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At 76 years old, Stevie Nicks — who breezily brought up her age a few times on stage Sunday night (June 9) — maintains the distinct, strong vocal performance for which she’s become iconic. She carries it through a showtime of about two hours, with a 15-song set and several stories spanning her fascinating journey in rock ‘n’ roll.
Nicks brought her headlining tour to the Mohegan Sun Arena, a well-designed, 10,000-seat venue in southeastern Connecticut that’s within the Mohegan Sun casino/entertainment complex owned by the Mohegan Tribe.
She has plenty to play, and so much to say — and with the life experience she’s had as an entertainer for so many years, rightly so. On Sunday Nicks was a lively conversationalist, letting her sense of humor shine while telling the crowd about her early days with Fleetwood Mac in the 1970s, how her debut solo album hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 1981, and what’s currently on her mind in 2024.
Who wouldn’t want to hear what Stevie Nicks has to say? This January it’ll be 50 years since the 1975 lineup of Fleetwood Mac (with Nicks) came to be, a musical ride that followed humble beginnings alongside eventual Mac co-star Lindsey Buckingham with the Buckingham Nicks project, and preceded the ascent of her solo career.
Nicks’ concert at Mohegan Sun Arena featured setlist staples like “Dreams,” “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” “Stand Back,” “Leather and Lace,” “Rhiannon,” “Gypsy” and an encore of “Landslide,” a beautiful tribute to late best friend and bandmate Christine McVie. Mixed in with the chart-toppers were the singer-songwriter’s stories, almost like mini lessons on the history of Nicks’ path.
During a quick restroom break my husband overheard someone making small-talk wisecracks at the urinal: “She talks a lot, huh?” I grew up with a parent who’d listen to Fleetwood Mac albums on repeat. I could listen to her voice telling stories 100 times over and still find it soothing. We didn’t find the bathroom joke funny, but it was amusing timing.
As though she could sense what someone, somewhere, was saying, a charming Nicks was actually on stage poking fun at herself: “I’m trying, I’m making a big effort to shorten down my stories. My stories are starting to become as long as the show,” she quipped at the start of a 13-minute introduction to her performance of 1982 single “Gypsy.”
“Every time I do it, I mess up,” she said. “I take a part off, it’s impossible to understand where I’ve stopped and where I should start up again. I’m only sharing this with you because it’s part of the fun of being my age.”
“I’m so old … What’s everybody gonna say to me? ‘Stop! You can’t do this anymore!’ I’ll say, ‘OK. Fine. I’ll just go home and be alone in a rocking chair with my dog Lily,” Nicks said with a grin.
Below, see five of the best moments from Stevie Nicks’ concert at Mohegan Sun Arena. Nicks is currently on tour through June 21 in North America, then heading to Europe in July. See the full tour date list on her official website.
Stevie Arrives in Style for Her Show
06/10/2024
The weekend was packed with performances of new songs, killer costumes and more.
06/10/2024
Jon Bon Jovi has been making the rounds lately to talk up Bon Jovi‘s new album, Forever, as well as to promote the recent Hulu series, Thank You, Goodnight – The Bon Jovi Story, which chronicles the Jersey band’s history and his long, hard road back from vocal cord surgery in 2022.
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The one thing he hasn’t really done, though, is perform a set with the band as he tests whether all the work he’s been doing to strengthen his voice has paid off. But on Friday night the band hit the stage at the singer’s new Nashville bar, JBJ’s, for a special mini-set to celebrate opening night. And, by the sounds of the fan videos of the pop-up gig Bon Jovi is in fine form.
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According to Setlist.fm, the set opened with “Blood on Blood” (from 1988’s New Jersey) and included “We Weren’t Born to Follow,” “You Give Love a Bad Name,” “Born to Be My Baby” and the Forever single “Legendary.”
Wearing a black t-shirt, jeans and a white sneakers, at the top of the show Bon Jovi welcomed the capacity crowd to the bar and said, “we’re just gonna play you a couple and then we’ll get to drinking.” Bon Jovi recently said that he doesn’t think the band can do a full tour in support of the album, so the club show was a rare treat for the group’s fans.
The Tennessean reported on Bon Jovi and the band’s first walk-through of the five-story Broadway bar — now the tallest one on the city’s main drag — during a media preview on Thursday. The singer was joined by drummer Tico Torres, keyboardist David Bryan and bassist Hugh McDonald as they unveiled the 37,000 square-foot space. “It’s like Christmas morning. I knew this space as a parking lot,” Bon Jovi said. “We came once during the construction, but we haven’t seen the finished product until today.”
