Glad you enjoyed yourself in Motown. You must have drove 8 hours straight into the I-75 construction zone by The Palace during rush-hour. How was Wilco ?

I was laying on the couch last nite about 10pm....half asleep, when the phone rang. I've been dealing with some parental health issues lately, so when the phone rings at night I cringe. I picked it up and couldn't for the life of me figure out what I was listening to. Turned out someone (don't know Who yet), decided to call me from the show and give me a bit of a sample of what I was missing. F*ckers....."LONG LIVE ROCK" !!

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...220412/1032/ENT The Who pay back Detroit with rousing show Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Susan Whitall The Who kicked off a mini-tour of the United States with an energetic show at The Palace of Auburn Hills on Tuesday night, despite having just stepped off a trans-Atlantic flight. It might have been eminently more sober than their many gigs at the Grande Ballroom in the banner year of 1967, but the effect on the audience was as potent (if not mind-altering). In his more dignified middle age, Roger Daltrey has reverted to the short-cropped, tailored Mod look of his youth, and it suits him. His voice is a throwback as well, with the strong, bright tone he had as a youngster. Daltrey is a master of the controlled yell, and if he's missing any notes on the upper end of his register, we didn't notice. Wearing the darkest of sunglasses, Pete Townshend is the hopped-up middle-age punk, his arm windmilling over his Stratocaster as he chopped out those familiar magnetic riffs, each of which sparked an emotional memory. There were a few first-night bumps -- Townshend had to stop strumming right at the beginning of "Pinball Wizard" to change guitars, and Daltrey broke a tambourine (not on purpose), then had to leave the stage at one point to retrieve his own guitar -- but the audience didn't mind. They are one of the most quintessentially British groups, but The Who bonded with southeastern Michigan in the late '60s, and the bond is steadfast. The members donated their take from the show to two Detroit charities, Gleaners Food Bank and Focus: HOPE, because they wanted to give back to a community where they tasted their first American success, Daltrey said. The 11,000 paid customers at the Palace will provide a nice shot in the arm for two charities that will be hard-pressed to help people this winter. "We had our first hit record out of Detroit," Townshend said between songs. "I forget the radio station that played it, but it was a funny little record called 'Happy Jack' in 1967. We got the hit here, and then it spread all over the place." Townshend also bragged that the best car he ever owned was a Lincoln Continental, "built right here in Detroit." He recalled that "a guy from the MC5" attended their first Detroit gig, which drew "about 10 people. Maybe 20." "Then I just found out that we played Southfield High School that year, too," Townshend said, to screams. "That's why we're here," he added at the end of his Detroit tribute. Modestly, they didn't mention that they were donating their fee. Other musical highlights: "5:15," which had the audience dancing and the band jumping (despite Townshend's complaints of jet lag), "Love Reign O'er Me," "Behind Blue Eyes," "Eminence Front" and "Won't Get Fooled Again." Townshend's elegiac chord changes, rising majestically, on "Listening to You" at the end of the "Tommy" segment, are a reminder of how, at their best, The Who have always been a communal experience, one that not only entertains, but elevates. You can reach Susan Whitall at (313) 222-2156 or swhitall@detnews.com.