Rock N Roll Weekend

Spent this past weekend in Detroit. Visited the Detroit Zoo (sad, sad, sad), stayed at a nice hotel (The Westin-Southfield) and caught a Maroon 5 concert (I know, I know, but I scored major points with the wife).

A nice surprise awaited me at the show however, I was totally blindsided by The Hives , Maroon 5's opening act. The Hives are from Sweden and came to public awareness at the same time as other "The" bands (The White Stripes, The Strokes, The Vines, etc.). They put on a real rock and roll show. They were facetious, rebellious, loud, lots of energy, etc. I was saddened that they only had 30 minutes. The lead singer had this Johnny Rotten/Mick Jagger attitude, and the music was Ramone-ish at times, and it was a just GREAT ROCK N ROLL. So ok, they were derivative in a good way. At the beginning of their act the lead singer promised to make fans of us all, I thought this difficult since only half of the audience cheered when they came out while the other half spoke on cell phones or stood in line for the bathrooms. By their last number everyone was cheering and waving, we were under their voodoo. If you get a chance you should check them out.

Damn, someone's taken ROCK by the balls and maybe it's time I start listening to the new stuff. I already enjoy the White Stripes but I'm so weary of listening to new music can it can be so lame and a rip off. Or it's just unbelievably bad, a good hook won't do with Rock. You need attitude, you need presence, you need to be a fighter. The Hives, White Stripes, Strokes, yeah, time to get back to it.

Speaking of rock and roll, true story: My buddy Frank got us into a Los Lobos show in Chicago sometime ago and after the show we got in backstage. I was dumb&awestruck hanging out with Cesar Rosas (the dude never took his shades off). I wanted to talk to him so bad but I felt like such a fanboy so I quietly sipped my beer while a 40 year old droopy groupie chatted on and on. At on point she dropped her pizza on the carpet and went all "oh no" and "sorry" blah blah blah and Cesar says "On no baby, that's alright, that's rock n roll. That's all that is, that's just rock n roll". I'll never forget that for the rest of my life.

So will it ruin things then if I say that to top off our Detroit Rocks weekend we went to IKEA. Yeah, I know. . . .