Unlike the defiant, improbable sunshine that slanted down across the Beale Street Music Festival late Friday afternoon, the smile beaming from James Chandler’s face seemed somehow unreal.

Photo by Mark Weber

Headliner Katy Perry and one of her sidemen perform on the Cellular South Stage on Friday night.

Photo by Nikki Boertman

Tony Sargent of Streator, Ill., rocks out to The Cult on Friday night.

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“Y’all need ponchos — be prepared!” Chandler shouted from his curbside perch on Beale near the entrance to Tom Lee Park, as festivalgoers by the hundreds looked up at the promising sky and passed on the chance to purchase Chandler’s $3 packages of shrinkwrapped raingear.

“I know it’s gonna rain, it always rains on Friday on Memphis in May,” said the hopeful Chandler, 49, a laid-off construction worker from Orange Mound who said he made about $400 last year selling ponchos on the opening day of the Memphis in May International Festival’s signature entertainment event, which continues today and Sunday with performances by such acts as Al Green, Elvis Costello and Fall Out Boy. “But the sun’s shining, and I’m out here selling. I must be crazy.”

As it happened, the rain held off until late Friday night and continued through this morning.

Maybe the predicted thunderstorms held off for the first part of the evening because the festival had purchased impressive new logo-embossed raincoats for Memphis in May staff members. Or maybe the rain delay was due to the preparedness of 63-year-old festival volunteer John Joplin, who said: “I brought enough raingear for a hurricane.”

Rain sprinkles did splash the fest, but the weather offered no real reason to pass on an opening night lineup that included Bonnie Bramlett and The Cult. Neither, apparently, did the dark clouds of the sickly national economy.

“We entered the fall with some trepidation, but we have been surprisingly unscathed,” said Memphis in May executive vice president Diane Hampton. “People need a reason to celebrate, and the festival is a good value. With 60 bands, it’s about a buck a band.”

Based on advance ticket sales, Hampton said, attendance should be down only about 5 percent from last year’s weekend crowd of about 125,000. She said 80 percent of advance ticket-buyers bought three-day passes, and tickest have been sold to music fans in all 50 states and 10 foreign countries.

Among those who came here from out of state were Jackie and Michael Baudré of Huntsville, Ala., who said they decided to give up their traditional biker festival — “We like Harleys,” Michael said — in Panama City this year to attend Memphis in May, to see such favorites as Steve Miller, Jerry Lee Lewis and Bonnie Raitt.

“She’s an old hippie blues fan,” explained Michael, 55, talking about his 46-year-old wife, who wore large peace sign earrings and a peace sign necklace.

Lauren Siebert, 19, said she and her friend Jacob Turner, 15, were able to afford Memphis in May tickets, hotel rooms in Wynne, Ark., (the closest they could find) and the five-hour drive from their hometown of Violet Hill in Izard County, Ark., thanks to “odd jobs, and saving up forever.”

The young music fans were among the first in line today outside Tom Lee Park: By the time the gates opened at 5 p.m., they had been standing at the front of the entrance for almost four hours.

“We got here early and bought two waters apiece, and stayed,” Siebert said. “We didn’t want to be late. We wanted to be up front for Katy Perry and the All American Rejects.”

Others were at the festival not despite the economy but because of the economy.

“This is easy work and easy money,” said Joe Lang, 28, slicing lemons at one of eight Nanny’s Old Fashion (sic) Lemonade stands located throughout the park.

Lang, who also worked the past two festivals, says he has to be a bit of a pitchman to compete with the coporate alcohol vendors. He uses different approaches for different customers. “If it’s a she, I flirt — make or model, it don’t matter. But with a guy, it’s kind of hard to get ‘em away from the beer stands.”