Elvis Week opens, a mile of new mural gets dedicated, and the stadium finally lets you in: the weekend guide

Hey Memphis 👋 It's Thursday. Mostly sunny and 95, down to about 76 overnight. Five things tonight, then a weekend that opens Elvis Week, dedicates a mile of new mural, and finally lets you inside the rebuilt stadium for free. And if you're loose at 11 this morning, Elmwood's free tram tour is the one we've been flagging all week.

🌙 Tonight

Deep Purple and Kansas — Radians Amphitheater, 750 Cherry Rd., gates 5:30, show 7:30, lawn seats about $87 with fees when we checked. We've been counting this one down all week and it's finally here. You can bring your own drinks and your own chairs, parking and the shuttle are free, and it happens rain or shine. Heads up that the Garden itself closes at 3 to turn into a concert venue. Details

Zumba at Raleigh Library — 3452 Austin Peay Hwy., 6:30–7:30 PM, free. An hour of Zumba in a branch meeting room with the air conditioning going, which in August is most of the pitch. Registration closes at 6:30 tonight, so don't think about it too long. Details

Cooper-Young Night Out — Cooper-Young Historic District, 5–8 PM, free to wander. It's first-Thursday night: sidewalk sales, open houses, live music around the businesses, and food and drink deals up and down Cooper and Young. Details

Slowdown Cinema Club: The Warriors — MoSH Giant Screen Theater, 3050 Central Ave., doors 5:30, pre-show 6:30, film 7:10, $18.75. The 1979 cult chase movie, blown up to giant-screen size. Details

Thirsty Thursdays Adult Skate — Skate Odyssey, 4560 Goodman Rd., Horn Lake, 9 PM–midnight, $10, 21 and up. A DJ, a rink and twenty minutes down I-55. Nobody else's events list goes to DeSoto County for a roller rink, which is exactly why we did. Details

☀️ Your Weekend in Memphis

Friday

Happy Friday at The Grove — GPAC, 1801 Exeter Rd., Germantown, 5–8 PM, free, no tickets. Trombonist Victor Sawyer sits in on Josh Threlkeld's standing jam this week, with a full bar on the plaza and Smoke & Toast and Mempops parked outside. The one caveat we'll keep making until the season ends: this series does get called for weather. Details

Memphis Magic Night — Bar DKDC, 964 Cooper St., 7:30–9 PM, about $25. Close-up magic from Joe M. Turner with Colton Ales, in a Cooper-Young bar that keeps no calendar of its own. The only reason anybody knows this is happening is that the magician said so himself. Details

Sunny Side New Orleans Jazz Band — The Green Room at Crosstown, 1350 Concourse Ave., doors 7, show 7:30, $22 in advance and $27 at the door. Armstrong and Ellington, in the room built for exactly that. Details

100 Year Eclectic Collector's Sale — Hein Park, 10 AM–4 PM, free to browse. One house, a hundred years of one family: 1907 Memphis society-club papers in the same rooms as a serious Star Wars collection and a wall of Fiesta china. It runs Saturday too, and Sunday 11–4. The seller doesn't release the address until 9 this morning, so the listing is your map. Details

Saturday

Memphis Black Family Reunion — Martin Luther King Jr. Riverside Park, W. Mallory Ave., 11 AM–8 PM, free. Memphis Artists for Change takes the park for two full days: a Give Memphis Her Flowers showcase for local artists, live performances, a market, picnic areas and kids' games, and a People's Assembly for the harder conversations. Free and open to everybody, and it runs the same hours Sunday. This is the one we'd build the weekend around. Details

Memphis Football Fan Fest — Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, gates 3 PM, free. The first time the public gets inside the rebuilt stadium. Watch a real practice from the home sideline, then a 35-minute autograph session down on the field. Parking's free too, and the first 1,500 through the gate get a shirsey. Enter at Gate F — the rest of the building is still under construction. Details

Free Family Day at Stax — 926 E. McLemore Ave., 1–4 PM, free. Three hours of free admission to the museum, plus the Soulsville Charter School band and cheer team, metalworking crafts run with the Metal Museum, and school supplies to take home. Details

Chelsea Wall Community Celebration — 71 Chelsea Ave., 11 AM–noon, free. UrbanArt dedicates a mile-long, double-sided mural along the Chelsea floodwall, with the nine artists who painted it there alongside the neighborhood kids who helped. One hour, and then it's just permanently there. Details