According to the paper, the open floor plan includes all the levels opening up to a three-tiered stage on the ground floor, with the walls covered in Bon Jovi pictures spanning the group’s four-decade career and bathrooms bearing sings for “Tommy” and “Gina.”
Four decades later, Courteney Cox‘s fire is still burning. The Friends star hopped onto the viral “asking my mom how she danced in the ’80s” TikTok trend on Sunday (June 9) when she posted a video featuring her Reagan-era moves by throwing back to the moment that started it all for her. Explore See latest […]
Connecting via Zoom from across the pond, Roger Daltrey declares with great exuberance, “I’m actually looking forward to a tour! I’m out there to have a good time this time.”
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Daltrey doesn’t mean to cast aspersions on his many treks with The Who, mind you — most recently the symphonic tours he and Pete Townshend began in 2019. But his upcoming nine-date North American run, which kicks off June 12 in Vienna, Va., is something else entirely, described as “a mostly acoustic set of Who gems, rarities, solo nuggets and other surprises,” along with Q&A opportunities for the audiences.
“I’ve done all those years with The Who, and I’ve done my solo stuff and charity gigs and all that,” Daltrey tells Billboard. “I just want to branch out and do something different, where I’ve got different instrumentation and I can stop using tape loops. It just creates a whole new sound and allows me the freedom as a singer to put some other people’s songs in I’ve been fond of over the years. It’s gonna be quite interesting. I’m just determined to enjoy myself and explore the freedom I’ve got to do what I want to do on this tour, and let’s see where it ends up.”
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Don’t ask what those songs will be, however.
“I’m not gonna talk about songs,” Daltrey says. “Too many people reveal songs. There’s no surprises left with concerts these days, ’cause everybody wants to see the setlist. I’m f–king sick of it. The Internet’s ruined the live shows for me. Who wants to know what’s coming next? People forget about surprises. I can’t stand it.”
Maybe, it’s suggested, that it’s just an audience with weak bladders who want to pick the right spot to visit the loo? “Why not just start to listen to the bloody show in the toilet, then?” he says with a laugh.
One song Daltrey expects to perform is The Who opus “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” but, he adds, “We don’t use a tape loop for the instrumentation. We do it on real instruments. It just takes it off the rails and gives me more room as a singer.” That said, Daltrey notes, “I’m not gonna do the scream. I’m gonna get the f–king audience to do the scream. I’ve done that scream for 55 years, and I’ve had enough of it. I don’t even want to try it now; it’s brutal on the vocal cords. They can do the scream, and I’ll do everything else. I’m more into singing these days. At the age of 80, I think I deserve to be.”
Daltrey’s band for the tour includes Who musicians Simon Townshend (Pete’s younger brother) on guitar, violinist Katie Jacoby and Billy Nicholls on mandolin and vocals, rounded out by Jody Linscott on percussion, guitarist Doug Boyle, bassist John Hogg, harmonica player Steve Weston, Geraint Watkins on keyboards and accordion and drummer Scott Devours. “I like to put bands together where we’re a real band and everybody gets the spotlight and there’s camaraderie,” Daltrey says. “To me a band is more than choosing great musicians; you can sometimes have five great musicians on stage and there’s no chemistry whatsoever and it falls flat on its face. That’s not gonna happen here.”
As for the Q&A part of the night, Daltrey did something similar for a show in England back in 2022 and enjoyed it. Fans will be able to submit written questions to boxes at the venues before the show, then the band will review them backstage and choose “the most interesting ones…and I just draw them out of a hat. It creates a great deal of fun, and you can get some good comedy out of it if you’re lucky.”
The tour, meanwhile, is just one of the projects Daltrey has in motion these days. He has no plans yet to record another solo album — his last, As Long as I Have You, came out in 2018 — but doesn’t rule it out, either. “I don’t really think about it,” he says. “If anything turns up that I find interesting and challenging and musically progressive, I’ll have a go at it.” Meanwhile he’s continuing to work on making a biopic about late Who drummer Keith Moon that he’s been plugging away at for many years; Daltrey has a script in place that will be finalized once he finds a director, which is the next step in the process.
“That’s taken up quite a lot of my time; I want to get this made while I’m still alive to promote it,” he says. “I’m trying not to make that (typical) kind of biopic. There’s some good ones out there; I thought the Amy Winehouse (Back to Black) was better than the reviews it got. I thought (star Marisa Abela) was really good, actually, ’cause I knew Amy. But was that a film? I’m not so sure. I think it’s a TV film, and that’s the problem cinema has at the moment. What are you making it for — streaming or theaters? And I suggest that if you’re making great films you’ve got to think of theater. You’ve got to take them into theater and blow their minds. You never get your mind blown on a TV, do ya?”