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article...SHvtLr8YIOBc%3D A tip of the hat to Detroit from the Who Concert earnings will go to 2 area charities BY MARTIN BANDYKE • FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER • October 19, 2008 Key British invasion quartet the Who has soldiered on since the deaths of drummer Keith Moon in 1978 and bassist John Entwistle in 2002. Guitarist Pete Townshend and vocalist Roger Daltrey are carrying on as the two surviving founding members. After what was billed as a farewell tour in 1982, the band has continued to play sporadic live dates, but has released only one studio album in the last quarter-century: "Endless Wire," which came out two years ago. Recently, the Free Press spoke to Daltrey about a special show the Who will do Tuesday at the Palace of Auburn Hills, one of only a handful of concerts slated for North America this fall. The band's rhythm section may not be as formidable now as in the days of Moon and Entwistle, but it won't be chopped liver either. Zak Starkey (Ringo Starr's son) will be featured on drums and veteran session player Pino Palladino will be on bass. QUESTION: All of your earnings from the show at the Palace are being donated to Gleaners Food Bank and Focus: HOPE. How did this all come about? ANSWER: The Detroit area was the first major U.S. city to latch on to our single "Can't Explain" back in '65. You know you gave us our first hit record, and since then, we've got this soft spot for Michigan. We know that Detroit is a bit on the blue-collar side, and that's where we come from. With the car industry going through a hard time, we want to pay back a bit to our fans there and help people get through winter. That's why. Q: What are your memories of your greatest moments onstage here? A: The first Who concert in the U.S., where we played a whole show as opposed to doing just a few songs, was in Ann Arbor (June 14, 1967, at the Fifth Dimension Club, according to the Who's official Web site). That was our first real appearance in the States. We also did a great gig that year at the Southfield High School. Q: And how about those legendary shows at the Grande Ballroom? A: Yeah, I remember the Grande! I can still see it now: Joe Cocker was often our support act, and it was a really good place to play. I can't remember what I did yesterday, but I still remember the Grande. U.S. audiences generally take music a whole lot more seriously than in the U.K. and the rest of Europe. It's more an ingrained part of life than in England, where it's much more throwaway. Q: There's been talk of the Who recording an album of R&B covers. What's happening with that? A: Yeah, it's still on the burner, but it might just end up on our Web site. We loved Motown, and we would copy those songs and any others if they were good. We were English, and we were white. But we knew where the center of the music came from. The idea is perhaps to revisit that now and play it like we used to play it when we were 17 or 18. We'd love to do it, but don't know quite what the market would be for that kind of project these days. Q: You and Pete Townshend will receive this year's Kennedy Center Honors, along with Barbra Streisand, Twyla Tharp, Morgan Freeman and George Jones. What was your reaction when you got the news? A: I mean I was totally stunned! For someone from our background, from London and totally inspired by American music, to be honored by the country that inspired you was extremely humbling and an honor indeed. Q: Any final thoughts for your many fans in Detroit? A: The bad times in Detroit won't last forever. Never bet against the working class; they just need some relief right now. I really do believe in the blue-collar side of America. They're resilient and tough, but need inspiration from people in power to make things happen. Basically, your auto industry needs rethinking and rebuilding, but the possibilities there are quite promising. Posted by Susan Whitall on Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 3:36 PM The Who...live and loud tonight When I interviewed Roger Daltrey a few weeks ago, the first thing I told him was that whenever anyone has to speak louder or repeat themselves for me, I say, "The Who, Pontiac Silverdome ..." Was that '75? It was loud. I'm happy I saw the Who several times with Keith Moon on drums, but oh my ...I remember my ears ringing for days after that show. Daltrey's laughing response, "Was it that loud? I couldn't tell on stage." I can tell you, I didn't have to repeat one word to Daltrey, so his hearing is intact, although I know Pete Townshend's had issues. Tonight's show at the Palace will mean a payday for two Detroit charities, Focus: HOPE and Gleaners Food Bank, thanks to Daltrey and Townshend's gratitude to Michigan for its support of the Who

