Updates and Downbeats

 Since our last entry, we've seen several shows, and have already bought tickets to several more. 

Adam Ant, The English Beat

This past weekend at the Masonic Cathedral Theater, we went to see The English Beat, who was opening for Adam Ant. They aren't the tightest band, but the English Beat put together a fun show with traditional stage lighting and the no-frills, straightforward singing and skanking that feels appropriate for classic punk and ska acts of their time. They sing well. They sound good. Their transition into Mirror in the Bathroom was seamless and unexpected, coming off the tail end of Ranking Full Stop. Smoothly going from a major to a minor takes effort, but you'd never know that given how swiftly they shifted. 

Adam Ant has an amazing amount of energy, and not just for his age. He's as fast and fluid as musicians in their 20s today, and that's just plain cool. His band plays like a windup carousel- all the parts move like they're connected, because they are. He sang like his monitor was failing, but his playing and overall entertainment value was worth seeing.

The crowd was RUDE. Good grief! We ended up leaving in the middle of Adam Ant's set just to get away from the weed, the incessant, loud talking, and the MANY people scrolling social media all around us. It's an unfortunate reality that people do some amount of phone staring at all shows, but 1 in every 3 or 4 people for extended periods of the show? That's getting out of hand. 

Ministry with Gary Numan

Ministry with Gary Numan in Royal Oak last month was the best Ministry performance we've seen yet. Buck Satan must have been in a good mood, and the crowd somehow forgot it was a Wednesday night. Their current light show has intensified to the point of being almost disorienting, which works very well for breaking one out of the weekday blur. It seems someone in the band has seen Heilung recently. Gary Numan put on a good show, but of that portion of the show we saw very little, what with a group of giants appearing to block our view. Such is life. We were disappointed that he did not play Down in the Park or Are Friends Electric?, and were also surprised to hear that his newer material sounds a lot like 90s era NIN. It's almost like Trent Reznor gave him permission to take ownership of unreleased b-sides.

It was a sold out show, and felt like it, too. Crowd participation was high, and the feedback loop between Ministry and the audience was an upward spiral that somehow gave everyone more energy than what we came in carrying. 

Blue Öyster Cult

This was our first time seeing them live, and we're grateful that they're still able to play their instruments. They played the Royal Oak Music Theatre in February 2024, a much better venue (in our opnion) than the other Michigan shows they'd been playing the last few years. They seemed to be sticking to their safe radio hits, but given their ages- Eric Bloom is 79 and Buck Dharma is 76- we can't fault them for playing the material they know best. Absent from the setlist were most of our favorites, like Take Me Away, Vengeance (The Pact), Nosferatu, Veteran of the Psychic Wars, Sole Survivor, and Flaming Telepaths, among others. We hope they'll continue to perform, because we'd really like to see these songs done live by their authors, and NOT by hologram.

We would also like to share our appreciation for Richie Castellano, who has been playing with them since 2004. That guy is a powerhouse musician. He played keyboard, bass, and guitar, each with equal skill. He's also a talented singer with a great voice, and he really puts his all into the performance. He looks comfortable on stage, and genuinely loves what he's playing. They struck gold finding him.

They dressed the part and their voices still sound good. It was a solid rock show. We will be back.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra

In February 2024, we attended the DSO's performance of Elgar and Scheherazade in Orchestra Hall, led by Jader Bignamini,. They played Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 21 by Felix Mendelssohn, followed by Sir Edward Elgar's Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in E minor, Op. 85, I. Adagio, II. Lento, III. Adagio, and IV. Allegro, with Alisa Weilerstein on cello. 

After the intermission, they played the focal piece by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade, Op. 35, I. Largo e maestodo - Allegro non troppo (The sea and Sinbad's ship), II. Lento - Allegro molto (The tale of Prince Kalendar), III. Andantino quasi allegretto (The young prince and the princess), and IV. Allegro molto (The festival at Bagdad, The sea, The ship goes to pieces on a rock).

Bignamini joined the DSO during the pandemic, and they sound like they have bonded well since his arrival. Bignamini possesses a youthful sense of humor and added a dash of mischief, with the DSO in peak form. The audience was respectful, quiet, and everyone was in good spirits. Watching Weilerstein, she moves as if she's dancing, and her dramatic flourish matches her confident and furious style. 

First violinist and Concertmaster Robyn Bollinger gave an incredible solo delivery in Scheherazade, teasing and weaving and telling a story, building to touch and extend a single high note with silken clarity, like singing crystal, lifting the piece and the mood to an impossible emotional crest. She leaves no room to question her role as Concertmaster.

The DSO never disappoints.

Loreena McKennitt

It's been decades since she's visited the region, so we were lucky to see her at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. Her voice has changed, but it retains its flavor and clarity. The hushed, simple elegance of her stage show is the very complement to her music that one hopes to find. Her manner is casual and classy. She told us a very good story of a curio she bought from a street vendor on a visit to Ireland, and shared her thoughts on how quickly the world is changing. It felt good to be taken out of our own time for just a little while. Her storytelling skills are just as entertaining as her music, and we left having had some good laughs. She's welcome to return, and hopefully she will.

We should add that her backing band is a treasure in their own right, and we are happy to have purchased a copy of one of their albums from the merch table.

Claudio Simonetti's Goblin

October of 2023 brought a lot of horror themed events, and we caught this one at the Redford Theatre. It was a treat getting to watch the composer and his band perform the score live with the movie playing behind them.

