Last night I saw Kasabian and Mew perform live at St. Andrew's Hall in Detroit. I was really looking forward to seeing both bands for the first time, and it turned out to be a great show.
Downtown Detroit was a flurry of activity, as there was also a Tigers game at 7:00 (they've clinched a playoff spot for the first time since 1987). After checking out the opening band's material online (they're called One Thousand Pictures) and being less than impressed, we decided to head over to one of our favourite downtown restaurants, Loco's for dinner instead. They have great Tex-Mex food that's really inexpensive. If you're ever in Greektown, you should definitely check it out.
Enough about the food though, and back to the music. We arrived back at the venue just as Mew was taking the stage. The hall was starting to fill up, and we made our way the front of the stage. Mew's set was an epic one, complete with backdrop videos, and their trademark brand of Danish "dream-rock". It was cut short however because, as guitarist Bo Madsen put it (in his Danish accent), "there's a big hip-hop fest here later tonight". So, they didn't have a chance to play the hits 'Why Are You Looking Grave?' or 'Special', but Kasabian was still to come, so we weren't entirely disappointed.
We decided to head up to the balcony to get a better view of Kasabian's set, which also turned out to be a great rock n' roll show. Frontman Tom Meighan was as charismatic on stage as any I've seen, and the band tore through an hour-long set of songs from both their debut album and their latest release, 'Empire'. He really got the crowd into it, and told us that "this is a real rock city, right". One of the funniest moments was when, near the end of the set, he dedicated a song to 'Robocop', which of course was set in Detroit.
The show ended fairly early to make room for the "big hip-hop fest", and we headed home by way of Port Huron. One final stop before crossing back into Canada though - for a 12-pack of Rolling Rock beer (of course). You can't get this great beer in Canada, and the border guards have always been cool about me bringing back 12 of them. It's probably too much paperwork for them to bother with.
As an aside to this blog entry, the last issue of Rolling Stone gave the new Kasabian album just 1 star (out of 5). Either they didn't actually listen to it, or they just didn't get it. I'll say it was probably the latter. The thing that takes away any credibility that the RS reviewers may have had left, is that right beside the Kasabian review, was a 2-star review of Everclear's new album. Ha!