Daltrey is also contemplating a second book to follow his 2018 memoir Thanks a Lot Mr. Kibblewhite: My Story, one that will delve further into the shyness and insecurities he felt during the early days of The Who. “I didn’t really go deep enough in my first book,” he says. “Quite a lot of it was terrifying, but I didn’t show it. I need to write about it.” The Who itself, meanwhile, is back of mind for Daltrey, who claims that “I don’t really think about it.”
“I’ll do it if Pete wants to do it, really wants to do it and do it properly,” Daltrey explains. “As far as I’m concerned, do we need another Who tour? We were a great group and two of our members died, and it’s been different since. Equally, there’s a chemistry between Pete and I. I love him dearly. There’s something special there, but it needs us both to be on fire and both wanting to be there. So if he really, really wants to do it I’m gonna turn up even with a broken leg, and I’ll deliver for you.”
But if The Who never return, Daltrey says he’s satisfied the band did its bit — and then some. “We did as much as I could ever have wished for, and more. I thought it ended on the ultimate presentation of Pete Townshend’s music, which is out with the orchestra while maintaining the thunder of a rock band. That’s what the music deserved.”
Daltrey’s upcoming tour itinerary includes:June 12 / Wolf Trap – Filene Center / Vienna, VAJune 14 / OLG Stage at Fallsview Casino / Niagara Falls, ONJune 16 / Bethel Woods Center for the Arts / Bethel, NYJune 18 / The Capitol Theatre / Port Chester, NYJune 20 / Leader Bank Pavilion / Boston, MAJune 22 / Tanglewood – The Koussevitzky Music Shed / Lenox, MAJune 25 / Meadow Brook Amphitheatre / Detroit, MIJune 27 / Murat Theatre at Old National Centre / Indianapolis, INJune 29 / The Pavilion at Ravinia / Highland Park, IL
Robert Plant has mostly kept his Led Zeppelin past at arms-length since the group officially disbanded in 1980. But there are a few songs from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band’s catalog that he has revisited and revised over the years, including on his current Can’t Let Go summer tour with Alison Krauss. […]
Five Finger Death Punch extends its record streak of No. 1s on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, while featured artist DMX achieves a posthumous leader, as “This Is the Way” tops the June 15-dated survey.
The song is Five Finger Death Punch’s 11th straight Mainstream Rock Airplay No. 1, lengthening the longest streak of leaders in the chart’s 43-year history. The Ivan Moody-fronted band’s run began in 2018 with “Sham Pain.”
In all, Five Finger Death Punch boasts 15 No. 1s. That gives the band sole possession of the third-most in the chart’s history, breaking out of a tie with Foo Fighters and Metallica. Five Finger Death Punch first led in 2012 with “Coming Down.”
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Most No. 1s, Mainstream Rock Airplay:
19, Shinedown
17, Three Days Grace
15, Five Finger Death Punch
14, Foo Fighters
14, Metallica
13, Godsmack
13, Van Halen
12, Disturbed
As for DMX, “This Is the Way” is the late rapper’s first No. 1 on Mainstream Rock Airplay, logged in his first appearance on the tally. The track is a mashup of two songs, mixing vocals from his “The Way It’s Gonna Be,” released in 2009, and Five Finger Death Punch’s “Judgement Day,” from the band’s 2022 LP AfterLife.
DMX now sports two No. 1s on Billboard airplay charts. His previously ruled Rap Airplay for six weeks in 2000 with “Party Up (Up in Here).” He died of a heart attack on April 9, 2021.
Concurrently, “This Is the Way” holds at its No. 9 high on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 3.3 million audience impressions, up 24%, in the week ending June 6, according to Luminate. On the most recent multimetric Hot Hard Rock Songs chart (dated June 8, reflecting data over May 24-30), the single ranked at No. 14, after reaching No. 4 in April; in addition to its airplay, it earned 576,000 official U.S. streams and sold 1,000 downloads.
“This Is the Way” is on the deluxe reissue of AfterLife, released April 5.