Peter Gabriel

This was our first time seeing him in concert, and it was a spellbinding experience, and for us, perfectly timed. There was a full moon on the night we saw him, which made the lunar imagery on his large, circular LED screen an especially satisfying coincidence. They began by playing in a circle around a mock campfire as the huge moon loomed in the sky above them. The visual presentation is, to date, the most sophisticated, beautiful application of the current technology we have seen at any show. EVER. He is a gracious host, and sprinkled favorites among newer material, and his new songs are themselves rich, honest, and reflective. We'd never heard them before, and they still dazzled us. He took time to recognize all of his supporting staff, even dressing them in orange so that the audience could see all the people whose efforts make his show what it is. He featured art throughout the show, naming the artists whose work he displayed. He credited his team, and no detail was overlooked. It's abundantly apparent that he is meticulous in his planning and execution, and in his efforts to show reverence for his team, other creators, and his audience. Everyone playing gave a world class performance. It's the most conscientious musical experience we have ever witnessed. It's unlikely we'll see anything on this level of careful splendor ever again.

Mr. Bungle

YEARS. YEARS have passed while we begged for Mr. Bungle to resume touring. Just ten days after the horror show at Pine Knob, we filed into the Fillmore Detroit to see them for the first time. His contrarian streak unsoftened by the passage of time, Patton (we presume) chose to play songs almost exclusively from The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny, the relatively obscure, 1986 thrash album. Granted, this tour was timed to coincide with their 2020 rerelease of said thrash album, so we suppose it's to be expected. We're sure fans of that period of their sound were very pleased. We really hope that they revisit the rest of their catalogue, though, and plan another tour around that material. There's simply nothing else like it, and for Christ's sake, we'd like to hear it live before it's too late.

Patton was sick and looked angry. Scott Ian was all smiles, like he's living his best life, and we hope he is. Buzz wasn't there. Next time, maybe? Can we get a whole Bungle and not just this rabid rabbit bunglehole?

Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Ministry

Pine Knob was inundated with zombies this September of 2023, and we had to leave early to avoid being eaten. We swear, it had nothing to do with wimping out over the rain. 

This bill was more than a little counterintuitive. For years, Al Jourgensen had beef with Rob Zombie over Rob's hairstyle and general aesthetic, expressing that he felt that Zombie was trying to brand himself after Jourgensen's image. Knowing this, we raised our eyebrows and marveled at how age and time often bring maturity. We would say we're pleased that they've buried the hatchet, but they might need that thing with all the undead that got past the fence. 

Ministry kept things simple. We've seen Alice a few times in the past, and it's always worth the money and time. While we can't claim to be big fans of Rob Zombie, he's a good frontman, and seems to appease the brain-hungry vermin that follow in his wake. Does that make them the grateful undead?

It was apparently such a popular tour that they're doing it again this year:

Culture Club, Howard Jones, Berlin

We can't say we're huge fans, but there's something about 80s synthpop that is just catchy enough to have become part of the soundtrack to a certain stage of life, so it seemed natural to see the creators while we still can. Boy George has a mastery of the stage that suggests he was born there. Howard Jones was the primary reason we were at the show, and he, too, has kept his edges sharp, cutting a neat set. Unfortunately, we can't remember whether it was Berlin or Howard Jones who had adopted a member of Kajagoogoo, but it was a real delight to hear a live rendition of Too Shy. Berlin was one of those bands whose songs we knew, but whose name we had never noticed, so the whole show had unexpected nuggets of enjoyment for us. It was just the right tone for an early August day in 2023.

Tori Amos

Meadowbrook hosted Ms. Amos in July 2023. The weather was perfect, many people had their seats upgraded, and everyone was polite. She played old favorites without making us wait for the encore, and mixed them in with her newer material smoothly, rewarding fans from every era of her career without preference. It was not apparent that she'd sustained a very recent ankle injury until she stood; her excellence was unblemished.

Santana and Earth, Wind and Fire

In July of 2022 we saw Santana with Earth, Wind, and Fire, a very tasteful pairing. EWF put on a busy show full of flashy costumes and an impressive athleticism among their current members. Even without a crowd, they are their own party, and it looks like fun. They faithfully played what we all wanted to hear, without so much as a hint of distraction. They sound like they just wrote those songs, and they can't wait for us to hear them. Of course, we can't help but recall that Mr. Santana collapsed on stage due to the extreme heat, abruptly ending his set. We are very thankful that he didn't die at this show, as many of us worried while we watched medical personnel gather around him. 

Opeth and Mastodon

Opeth and Mastodon played the Masonic Temple Theater in May of 2022, and we didn't miss it. 

Khemmis was a reasonable choice for opening the show. It should be said, however, that if you're going to play a song with a somewhat lengthy acoustic intro, you should have a live person playing the part. It was awkward watching them stand there waiting to launch the rest of the song while the recording came through the PA. Surely, there's someone else in your merry company who can play that part for you. 

Opeth took care to draft a setlist that departed from their previous performance here in Detroit, maintaining their potency and concentration. A little goes a long way, and we were still buzzing with the tingle of their magic for weeks after. 

Mastodon is going in a direction we like better, and we're curious to see how they continue to evolve. They always have an engaging visual presentation and are one of the most well-rehearsed groups touring today. 

Why don't we have more to say about this show? Because we forgot to make an entry about it for too long, that's why.