Did some hiking here today, and the tree show is absolutely aweome ! The woods always calm me down.

Posted by Susan Whitall on Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 12:50 AM The Who step forward to help Detroit The Who are playing the Palace of Auburn Hills on Oct. 21, and according to promoter Live Nation, the band will donate "all of their earnings" from the concert to Detroit-area charities. Singer Roger Daltrey said, in a statement: "The first gig we ever played in the U.S. was in Detroit, and we have always had an affinity with this part of the country. Pete and I are very aware of the problems people are having in Michigan and feel we should give something back for all the support we have had over the last 40 years." The band tapped radio station WCSX-FM (94.7) to help select the local charities: Gleaners Food Bank and Focus: HOPE will receive the money. There's always been a warm relationship (and several wild incidents) between The Who and southeastern Michigan, but was Detroit really The Who's first U.S. concert? More on that later. Meanwhile, tickets for The Who, October 21 at The Palace of Auburn Hills, start at $39.50 and go on sale at 10 a.m. this Monday, August 11. Tickets are available at livenation.com, palacenet.com, the Palace box office and Ticket Master.

Did you sit on the lawn for $15 bucks at DTE ? Well worth the money. Hell, I'd pay that just to hear "Lines on My Face". I can listen to him play that solo anytime.

I think you'd have to wait on Elton for that one. I saw Billy in '86 or so. It was an okay show. He dedicated "Goodnight Saigon" to Vietnam vets and invited a group on stage. Besides catching a glimpse of Christie, and eating ribs in the luxury suite, that's about all I remember. His catalog hasn't aged very well.