“The idea of collaborating with DMX had been in discussion for years, and it was a long and winding road to turn this particular item on our wish list into reality,” Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Zoltan Bathory said in a press release announcing the song. “He was a lyrical warrior, a true original who spoke his mind incorruptibly. We have always viewed DMX as the metalhead of hip-hop because of his aggressive, raw and untamed style. He growled and snarled, aiming to rattle some cages – an attitude we share, as Five Finger Death Punch has always been drawn to the fearless and the real. It made all the sense in the world, but today this is more than just a song; it’s a salute to a legend, a way to honor DMX’s memory.”
AfterLife debuted at No. 1 on the Top Hard Rock Albums chart in September 2022 and has earned 276,000 equivalent album units to date.
Five Finger Death Punch is on tour in Europe through July, ahead of a return to the U.S. beginning in August.
All Billboard charts dated June 15 will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, June 11.
When artists set out to promote a new album, their publicists often encourage them to have “a story.” Mark Oliver Everett, otherwise known as E, frontman and chief songwriter of the band EELS, has a lollapalooza of a tale. His father, Hugh Everett III, developed the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Today, his theory powers the Marvel multiverse and countless other movies, TV shows and novels about parallel worlds, but Everett wasn’t recognized for his work until late in his brief life. He died of a massive heart attack in 1982.
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E, who was 19 then, discovered his father’s body, and, a decade later, endured the deaths of his sister, who committed suicide, and his mother, from cancer. Left without a family, he chronicled his experiences in EELS’ 1998 masterpiece, Electro-Shock Blues, and his inspirational and funny 2008 autobiography, Things the Grandchildren Should Know.
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In 2017, the Everett bloodline rebooted when E became a father at the age of 54. But the story does not end there. Shortly after the band’s post-pandemic Lockdown Hurricane tour, his CT scan revealed an aortic aneurysm, and E underwent open-heart surgery to have it repaired.
The health scare did not curb his creativity. On June 7, EELs released its 15th studio album since forming in 1996 (not counting his two solo records in 1992 and ’93). “After 25 or 30 years, whatever it’s been, our time has finally come. It’s finally EELS time,” he says — which, if you put an exclamation point at the end, is the album’s title.
EELS TIME!
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After a spate of hard-rocking songs, EELS TIME! finds E, now 61, in a contemplative and grateful mindset accentuated with a poppier sound. Below, E discusses the album’s collaborative efforts with All-American Rejects frontman Tyson Ritter, the poignant music video for “Time,” which depicts three generations of the Everett family, and much more.
You’ve experienced quite a lot over the last few years: fatherhood, divorce, open-heart surgery.
It’s always something right? I got used to that a long time ago.
You’ve had quite a lot of experience with mortality. How is dealing with your mortality different from dealing with the deaths of loved ones?
Well, the one thing I don’t have any experience in is hospital experience. I’ve never been in a hospital before, which was a great run. I’m thankful for that. I was in the hospital for a week, so that’s a big deal. It turned out great. I’m totally good as new now.
It’s great that you were staying on top of your health.
It’s the one good thing that came out of my father having a heart attack and dying at 51. Doctors would tell me heart stuff can be very hereditary so keep an eye on stuff. Get scans. Whatever the best scan is technology-wise, get that. It was a CT chest scan that discovered the problem. [My condition] was not related to what happened to my father. It’s a different thing, but it’s still a heart related-thing and it’s only because of his early death that I found out about it.
How did working with Tyson Ritter change your creative process? Did you collaborate in the same room or were you throwing stuff back and forth via email?
It’s funny because we found out we were neighbors and literally live three blocks away from each other. But we did it all remotely. It was still the pandemic and I have a little kid in school. I didn’t want to be the asshole that shuts down his school by getting Covid.
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You also feature on indie-pop artist meija’s “Possum.” How did that come about?
The thing with Tyson started with me singing on a song he did, too. And then the meija thing happened. That just came out of the blue. A mutual friend contacted me and said, “Hey, this guy would really like to have you on a song.” He sent me the song, and I was like, “Oh, this is cool. Yeah, I’ll do it.” I even went so far as to be in the video.
“If I’m Gonna Go Anywhere” is one of my favorite songs on the album. It has a Bobby Gillespie/Primal Scream vibe,
That one is all credit to Tyson, by the way. That’s his musical doing. I’m singing and writing lyrics mostly on that.
In the chorus, you sing that if you’re going anywhere, you’re going “there.” Where is “there”?
There is simply if you have a choice to make, why not make the nice choice. Why not choose love.
“Sweet Smile” is like that, too.
