickson. We ended up getting to the venue a million hours before any bands started, because Memphis is weird and no one walks anywhere, and there are no trains, and fuck a bus, so we had to take cabs everywhere, which usually resulted in excessive earliness. While loitering around, we ate pizza and drank a million beers. At one point my gf got up to go to the bathroom, and while she was in there the door guy came up to me and was like "$20 cover," and I was like "I'm on the list," and he was like "$20 cover," and I said "I work for VICE, I'm not paying you money," and he was like "OK."

Around the time that our pizza was happening, a band started playing, or at least that's what we thought was happening, and they kept singing about the night, and how it belongs to vampires. The guy singing this song was wearing a silly hat, and was making extremely serious singing faces. He looked like this:

The fact that the band got really into this vampire song, but then left the stage abruptly in what we could only assume was a fit of diva moments, made us launch into a comedic monologue about them that lasted up until we found out that they were not a sucky band that sang about vampires and shat the bed at their own show, but were actually Roky Erickson's backing band, and the guy in the hat was his son. This learned truth made everything only a small bit less funny.

After the night of the vampire went away, we moved to the back of the venue where I proceded to fall asleep on a bench for about ten minutes. I woke up just in time to see Nude Beach take the stage, and they were very nice. Nude Beach is a band from New York, and everyone in the band is very cute and very young seeming. The drummer from Nude Beach came up to me earlier in the night while we were still sitting at the bar and shook my hand to say hello. I always like when things like that happen. It was funny to be from New York currently, and meet a band from New York, while in Memphis. Isn't that funny? Here's what Nude Beach looks like:

I interviewed my sex partner slash vagina girlfriend about the concert experience that we shared, and this is what she had to say:

VICE: What would you say was our primary reason for going to this show?

Lindsey the Girlfriend: Google searching that town's bullshit was tough. I googled "shows in Memphis" and that website Jambase (funny) had it listed and I was like oh word, that dude (Roky) is cool and weird and old. I was excited to take a pic with Elvis and I wanted to scope the town and their weirdos. Last night I looked up Jegar on Facebook. He has a normal profile with friends, not likes. I considered friending him. I haven't decided what to do yet.

What was the dominant smell at the Hi-Tone?

The place smelled fried with a hint of oregano from their weird pizza situation. I think it's weird because it had vegetables on it, it was pizza, and we were in the South.

Would you say that the majority of the audience was overweight, or no? And if no, what did they look like?

Yes, almost every female was fat as fuck, obese in fact. The men were less fat, but that happens, there will be like the weird skinny metabolism guy anywhere. Dudes get fat less. Yeah the dudes were fatter than what we are used to, but many of them had that lucky metabolism thing (cause you fucking know what they're eating).

Can you describe what went down with that one drunk weird girl who put her arm around her friend and got yelled at for it?

Drunk girl was clumsy and touched or bumped fat girl. Drunk girl felt self conscious and over apologized. Fat girl was just like leave me the fuck alone, I'm trying to take 50,000 pictures of a band from the same angle. Then drunk girl bumped us and then said some shit.

Does the night really belong to vampires?

I don't think the night belonged to vampires, I think the audience wished it so, but the soundcheck and awkward human interactions basically made that impossible. What I mean is that these people could never be vampires cause they've got no class or sense of self awareness. Am I an asshole? If we were vampires, it would have been our night. Just ours. But that's romance, not gore.

What's your favorite memory from the show?

My fav memory is the second time the vampire song happened, when I realized it was a Roky song. Also I loved the existence of his son.

My favorite part of the show was the emotional biker dude who felt so many things and poured beer on his head during Roky's set, and then sat on the stage after the show for like 20 minutes, just staring at everyone.

@WolfieVibes