Saw him with Stevie Ray, and also later with Johnny Lang where I sat front row. Two hours of Jeff with Jennifer Bratton, who we met backstage. The one thing I'll always remember about sitting so close was watching Jeff playing and banging with his thumb. I never saw a guitarist do that to the extent he does.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...0370/1424/ENT04 Thursday, June 5, 2008 Joni's journey Susan Whitall / The Detroit News The Romanesque, stone building still looms over Ferry Street near Detroit's Cultural Center, its zaftig curves and carved friezes a reminder of a long-ago age when wealthy Detroiters chose to live in luxury urban apartments. This atmospheric pile is the Verona apartments, the "tenement castle" that Joni Mitchell sang of in "I Had a King." Here she lived in a five-room, fifth-floor apartment in 1965-67 with her first husband, the folksinger Chuck Mitchell. Joni Anderson from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, met Chuck Mitchell from Rochester, Mich., in 1965 at a Toronto folk club, the Penny Farthing. A romance sparked and they married in 1965 on the front lawn of his parents' house just off Tienken Road in Rochester. That Chuck brought her to the U.S. (he "carried me off to his country for marriage too soon," she sang) was vital because it gave Joni a green card and the launching pad to settle in California and forge her career as one of the defining voices of the West Coast folk-rock scene of the '70s. A new book by journalist Sheila Weller, "Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon -- and the Journey of a Generation" (Atria Books, $27.95), weaves Joni's story in alternating chapters with that of the two other singers. "I thought the way to tell the story of a generation was through these women," Weller says. "Music was everything then, there was no competition between music and any other medium. I thought about their songs, and also their lives -- I think many of us did. It was like, 'Oh boy, Joni really had a relationship with James Taylor!' Young girls were really envious of her." Crammed in between all the detail about their clothing, hairstyles and boyfriends, Weller makes some serious points. Her most potent one is that, unlike many of rock's male auteurs, the three women actually lived what they wrote about. While the well-fed, middle-class Bob Dylan holed up in the New York Public Library reading old Civil War newspapers for inspiration, Joni Anderson was penniless and pregnant, living in a dismal flat in Toronto and occasionally playing a club date. A neighbor in her Toronto building, worried about her skimpy diet of pizza and cigarettes, made the isolated pregnant girl accept a bag of apples "for the baby." After she moved west from her native New York, Carole King married several rugged (to the point of criminal) Westerners, lived in a remote cabin and canned food for the winter, compared to, as Weller writes, "the Hollywood Hills-dwelling Eagles' photo shoots amid parched coyote skulls." "Girls Like Us" painstakingly documents the Byzantine twists and turns of each woman's romantic life (and the link to all three is the shaggy '60s heartthrob James Taylor, who got around). It brings to mind the pull-out charts once published by Rolling Stone mapping out the convoluted love connections between musicians, Joni's being particularly complicated. Several recent books and movies have romanticized Joni's "Ladies of the Canyon" period, but Weller's book shows how the two years she spent living, performing and writing songs in a musically vibrant, mid-'60s Detroit helped shape her in the years of fame ahead. Haunted by 'Little Green' One issue that haunted Joni in her years in Detroit was what to do about the baby girl she gave birth to in 1965 in Toronto. She'd become pregnant by an artist boyfriend who then took off, leaving her alone in a one-room Toronto flat. Joni didn't tell her parents about it for years, but her song "Little Green" on the 1971 album "Blue" was an ode to that lost child, who was taken into foster care and then, given up by the singer for adoption. (Mitchell's daughter Kilauren Gibb found her several years ago, and mother and daughter have forged a somewhat fraught relationship.) During the early part of her marriage to Chuck, he says she was "maundering" back and forth about whether to claim her baby from foster care or give her up for adoption. But on the surface the couple -- Chuck handsome and clean-cut, Joni willowy and long-haired -- were celebrated by the local press as a happy, artsy couple around town. The Detroit News profiled the two in 1966, running photographs of the duo in their "tenement castle," decorated with Indian-print curtains and ethnic cushions from Hudson's, a "green-hued fantasyland" straight out of J.R.R. Tolkien. As Chuck and Joni Mitchell they played often at the Chess Mate folk club on Livernois Avenue at McNichols Road, although Chuck also played solo at the Alcove in Detroit, and Joni had her own solo gigs in distant cities, preshadowing their eventual split. Traveling musicians, including Gordon Lightfoot, Jesse Colin Young, Tom Rush, Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Buffy Sainte-Marie, were among those who used the Mitchells' spacious Detroit apartment as their local crash pad. Chuck remembers hiring two Motown sidemen to come write lead sheets (with the song's chords, symbols and lyrics mapped out) for some of Joni's songs, although he doesn't recall their names. "They clambered up the five flights of stairs, and I remember them sitting in the kitchen with Joni going over her songs," Chuck says. "She'd play a chord in one of her (unusual) open guitar tunings, and they'd say, 'What's that again?' " But after the men watched her hands on the guitar and understood what she was doing musically, according to her ex-husband, the Motown musicians were impressed, and wrote out big, bulky lead sheets for her. Some of Joni's most iconic songs were composed during her time in Detroit, including "The Circle Game" and "Both Sides, Now." Ironically, Joni has been known for years as ferociously independent, but was described by The Detroit News reporter in 1966 as a "dutiful wife" to her more famous husband. She described how she got into music in Saskatchewan: "I got interested in a ukulele, and from there I turned to the guitar and folk singing. Thirty-six hours after I met Chuck, he asked me to marry him. But we waited two months." Bohemians on Ferry Street For her book, Weller tracked down Chuck Mitchell. He's now living in Keokuk, Iowa, and restores historic houses along the Mississippi while offering his music for sale online (mitchell song.com). After years of hearing Joni sing of their time together, and describing him in interviews as the possessive, angry husband who didn't want to raise another man's child, Chuck gets to air his side in Weller's book -- or to an inquiring journalist. In conversation the former Detroiter is alternately amused, irreverent (referring humorously to his ex-wife as Queen Joan), and wistful, but hardly bitter. "The two of us are in possession of narratives that cross radically in those early years," Chuck said, speaking by phone earlier this week. "The big issue for her seems to be controlling her narrative, which she does extremely adeptly. The issue that seems to keep coming up, is, who is actually to blame for putting the child up for adoption. That was pretty much a fait accompliby the time I arrived. When she would ask me what she should do, I said very calculatedly that it was her choice." That way, he figured, he couldn't be blamed. The Mitchells lived a somewhat bohemian life in their hippie-luxe Ferry Street pad, although it seems innocent enough in retrospect. "We were heavy smokers," Chuck says. "We would smoke and play poker all night, then we'd wake up at noon. We lived that life. Neither one of us was ever seriously into drugs, though. I remember getting stoned and trying to write songs and my God, what garbage poured out. (Good songwriting) comes by working hard, you get connected with something larger than yourself. That happened to me with the song 'Dreams and Stories.' If there ever was a song that expressed how I felt then and still feel, that's it. I have no idea where that song came from." Author Weller traveled to Iowa to talk to Chuck and listen to his reel-to-reel tapes documenting his club appearances with Joni, complete with her nervous between-songs patter. "His attitude is a little sarcastic as you can see in the book," Weller says. Chuck describes his relationship with his wife as fun, with a constant flow of banter. "He would jokingly compare Joni's looks (without makeup) to a rhesus monkey," Weller says with a laugh. "He's jaunty and charming, a great guy. He talks about her being a girl from Canada, not very sophisticated, when he met her. He's more of a tell-it-like-it-is person than someone who had this enormous reverence for her." Weller had the sense that Joni's story of the surrender of her baby, told repeatedly, wasn't the whole story. So whose account of the situation did Weller believe, Joni's or Chuck's? "I kind of straddled it," Weller says. "You can't fault someone who says 'I did a very clever thing, I told her it was her choice.' Of course, women reading that will say, 'Damn him, my boyfriend did the same thing to me.' But if you look back, her parents' sense of propriety, how utterly shocked they would be if she'd had a baby out of wedlock, having to tell their neighbors. That was probably the bottom line, it just wasn't the time for her to have a baby." Still: "She probably didn't forgive Chuck for saying, 'It's your choice,' instead of, 'I think you'd feel better if you went back and got the baby,' " Weller adds. Interestingly, the singer's ambivalence about a woman's role in the home played out in her later relationships with men. She felt that Graham Nash (of Crosby, Stills & Nash) would have preferred a more domestic, wifely partner, although a baffled Nash tells Weller, "There was no way I was going to ask Joni Mitchell to stop writing and just be a wife!" A 'classic Irish marriage' As for her first marriage, with songs like "The Circle Game" and "Urge for Going" increasing in popularity with other singers, Joni was primed for flight. Her solo gigs at clubs like the Second Fret in Philadelphia were going so well that she resolved to no longer be the deferential half of Chuck and Joni Mitchell anymore. There was an affair, documented in her song "Michael from Mountains," which prompted one last fight with Chuck, of which he says: "She brained me with a candlestick." After an abrupt departure from Chuck and the marriage, Joni returned to Detroit while he was out of town and had a male friend help her move half of their antiques down the five flights of stairs from the apartment and into a van. Interestingly, one enduring legacy of his time on Ferry Street -- Chuck lived there from 1962-68 -- and their loving restoration of the 1890s apartment, including a painstaking stripping and staining of the wood paneling, Chuck found himself on the path to his current vocation of saving vintage houses. He'd like to perform more often, when he's able to buy a fuel-efficient vehicle large enough to haul his musical equipment. As a "Detroit boy raised with Walter Reuther" he sighs over what he sees as Detroit's delay in producing such a vehicle. As for Joni, Chuck hasn't seen his ex-wife in 30 years, although he's occasionally put a feeler out and says he would "dearly love" to have a reunion with her. He worries that with her heavy smoking, time might be running out. "She's going to be checking out," he says, with a sigh. "It would be fun to have a rapprochement. She was always good for a laugh. It was the classic Irish marriage, although neither of us was Irish -- we yelled and screamed and shouted, then we made jokes and we were in stitches. If we ever got back together and sang 'The Circle Game' together, it'd be kind of nice." You can reach Susan Whitall at (313) 222-2156 or swhitall@detnews.com.