That’s exactly what “Sweet Smile” is about. Sometimes I’ll be walking down the sidewalk and I’ll realize I’m not scowling but I’m not smiling. I’ll think smile. And I’ll smile and it’s weird. It’s like, everything feels better and easier when you smile. With that song, I wanted to to write my version of [The Seekers] “Georgy Girl.” Just a nice, innocent song about walking down the street.
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“We Won’t See Her Like Again” seems to be about someone you lost. I realize not every song is autobiographical, but I’m wondering if you wrote that about your mother or sister, who you lost at a young age.
I wrote that one with Chet from the EELS, and I don’t feel like it was specifically about anybody at the time. A lot of the songs that I’ve done over the years I can’t access if there is a personal experience that I’m writing about. And years later, I’ll look back and go, “Oh, that’s what I was writing about.” I think it’s a coping mechanism that helps me write unfiltered — to not let myself know that I’m disclosing all these things about myself in some cases.
When I hear “I Can’t Believe It’s True,” I’m thinking could E have found love?
Yeah, I’m hoping that song will be one that people will play at their weddings. We’ve had songs go on to become really popular that we never would have thought of as a single at the time they were released. They take on this big life because of being played at weddings or whatever. Really, the inspiration in the back of my mind was thinking about my kid. So, maybe it can be played at weddings and births.
Has your son Archie formed his own band yet?
No, I got him a little drum set because he’s at the exact age that I was when I started playing drums. And I didn’t want to push it on him. He likes to bang around on everything, but he has not shown anywhere near the kind of interest I had in it so far. But that’s fine.
It’s there if he decides he’s into it, but also I think I should probably get him an instrument that would make [him] more money.
In the letter you published on the EELS website a few days ago, you wrote that you almost lost your mind during the first part of the Lockdown Hurricane show. What was overwhelming you?
First of all, I was super jetlagged. Going to Europe overnight; that always makes me crazy. We hadn’t played in almost four years or something because of the pandemic. You might remember the pandemic. So, we finally got out there to play, and it was an extreme culture shock for me because it was the double whammy of being a new father — a new divorced father — during those years of lockdown. I got really used to nobody caring about me. Do you know what I mean? When you’re a father, you’re the last person in the family anyone gives a shit about. Then suddenly, from the first show of the first tour in almost four years, it was like everybody super cared about me and it really fucked with my head. I didn’t know how to process it, and I didn’t know how to act. I don’t get stage fright normally. I’m usually very comfortable being on stage, but I started to have a panic attack right before the first show. For the first week, I was just insane. Then I got my bearings, and it was, “Okay, it’s coming back to me now. I know how to do this.” I’m sure a lot of people have gone through situations like that from being in such an extreme situation during the lockdown years and then being thrown out. Then it was great. It was like, “Oh, people. This is fun.”
Will you be touring behind this album?
I don’t know when we’re going on tour yet. The last one took a lot out of me. It was a good one, and we worked really hard. But since we just went, it might be too soon to go right now. Maybe we’ll go in late summer or the fall. We don’t know yet.
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“Song for You Know Who” is about not repeating the missteps of the past and forgiveness. Is that directed at yourself or someone else?
I’ll never tell. My favorite thing about that song is going to become my least favorite thing about it, too, which is that everyone I know is going to suspect it’s about them. I couldn’t resist calling it that because I just thought, it’s going to drive everybody crazy around me. But I’ll never tell.
The video for “Time” is very poignant and emotional to watch. And having read your book, understanding the sense that you had no family and to see now you do have family, it’s really touching. Did that idea just come to you or was it something that you wanted to do for a long time?
When I wrote and recorded the song I didn’t have the video concept in my mind. It wasn’t until later – I can’t remember what sparked I, but I just thought, “Oh, wait a minute. There’s three verses. We can do photos of my dad in the first verse.” It fits the theme of each verse.
Then the second one where it says, “I’m riding on the train, I’m ready to stop anywhere and see what’s out there,” that’s like young me going into teenage me and EELS me. Then the last verse is about how I want to be here and I don’t want to ever leave because I like being close to the ones I love, and that’s my son.
The beard looks very strong in the “Time” video
That was filmed the day after I came home from our tour, and I couldn’t wait to get rid of the beard. That was my pandemic beard, and I was like, “Oh, we’re finally going on tour. I’ll save it for that. It’ll look cool onstage or whatever.” Then I couldn’t wait to get rid of it by the end of the tour because a beard like that is a lot of maintenance and a lot of work. So I called the director of the video and said, “I’m going to get rid of the beard.” He was like, “No, just keep it for one day after the tour and we’ll shoot it then.” The next day I trimmed it down extensively.
