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October 06, 2004

Vote for Change Concert, Part 2

The post where Lisa FINALLY talks about some music.

As I mentioned before, we were on time, and had our asses parked in our seats promptly at 6:55pm. A little after 7:00 Bruce and Michael Stipe came out and welcomed the crowd, as well as introduced the opening act. It was truly, honestly, completely weird to see those two together on the same stage. It's not as if they really travel in the same social circles.

The first act was a singer/ songwriter group called Bright Eyes. They really weren't my cup o' tea. There were some sentiments expressed in their songs that were beautiful, but there was a lot of crappy stuff too. But heck, they were a buncha pale early 20's guys...what do ya expect? They were fairly dark and angry. They did temper those qualities with a fair bit of earnestness, and they could play their instruments very well. I've provided a link to their homepage just in case anyone is interested in taking a listen.

More people filtered in during the Bright Eyes set. It was obvious that there were a lot of "Bruce-heads" there. The arena was filling up with men! Now, the concerts I generally go to (Sarah McLachlan, Norah Jones, Ani DiFranco et al) are usually a little lean on the males, except for those dragged along by their girl- or boy- friends. It was plain ol' odd to see all these multi-generational males around me.

REM came onstage about 20 minutes after Bright Eyes finished up. And they rocked. Mightily. Shame on me, I had forgotten what a great band REM is. THey did a nice mix of older stuff ("Exhuming McCarthy") and newer stuff ("Leaving New York"). The crowd was patient and polite while Stipe had his say about the state of our government, economy and foreign policy. He even talked a fair bit about the city of Detroit, particularly how much of a decline he has seen over the 20 plus years that he has been playing here. At the end of the set, the Boss came out and performed "Man on the Moon" with REM. Yes, I know it sounds rather...well, wrong. But it was awesome. I don't know how they managed to pull it off musically, but they did. The best part was when Bruce wrapped twiggy little Michael Stipe up in a big ol' manly papabear hug. It was male bonding in its finest hour.

Bruce came onto the stage, alone, at about 9:45. He played a solemn, reverent version of "The Star Spangled Banner." It wasn't nearly as frenetic as Jimi Hendrix's famous version. It was quite moving. When he finished, the lights came up to reveal the E Street Band all in their respective places. They rocked into "Born in the USA," and I was hooked.

Something that I very quickly noticed was that men were dancing. Straight white men were rockin' out hard. They were swaying and fist pumping and singing their hearts out. It was quite amazing.

Bruce and the Band did a few other songs before he introduced John Fogerty, Now, I am not a big CCR fan by any stretch of the imagination. But no one sucks when their backup band is Bruce and E Street. He played "Centerfield," "Fortunate Son," and a new song, "Deja Vu." "Fortunate Son" pretty much lit the place on fire. The interplay between Bruce and John Fogerty was fun to watch. They were totally on the same page, both musically and philosophically.

After John Fogerty left the stage, Bruce played a few more songs ("Darkness on the Edge of Town," "Johnny 99"), thereby whipping the crowd into a Bruce-worshipping frenzy. I have never seen anything like it! Michael Stipe came out to help perform "Because the Night," and again I was floored.

It was just all so good.

Then there was more Brucing to be had: amongst others, "The Rising," "Mary's Place," and "Born to Run." Oh, and I most certainly grabbed my husband's ass when Bruce got to the "strap my hands 'cross your engines" part. It just had to be done. Heh heh heh.

The evening closed with a surprise visit from the lovely Dixie Chicks. The whole crew of musicians fom the evening jammed out to Patti Smith's "People Have the Power." There was much fist pumping and dancing and singing along. The energy in Cobo was crackling. Bruce took one last opportunity to stump for Senators Kerry and Edwards. Then, there was the obligatory "Thank you, and good night, Detroit!!" I was so sad to see the concert end. I could have rocked out for a few more hours. I didn't even have an ass cramp from dancing yet!

The concert ended at 11:30 pm. We arrived back at la casa at 12:30 am. My ears were buzzing till 1:30, when I finally fell asleep. Gus woke me up with whining (gotta pee! gotta pee!) at 5:30 am. I was sooooo tired on Monday.

Posted by Lisa at October 6, 2004 04:58 PM

Comments

Posted by: Faith at October 7, 2004 08:58 AM

Posted by: deb at October 9, 2004 02:58 PM