Well, that's my little personal twist on the show. It was supposed to be a spaceship like the one on the "Out of the Blue" album cover, but it sure looked like a giant crab to me....right out of one of those cheap Japanese sci-fi flicks.

This show is now a Detroit urban legend...Here's an example. Even though they put out great songs, it was rumored that their live shows weren't exactly "live". While attending CMU in the early 1980's, a friend of mine told me a story about the time he went to see ELO at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. I don't know the date of the concert but I know it was the late late 1970's. ELO had the spaceship on stage, which lifted up and ELO appeared on stage. I don't know when in the concert this happened but according to him, the drummer was holding his sticks in the air when there was a "rum-bum-bum" from the drums. He quickly covered but the audience was onto the the memorex moment and started booing. The spaceship abruptly lowered and the concert was over. Again, don't know if true or not. Throughout my college "career" though, when an ELO song was played on the radio or one of their videos played on MTV, someone would relate this story to me. Bottom line is don't mess around with Detroit rock crowd. TJ It wasn't as dramatic as the above description, but the tape problems happened more than the once described during the course of the show. It was especially revealing when the band was trying to fill in the orchestra parts on some of their tunes. The mix was terrible...and we were hearing things that weren't happening on stage. There were several Milli-Vanilli moments, and the band was way out of synch for most of the show. The crowd more than booed...they booed as they were leaving. The band was later sued by the promoter for using tapes during the show. This received a lot of publicity in the U.S., and pretty much ended ELO's live career, at least in the States. The bottom line is they had no business playing an arena that size, and paid the price for trying to cash in.

Two months after Zeppelin, Bob Seger played the Silverdome. "In June 1976, he played in front 50 people in a Chicago bar. Three days later, he played in front of 76,000 devoted fans in the Pontiac Silverdome outside Detroit. A very strange show, but a good one. Todd Rundgren, Elvin Bishop, and Point Blank. Rundgren still talks about this....He had no idea what he was walking into. Heard all of "Night Moves" for the first time....It wouldn't come out until the Fall. Also remember people going absolutely ballistic because he played this local favorite for the last time .....

Great show....and the last one I attended at Cobo.

A local ticket. Adrenalin, The Look, Holy Smoke, Salem Witchcraft, Toby Redd, Bittersweet Alley, and a bunch of other bands I followed in my teens. Bittersweet Alley had a minor national hit with this cheezy song.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yegDy0JLf98 Told her that I came from Detroit City....and I played guitar in a long-haired rock and roll band.

The infamous crab show, and the death of ELO.

First arena show I attended. Aerosmith, Foghat, Ted Nugent, and The Outlaws. The show was in one endzone, and I sat in the other. I might as well have sat in Montana.

w/Plant & the Lousy Sensations. Jimmy Page & The Crowes were the night before.

The Who thru the years.....

Found a couple cool sports stubs... Once upon a time, the worst team in professional sports not only hosted an NFL Playoff game, they actually won. Amazing how one simple ticket stub can reflect 50 years of effort....damn pussy cats. i saw Tommy "The Hit Man" Hearns fight several times at both Cobo and Joe Louis. Ever see a boxing match live ? No matter your opinion of the sport, seeing it live will blow your mind. I was quite a boxing fan until the second Hearns- Sugar Ray Leanard fight. Hearns was robbed.

One of the few stubs I have from Detroit's old Olympia Stadium..... I saw Yes, The Moody Blues, and ELP there. It was torn down in 1986.

One of my favorite Plant "bitch" moments was his rant against ever doing the "push push", "little girl" thing again onstage. He was too old and dignified to sink that low ever again. He claimed he had moved on. This was in 1988, when he went off on Coverdale long before Coverdale/Page. Since then, he's probably done "Whole Lotta Love" in concert a thousand times. Hey little girl.....turned into Hey Hey Mama....."bitch bitch"

Atop Little Round Top at Gettysburg Outside the George Washington University School of Law. Notice the kick-ass pink purse ? Iwo Jima Memorial

Great special ! Being the "son of a preacher man" brings it's own baggage. Being the son of a cross-dressing preacher man can obviously f*ck with your head. Marvin couldn't dance. That was some funny stuff there. Even after almost 40 years, I think a good argument can be made that "What's Going On" is the most important American album ever. Even when you listen to it now, it's not really jazz, pop, rock, or rythym & blues. It can't really be classified, it just kind of stands on it's own. Lyrically, it just nails everything. A must for any record collection.