Finding An Appreciation for Country Music In Detroit
I’m not the biggest modern country music fan. Not that I hate it, in fact there are a few songs I like, but it’s just not my first choice, by far . Keeping in mind, I wanted to be able to write about the little journey I just went on, and a small nugget of gold I discovered along the way. Maybe you’ll find it all humorous or trivial, or possibly I’m just finding gold which’s already been discovered a million times, each and every nugget concealed once again for the next oblivious person to stumble across. So here’s what I discovered – Saddle up! (or something like that)
My manager and I arrive at the Civic Center’s outdoor complex in downtown Detroit. We launched two NOMAD Mobile LED Screens for Detroit’s annual Downtown Hoedown, a three day and night live country music boot scootin’ beer drinkin’ concert party. These LED Screens (oblivious to the upcoming insanity) are sleeping deep in their mobile trailers just waiting for a technician like me to give them power and a video feed so they can rise up and do what they’re good at; large, bright, crisp video splashed onto a packed crowd that’s dying to see closeups of their favorite artists. The back of the crowd (a jumbo LED Screen’s preferred audience) will be definetely hard pressed to see the emotion and features of the artist, and, in a way, these Screens bridge that gap in between the lucky front row country people and the back of the pack. Soon after some setup and testing, my supervisor heads back for home and I settle in to run these two screens for the next 3 days and nights.
On the first day I found my piece of gold about country music folks; these people know and genuinely, completely love their music. Now, I don’t just mean they know their favorite songs, or their favorite artists’ songs. They know their music, from every artist, and every song, every word! I first noticed this when I was walking from one of my LED screens to the next one early on the first day. John Maison is playing (no one I’d heard of). He introduces his next song as a new song off his upcoming, yet to be released album, and starts playing it as I’m walking to my screen. On the first riff of the opening melody, everyone’s eyes light up in recognition of a song that is supposed to be new and unreleased. Couples are looking at each other smiling, as if to say “remember where we were when we first heard this?” Complete strangers are standing next to each other nudging elbows as if to say “I don’t know if you’ve heard this yet, but this here’s a good one!” John Maison leads this massive choir of cowboys and cowgirls through the first verse of the song, and I’m, well…moved. I’m moved because here are all these blue collar working class people from Detroit, one of the hardest hit places with the economic crisis, and they probably don’t even realize it but they’ve memorized hundreds of pieces of poetry, word for word. After all, a song is just poetry dancing to music, and these people know hundreds of them! They seem to love these songs, genuinely loving their art like they would a favorite pet or a family member. I suspect they bundle up this country music and hitch it to their horses like an old western first aid kit to get them through a long journey on a rough trail. Beer is also strapped to that horse, somewhere.
Now, this isn’t going to change my taste in music. I’m still not a country music fanatic, but I’m enlightened and proud to be a part of something that brings people some pretty real, deep down joy. As my LED Screens illuminate the faces of the crowd at night, the colors line-dancing off their faces to the rhythm of the hoedown, it says something to me that words are too thin to say. Now excuse me while I price out some horses on craigslist…