Big Bad Concert Rankings: 20-11

In for a penny, in for a pound, I’ve been saying to myself when we reopen the bars. As a threatening statement. If you’re going to force me to touch you, it’s a full measure. No grip, grab, and toss out. Your ass is landing in the street next to the yellow divider. I may be losing weight but I’ll find enough power to throw a man Charles Barkley style out a window if need be.

After all, I was the Round 2 keg toss champion at West Michigan’s 2019 Oktoberfest. I won a $25 gift certificate to a butcher that I turned into four 1-pound T-bones, some jerky, a solid pound of kielbasa and several of the largest stuffed brats I have ever seen in my life. And that’s including brats from Wisconsin.

Yeah, it’s been a rough few … months. I’ve seen friendships end, people confined with each other fall apart, social media feeds flare up, and worse. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. There’s no tunnel.

There’s no going back to normal.

How do people not see that? The divisions were planted long ago, but only now have the debt collectors are calling. So many people on Snapchat or Instagram or Facebook are throwing caution to the wind.

And you know what sucks, those people will be mostly fine. Unscathed. Detached from reality, but unaffected by the pandemic on an individual level beyond economics.

And that’s OK. Yes, it’s fine. Like above. To them, this is all a big facade.

There’s no danger to the younger generations. It happens. These things happen. Nothing you can do. Move on, live your life, yolo and whatnot. The house parties, the case races, the beach days, the trips across the country. You do you. I’ll do me. Nobody looks out for each other. Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on.

So, with this displacement of reason, diaspora of thought, I’ve decided to become Switzerland. A neutral party to most petty squabbles between friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. I’m going to keep my distance, practice what I preach, but let you live your life without intervention.

Just don’t be surprised when you’re gliding down to the pavement because you fucked up. These are the consequences of actions in the new modern world. I’m going to be nice. I’m going to be nice when I see you travel from Michigan to Tennessee on the weekends. I’m going to be nice when I see you have house parties. I’m going to be nice when you bring the boats out. I’m going to be nice when you invite friends over for game nights or food sharing. I’m going to be nice when you act like a fool in the grocery store, or liquor store, or supermarket.

I’m even going to be nice when we reopen.

When you come into the bar at whatever capacity we’re allowed to have.

I’m going to be nice.

Until you invade my sovereign territory without warning.

Then you’ll find out what the difference is between being nice and not being nice. Just like Jorge Lugo did in 1997.

20. Titus Andronicus [Control Top]

Read the first part of No. 44.

19. Future Islands

Studio Future Islands is downright melancholy. Live Future Islands is Guttural. And energetic. And sweaty.

I missed them in Grand Rapids about five years before this show in Detroit. I was absolutely in awe. With the stage presence of a Tasmanian Devil, both real and cartoon, Samuel T. Herring wildly careens from side to side, getting every possibly note he can from his voice box. He kicks, screams, roars, and bellows in every song, whether the moment calls for it or not. Controlled chaos in concert form. By the end of the show, he is drenched in sweat and doesn’t mind one bit. It’s a performance where you can visibly see he gave it his all. What more can you ask for after driving three hours on a dim lit November evening?

18. John Mayer [Colbie Caillat, Brett Dennen]

What makes the 2007 show (at No. 52) different from the 2008 show, in the same venue no less? Guitar solos. On paper, these two should be switched. Ben Folds is clearly more talented than Colbie Caillat, and Brett Dennen didn’t have anything new to work with in 2008 than he did in 2007. The setlist was even shorter by at least 5 songs.

But my God is John Mayer was one the most unheralded guitarists of the 21st Century, and this show was 40% setlist and 60% freehand solo work. Not only was it No. 18 good, it was hands down the best show of 2008, a year that included Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Rush, Steve Miller Band, STP, and Tom Petty.

17. MoPop 2019 [Vampire Weekend, Lizzo, King Princess, Wallows]

I went searching for a ticket. I couldn’t find one online. It was sold out. General Admission, VIP, you name it. Could not be found. They did, however, have tickets at select vendors around the cities of Detroit and Grand Rapids. After trying in futility to get a weekend pass, I had the owner of one record store (that same who was able to put me on the list for the No. 44 Titus Andronicus show) call me with some great news, he had one Saturday ticket available for $75. I went right downtown and bought it. Cash. I was determined to see this show. If not for Vampire Weekend, but for Lizzo, whose tickets were going through the roof everywhere, and for good reason.

MoPop 2019 was right on the Detroit River, West Riverfront Park, to be exact. Cool breezes, people in boats, and a long-ass line to get into the stage areas. It was awesome. All before the bands even started. I bought some food, taste tested some tequila (Patron), and popped the tab of a red bull so I could manage the remaining seven hours of show time.

Wallows was a victim of my 2020 concert season, but their early set after a few DJs was a shock to my system. I knew the band was fronted by the kid from Scandal and that Netflix show, but I’ve never seen it. That said, he should totally quit acting and do music full-time. Of all the songs that day, their cover of The Cure’s Boys Don’t Cry was a head spinner.

Between Wallows and King Princess sets was my tequila tasting. Armed with a slight buzz, I meandered to the main stage for King Princess. Again, this lineup is incredible. Yes, I only chose one song for each artist in this playlist, but her album Cheap Queen is a cut above the rest.

