Posted by: detourmag on July 3, 2007 at 8:31 pm
On Independence Day, Milwaukee has its Summerfest, and Chicago its Taste. The Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest is out on Coney Island, and there are 15 baseball games on the Major League schedule. Someone will certainly be drinking in LA - if you have rich friends, it’s a party in Malibu; if you’re weird or into yoga, it’s Topanga Days - and in Detroit, the Detour braintrust will be at CityFest, the usual barricaded street fair full of music and shifty smells. Our menu will include beef brisket sandwiches from the Detroit institution Bert’s on Broadway, while the music at CityFest ranges from Spoon and Thunderbirds are Now! to Femi Kuti, Lupe Fiasco, and Weird Al Yankovic. We’ll find out once and for all whether Al performs a special version of “Eat It” in honor of all those chili dogs, lemon ices, fountain pops, and fish tacos consumed before him.
It’s our shared ownership of Independence Day’s federally-mandated amounts of leisure, gastronomy, and the pursuit of rocktastic rockingness that make the holiday so wonderful. There’s an engaging collectivism about it. We’re all off, obviously. But most everyone is off on Christmas, too, so what’s the difference? Well, it’s warm everywhere on the 4th of July, for one. And potato salad is beckoning from every food aisle in the nation. Grilled meat is great, and so are checkered picnic tablecloths, and it’s probably the last American holiday not slightly tarnished by political correctness.
Plus, even if your town can’t afford to book the real Cheap Trick for its Rib Fest, Heritage Fest, Food Blast, or Music and Fireworks Extravaganza, there are a bunch of dudes in a nearby basement who are already practicing and totally not nailing their versions of “Surrender” and “I Want You Want Me.”
Like bad beer or burned pizza, “Surrender” is still “Surrender,” even when it’s shitty. Try saying that, “Frosty the Snowman.”
CityFest actually did book the real Cheap Trick this year, so we’ll see if they’re better than your town’s classic rock cover band. (The jury’s still out.) And over the next week or so we’ll be publishing accounts from our local 4th fest as live reviews, from Spoon’s sleek and anxious indie rock to the Afrobeat of Femi Kuti, Weird Al’s crinkly-haired fast forward spectacle and local faves like The Go, Detroit Cobras, Freer, Silent Years, and The High Strung.
But that’s just our Independence Day festival. Who are you looking forward to seeing and hearing over this strange, midweek holiday? Whether you catch the greatest performance of your life or blow chunks of half-digested hamburger out your nose at the sound of the worst thing you’ve heard since Garth Brooks grew an alter-ego, Detour wants to hear about it. Email us at info@detour-mag.com with your 4th musical experiences, and you might see them on the site in the next week.
If that happens, becoming an honorary member of the Detour Bivouac should suffice. We were going to make all contributors part of our annual Detour fife-n-drum band, but we’re all full up on flautists. Besides, we only have a limited number of frock wigs. And we never tell a lie.
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