Summer Splash on the Greensward — Overton Park, 2080 Poplar Ave., 10 AM–2 PM, free. The Conservancy drags inflatable waterslides onto the Greensward twice a summer, and this is the August one. Nothing to register for and nothing to pay. Details

Whitehaven Library's Back to School Extravaganza — 4120 Mill Branch Rd., 11 AM–1 PM, free. Sixth year running on the branch's own front lawn: backpacks and supplies, music, games and food while they last. Details

Lion's Gate Portal Metaphysical Market — Hi Tone, 282 N. Cleveland St., noon–6 PM, free. A rock club turns itself into a crystal-and-tarot market for one afternoon, timed to the 8/8 alignment. Both rooms, all ages upstairs, and there are cupcakes. Details

Memphis Chicken & Beer Festival — Tiger Lane, 6–10 PM, about $31 to $95, 21 and up. Eighth year of fried chicken and a souvenir tasting glass out on Tiger Lane, with live music and a cut going to Merge Memphis. Details

Sunday

The Black Family Reunion runs a second day — same park, same 11 to 8, still free. If Saturday gets away from you, Sunday is the whole thing again.

Redbirds vs. Nashville, homestand finale — AutoZone Park, gates noon, first pitch 1:05. Day baseball to close out six against Nashville: Wyly Bigger on the soundstage beforehand, a free inflatables zone, and every kid gets to run the bases after the last out. Details

Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest, semifinal round — Graceland Soundstage, 7 PM, $70.75 to $107.50. Elvis Week opened Saturday and runs through the 16th, and the tribute bracket is the part locals actually enjoy. This is the round that cuts the field before Tuesday's final. Sunday also carries an 11 AM gospel show and a 2 PM '68 Comeback set. Details

Jason D Williams — Hernando's Hide-A-Way, 3210 Old Hernando Rd., doors 4:30, show 5:30, $25–$30. Pumping-piano rock in the room Jerry Lee Lewis actually played, on the opening weekend of Elvis Week. Early enough to be home before dark. Details

Want the whole verified list, updated daily? It lives at heymemphis.co/events.

📰 The Rundown

Loves Dessert Bar is crossing the state line. The Cordova bakery people know for its mini cheesecakes is taking the old Brown Baguette space at 174 Stateline Rd. W. in Southaven, somewhere between the middle of this month and early September. Owner Shonsanta Love says it opens as grab-and-go, with seating the goal later. (via WhatNow Memphis)

FedEx is putting more money into the hub that made Memphis Memphis. The company has filed permits to break ground on the first phase of the Hercules Project, a roughly $400 million sorting expansion at the Memphis World Hub. (via Action News 5)

A record 291 University of Memphis athletes made the American Conference All-Academic Team this year, the most the school has ever placed. It's the kind of number that never makes a highlight reel. (via Memphis Athletics)

🍽️ Food & Drink

Panuzzo King — there's a second kitchen tucked inside Wiseacre's Broad Avenue taproom, and it only exists Thursday through Sunday. A panuzzo is pizza dough folded into a thin golden loaf and packed out with meats, cheese and toppings; their own description is that one is about a medium pizza folded in half, and two people can split it. The board runs to roasted pork with mustard greens and provolone, ricotta with mortadella and pistachio pesto, prosciutto and calabrese, and a vegan tofu one. Thursday 5–9, Friday 4–9, Saturday noon–9, Sunday noon–6, at 2783 Broad Ave. Details

🎟️ Looking Ahead

The FedEx St. Jude Championship — August 12 through 16 at TPC Southwind. The PGA Tour playoffs come back to Memphis next week, and active military can claim complimentary grounds tickets through the tournament's Big River Steel partnership. Details

Train Heritage Day — Saturday, August 15, 10 AM to 3 PM, free, at the Morton Museum and the Depot Visitors Center on the Collierville square. Details

Wiseacre turns 13 — Saturday, August 29, 1 PM to midnight on Broad Avenue, free all day, with a new beer and local music. Put it in the calendar now and thank yourself later. Details

🏡 Community Corner

There's about to be a mile more mural in this city. Saturday's Chelsea Wall dedication got us arguing about which one is actually the best — the Broad Avenue stretch, the ones tucked around Cooper-Young, something on a wall in your own neighborhood that nobody outside of it has ever noticed. So: what's the best mural in Memphis, and where is it? Hit reply with the corner, and send a photo if you've got one. We'll run our favorites next week.

And the tip line never closes — a pop-up, a band, a Thursday night we missed — no gatekeeping — send it to hey@heymemphis.co.

That's it for today — see you tomorrow at 6.

— Josh