12.20.2024 [detroit]
Short n Sweet here…
I love Motown. Motor City. Maybe it’s because it’s within my home state, and I feel like maybe- just maybe- some of that magic during the 60s 70s blew over to the westside. I always describe my hometown’s positioning the same way: If you draw a straight line from Chicago to Detroit, Kalamazoo’s smack in the middle. Ok not EXACTLY but who cares. If you think about it that way the “smedium” sized kzoo is flanked by greatness. I think people from Michigan experience Motown on deeper levels than, like… IDK Ohio?? Maybe. Lol Anyway, let’s talk about this gig!
The Masonic Temple in Detroit is HUGE. Tbh I’m not entirely sure who/what/how we ended here… but it’s giving “connections”… but anyway, it’s that old school $$ feel. Total sidebar, but EVERY TIME I’m in Motor City I can’t help but feel nostalgia for the 90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. For which there is NO reason. But sometimes you get to a venue and it just gives you the feeling that anything is possible here. It almost makes you nervous?
A few notes: this is when a cardiod sub setup would have paid dividends. I had a bit of a stage with a section scooped out behind me, ultimately forming a bass trap. You don’t know until you know. Wholesale this wedding slapped. Very happy about that- these were some friends and I really wanted this to be fuggin grannnd. I have a lot of footage too but still evaluating how usable or not it might be.
I really need to shout out the staff as well. I mean everyone was top knotch, and there was even someone ‘tending’ the freight elevator, which was 50 years old so I’m grateful lol but, truly- what a time. Conspiracies and National Treasure films aside, I wonder what it’s like to be a preferred vendor for such a place. I will also spend weeks thinking about the OTHER ways I could have and maybe should have set up. But soon those thoughts will fade, and I’ll just be able to enjoy how well things went.
Note to self: #1 was this place haunted and #2 make a haunted venue list.
