Day 16: Detroit, MI
Welcome
Yesterday we played a show in Deeeetroit, Michigan.
We woke up in the downtown of the motor city, the goliath GM skyscraper looming ominously like a bat king ruling over his domain. Detroit was already heating up by the middle of the morning and was overcast, humid, and tropical, not unlike our hometown of Auckland in the middle of summer. Jon was the first person in action, departing the bus for his morning walk, and soon after that Tristan and I left in search of food and coffee.
Avalon Café and Bakery was the establishment at which we soon arrived, a bustling restaurant with friendly staff and tables and chairs that all rocked a minimum of 10 degrees. I ordered a fried egg, bacon, and avocado sandwich, on farm bread with herb aioli, and it arrived with a side salad of fancy lettuce, aggressively dressed with a gloopy apple cider vinegarette.
Back at the bus I attached myself to a party that was on its way to visit the Motown Museum. We made our way across town to the famous Hitsville USA building at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, a converted house that was home to the Motown label’s first recording studio, the very same room that produced hit after hit from artists like Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, and Marvin Gaye. Five minutes after arriving we walked out after discovering that tickets were sold out for the entire afternoon.
Jon and I decided to head to a nearby attraction that required no tickets, only a keen eye and a flexible neck. The arcade of the Fisher Building necessitated a great deal of craning with its tall, barrel-vaulted ceilings, but it was worth it to take in the incredible detail present in every single inch of this Art Deco wonder. Ornate brass detailing could be seen wherever you focused your gaze. Forty types of marble decorate the walls and floors. Bold design elements gave each piece its function, individuality, and character, but everything still felt married together by a grand concept.
Designed by famed Detroit architect Albert Kahn this thirty-story skyscraper was built in 1928 to house the offices of the Fisher Brothers, the developers of the closed-body automobile, a company which was acquired and became the automobile body manufacturing division of General Motors. I couldn’t believe it when I read that this building (along with the ten story Albert Kahn building across the street, and two multi-story parking buildings) changed hands in 2015 for only $12.2 million.
We made our way back to the venue which was now open and ready for us to load. A large aluminium ramp was placed over the top of the front steps, and we rolled our wheeled cases up and into a long room with wooden floors and a stage at the far end. A very industrial looking balcony ran around the edge of the room and through a doorway there was a stained-glass window visible when you stood in the perfect spot.
This brick building was once home to the Saint Andrew’s Society but since 1980 has been one of the more notable music venues in the city, an establishment known for hosting innumerable bands in their breakout phases. Groups such as Tool, Nirvana, and No Doubt cut their teeth on this stage and Eminem famously performed in the basement part of the venue known as The Shelter. If The Beths were going to cut their teeth at all this was the place to do it.
The basement venue The Shelter, where Eminem did some rap battles, modeled here by our tour manger Annie.
Our soundcheck was uneventful and we after it we retired downstairs to our green room, a heavily graffitied space with comfortable couches and a coffee table made from a huge trapped mixing desk. People rested or worked or warmed up, and it was a pleasant few hours that we had to ourselves before we were required to board the stage.
At some point there was a rumble from upstairs that indicated that Princess Chelsea had begun. I watched from behind the sound desk and enjoyed a brilliantly played set and also an interesting video that the house sound technician was watching on his phone about restoring model dump trucks. To clarify, this man wasn’t mixing the show – there was a capable sound engineer named Bob Frisbee (longtime fan of the blog) who was controlling things from his iPad from an undisclosed location. The aspiring model dump truck restorer may not have appreciated it, but Princess Chelsea sounded superb. This room sounded much tighter than the previous couple of venues and new and wonderful details emerged from the music.
We almost failed to cut our teeth. After beginning our set strongly, it became apparent by the second or third song that something was wrong. Bird had not inflated and the stage technician crawling around behind the amps hadn’t found a fix. This wasn’t a scenario we had trained for but somehow everyone sprang into action, Liz beginning an impromptu set of stand-up comedy helped along by Tristan, and Jon and I beginning a diagnosis of our crippled fish. We opened up the belly and found the motor detached from its bracket and bent out of shape, the fan unable to turn. Jon’s fix was fast and brutal, smashing the tubular assembly into the ground with the perfect amount of force that corrected the misshapen object and suddenly the fan could move again. Liz was still killing it on the mic and the crowd were loving every word coming from her mouth. Tristan turned up with a roll of gaff tape and we patched everything together and quickly sutured the wound. Bird was back from the brink of death, and as they rose from behind the amp wall to their full and impressive height and breadth the crowd screamed its appreciation.
The set ended well, and we packed down quickly so we could get on the road. There was a border in between us and Canada and it wasn’t going to cross itself. Once the trailer door was closed and everyone was showered, we got underway, heading towards the Detroit River and what we knew would be a punishing few hours. Jon got the carnet signed on both sides of the border and as expected the border officers didn’t do anything to make the process easy. Jon is a carnet expert, though, and there was nothing they could do to stop him, despite their nitpicking every detail. We made it to Canadian immigration and sat around for a time while they looked at our passports. There was a football game to watch on television and a nice display of Canadian Border Patrol hats from over the years.
Watching the livestream to see ourselves at the border crossing. It's quite hard to see us, unfortunately.
It was around 4am when we finally boarded the bus again and slipped into our bunks, gratefully drifting off to sleep as Placid Thunder cruised into Ontario.