AND THEN CAME LIZZO

Never had I had more fun while being disconnected from the main demographic more than during Lizzo’s set in Detroit. I didn’t even know she had a hometown connection but that didn’t matter. A sea of hands waving, the stunning flautist enraptured the crowd in a way I’ve only seen from decades-long professionals. Once the set finished I literally ran to the merch booth and bought a black tee with bright, silver slick writing (the very same seen in the Titus Andronicus photo where I held Patrick Stickles like a baby).

And I haven’t even got to Vampire Weekend.

Online commentators were not kind to their performance. They are idiots. Bouncing from hit to hit, they interrupted their more conventional sets with hard rock interludes. Yes, HARD ROCK. I think the hipsters were expecting more ennui, but they got mind-melting guitar shreds and crimson smoke scenes engulfing crew, talent, and audience alike.

Afterward in my haze of concert conquest, I scoffed at the $40 Uber cost, opting instead for the midnight walk through the oft-misbegotten titled downtrodden Detroit. Past the shipping yards and bulldozed Joe Louis Arena stadium walls. Through the Hispanic Heritage festival, the black excellence fashion show, and the tourists descending from the riverboat ramps. Unwilling to be unprepared my pocket flashlight guided my way home to the city’s bar row, where I sipped on a pilsner awaiting a ride home for a manageable price.

16. Odesza

Unlike the Gold on the Ceiling impostors of The Black Keys, Odesza was kind enough to drop gold from the fucking ceiling. As the final song hit its crescendo and golden confetti rained down from the from the stage cannons, the top of the venue, and all around you was a wave of golden light, the warmth of the gleeful audience wrapped itself around you. Ethereal in sound, profound in person, Odesza is a powerhouse of Indie Electronica. By stage production alone, they would and in the Top 50. By virtue of their musical composition, the extra push into the Top 20 is more than warranted.

15. Death Cab For Cutie

What enters this list is often the surprises more than the actual show itself. As evidence by the starpower much further down this list. Bands like Tom Petty and The Who, who don’t show any whimsy or theatricality in their performances, are lower on than what those en masse would say they should be. Death Cab For Cutie is no exception.

I was surprised by how much they cared. Which is odd.

Softer songs like I Will Follow You Into The Dark and Soul Meets Body may be their radio hits, but I found out they are so much more. No Sunlight is an ironic shining light of dark summer nights, while Cath is a power ballad for unrequited love that breaks down the mold. A 17-song setlist for a ground stage headliner is also rare, putting Death Cab into the upper echelon of ‘free’ performers at my favorite festival.

14. Jack White

There’s a power moment I have at every show. it’s the tingle that runs down my spine and into every appendage when I’m moving from zone to zone in the venue. Often, it happens while I’m descending the staircase, each foot hitting the next step below in synchronicity with the beat.

Never has this happened more in sync than during Icky Thump. I was the boss in 20 Monroe Live that night, during that song. Like, I can’t even begin to tell you the swagger I had when walking down each step. Boom, boom, boom, Ah icky thump, Who’d a thunk, Sittin' drunk on a wagon to Mexico … What a chump, Man my head got a bump, When I hit it on the radio. Just fuckin’ big time swagger. During that song I felt more important than Jack White. And I didn’t even feel that in the back of my mind it wasn’t true. That’s the power of live music from true professionals.

13. Janelle Monae

My aunt Karen (don’t judge), had a spot for us near the front. She found a loophole in the Summerfest system that allowed for people to secure a sweet seat in one of two upfront zones of the BMO side stage. The BMO Pavilion is the second largest stage of the entire festival grounds and often plays host to shows outside the normal summer dates. This time around, if you were able to park yourself in one of two four-row sections more than an hour before the scheduled headliner takes the stage, you got those seats regardless of if you paid for a ticket or not. So, while waiting patiently in the mixed ethnicity, gender-fluid crowd, there we were, seven rows back and waiting for the minuscule songstress.

Her performance reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite shows before it got to soap opera-y.

In Scandal, Olivia Pope’s father is the leader of a secret government program called B6-13. One of the most-quoted lines is Joe Morton’s “You can’t take Command, SON!”

Janelle Monae can take command. She can take command any time she damn well pleases.

12. Queens of the Stone Age [Royal Blood]

Now ends the era of 20 Monroe Live on this list. My favorite venue to work for ends its epic run on this list at No. 12 with the co-headlining tour of QOTSA and Royal Blood. With a packed house, RB bulldozed its way through a setlist of sound and fury from just bass and rums.

Eighteen songs of pure power. Josh Homme, in the shows before he kicked that photographer, was flat-out amazing. Pitch perfect and delivering a stunning setlist from beginning to end. It was the perfect night of my first year at 20 Monroe Live, and if it weren’t for a show in the Top 10, it would have been the best show of 2017 as well.

11. Arcade Fire

I’m going to skip right to the end. Wake Up is as perfect an encore as any song ever performed. With phone flashlights filling the amphitheater, 18,000 people singing in unison one of the greatest songs of the last 20 years was a memory I’ll cherish for quite some time. And it’s not even my favorite Arcade Fire song! That belongs to Afterlife, which was toward the end of the set and one of the more unheralded records on the Reflektor album.

Combined with the in-your-face stylings of Everything Now, this show was a sublime reminder that we are quickly approaching an age of over indulgence and brand saturation, but that sometimes that’s perfectly normal. If only for us to one day wake up from the dream and experience something new.