Some beats and eats in Royal Oak

Friends of mine have been posting links to articles claiming that going to concerts makes people healthier and happier. Apparently, many studies have proved this effect. The studies don't even claim that this is restricted to good concerts, though I'm supposing that helps.

So on Friday evening we went in to Royal Oak for part of the 19th annual Arts, Beats and Eats festival. The "healthier" aspect was clear enough immediately: My fitbit says it took 1871 steps to get from our parking space - at a Middle School on Glenn Frey Drive - to the Michigan Lottery Stage. A few of those on a daily basis would help, no doubt!

We went to see Stewart Francke and then Joan Jett. Stew had played the event every one of its 19 years; it's nice to see him get a huge audience. Stew's band had 11 members of Friday, including a horn section and multiple singers. Beginning with a tribute to David Bowie of "Rebel, Rebel," Stew then took the show crisply through several of his career highlights, interrupted only occasionally by the freight trains passing by just behind the concert area. My favorite -- and I think much of the crowd's as well -- was when Greg C. Brown took over "Sam Cook's On the Radio." 

By 8, it was time to make way to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. At 58, Jett looks great, and she's maybe the first person I've seen who can wink while soloing. Starting, as she typically does, with "Bad Reputation," she ripped through a set lasting barely an hour, leaving the audience both breathless and wanting more (not possible, really, as Buckcherry was to take the stage after her). She went through career highlights and also mixed in a few songs off her latest CD. The band collectively saluted a passing train during "Hard to Grow Up." My favorite sequence was the back-to-back of "I Love Rock and Roll" in to her cover of "Crimson and Clover."


A few eats and another 1541 steps back to the car (is the walk back always shorter?), and I'm thinking, we needed a study for that?



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Name Day

Image
We went down to the courthouse Wednesday morning, and the judge issued the order: As of this day, which is also our second child's 18th birthday, our child shall be known as Ezra Stanley. We filed the order with the clerk, ordered the new birth certificates, and save for some administrative details, it's done. Name Day! The old name is sealed. It's still in the records, it's in this blog . This is the same person who once had a bat mitzvah, the same person who sang and danced with Bruce Springsteen , the same person who swore that unicorns are real and that they eat unicorn food. I will leave those bits of history untouched. This is also the same person who has made art under the old name and new, and the same person who made a mess of our kitchen while we were away on Tuesday, leaving us to discover the concealed chocolate disaster zone. The shift between what was and what is... in some ways that was very slow, and in some ways it was sudden. There were behavio
Read more

A note from Youngstown... by request

Image
Since starting this blog, blogger says I've created 138 entries.  Some are just pictures or quips, some are writings, and some probably have links that need to be replaced.  But in some way they were all original works.  Except, however, for this intro and a couple of the pictures to follow, this one is from Scott Williams, a young man from the Youngstown, Ohio, area.  Scott attended Bruce Springsteen shows in Auburn Hills  and  Cleveland , found my email address (along with btx and a few others), and sent this report. And, Scott:  Yes, "Youngstown" totally rocked. Greetings! Recently I had the most amazing day of my life! Since it was spring break, a teacher friend and I wanted to see if we could get another concert show under our belts before the summer (we were also going to Cleveland the following week). Since we didn't have to worry about school, we knew we had the whole day to work with, and seeing as the only concert that week with tickets still
Read more

We Take Care of Our Own

Image
A few days ago, an article appeared in the Hollywood Reporter. The headline read, "Bruce Springsteen's New Album Is His 'Angriest' Yet." Uh-oh. Bruce Springsteen is "liberal." When he goes off, self-described "conservatives" go wild. Laura Ingraham wrote a book called Shut Up & Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the UN are Subverting America. It was a best seller, even. I don't personally know anyone who actually read it, but that doesn't matter: When Bruce speaks out, there's inevitably a chorus of comments across the country: "Shut Up and Sing!" Sometimes, it goes a bit further. In March, 2011, Springsteen wrote a letter to The Asbury Park Press, commenting on a story that had appeared in the paper 4 days earlier. The letter read, in part, "Thank you for your March 27 front-page story by Michael Symons. 'As poverty rises, cuts target aid.' The article is one of the few t
Read more