Okay, so you’re not in Fidel Castro territory anymore.
At the moment, no. But it can always come back. It comes back overnight if I want it to. I’ve got a lot of testosterone.
Veteran Southern California pop punkers The Offspring announced the details of their upcoming 11th studio album, SUPERCHARGED, on Friday morning (June 7) and dropped the LP’s first single, the head-bopping “Make It All Right.” The 10-track record is due out on Oct. 11 via Concord Records. In a statement, singer Dexter Holland said that SUPERCHARGED […]
From Motown to mobility, the “Live From Detroit: The Concert at Michigan Central” show Thursday night (June 6) covered many bases of the Motor City’s fabled music heritage — as it re-opened a historic landmark making a comeback from desolation.
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The event brought out the hometown hero likes of Eminem (who co-executive produced the concert with his manager, Paul Rosenberg), and who made the crowd go nuts when he hopped on stage for a surprise four-song mini-set that included the live debut of his new single, “Houdini” and a collaboration with Jelly Roll.
Diana Ross, Jack White, Big Sean, Slum Village and gospel greats the Clark Sisters and Kierra Sheard were also on hand to celebrate the refurbished Michigan Central. The former railroad station in the city’s southwest side had been shuttered since 1988 and became what Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan called “a symbol of our decline” as it fell into disrepair. The Ford Motor Co. purchased the building in 2018, spending a reported $940 million to turn it into a center for advanced technological development in transportation and other fields.
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That meant a lot to White, who grew up in the same neighborhood. Before the show, he told reporters he’d ride his bicycle over to the site during the 80s and watched it deteriorate as he began his music career. “If you’d have asked me then if this place was ever coming back… there’s no way. It’s just too massive a job,” White said, calling the renovation, “just incredible.”
It was also personal for Patti Smith, who attended to accept a special pre-show Michigan Central Honor — along with White, Slum Village and the late J Dilla — for contributions as global ambassadors for Detroit. Smith, who shared her honor with her late husband and MC5 veteran Fred “Sonic” Smith (daughter Jesse Paris accompanied her), told Billboard that, “Fred loved the train station, and he would fantasize about it being restored and opened to the people. He really talked about it quite a bit, so I know that this would have made him very happy. It means something to me that there honoring him, as he should be, and I’m happy to be included with him.”
During the Honors ceremony Smith also represented Eminem by reading a 2009 love letter he wrote to Detroit professing his love for the city.
The show itself — which was streamed on Peacock and will be edited into a one-hour NBC special at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday (June 9) — was a nearly two-hour party celebrating the city and its musical heritage, but with a global perspective. “We’ve been invested in trying to rebrand the image of the city and how people see it for a long time,” Rosenberg, who worked in conjunction with Jesse Collins Entertainment, explained to Billboard prior to the show. “The challenge was, ‘What kind of picture can we paint here that’s going to be interesting not just locally but nationally?’ We wanted to make a compelling program that’s going to interest people across the country, not just people who are familiar with Detroit.
Rosenberg added that he and Eminem used the adage “as goes Detroit, so goes the nation” — from a 1942 Arthur Pond essay in The Atlantic — “as a framework… all these ideas about how the city is viewed not just locally but nationally to help frame the program.”
Starting with a Motown legend didn’t hurt, of course. Ross, clad in a mass of tangerine tulle, began the night with singalong version of her solo hits “I’m Coming Up” and “Upside Down,” plus the title track from her 2021 album Thank You before finishing with a soaring take of the Supremes’ anthem “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” “It’s so good to be home,” Ross said before leaving the stage. “I love you so much.”
Big Sean shared the love as well, saluting Michigan Central as “a diamond that came out of the rough” while delivering a three-song set that included the new “On Up” — a new album is coming this summer, he told the crowd — as well as hits “Blessings” and “Bounce Back,” accompanied by Adam Blackstone & the BBE All Star Band. A Detroit legend who wasn’t there, Bob Seger, was nevertheless saluted by a trio of Melissa Etheridge (“Mainstreet”), Fantasia (“Shakedown”) and Jelly Roll (“Turn the Page,” sporting a Detroit Tigers baseball cap) before the three united to close the tribute with a truncated but exuberant take on “Old Time Rock and Roll.”
“I’ll be Forever Soul, but there’s a little rock in me,” Fantasia told Billboard, invoking the name of her new company. “I wanted that challenge.”
Common was an out-of-towner in the house — though, being from Chicago, he told the Detroit crowd “we’re cousins” — as he recited “Didn’t One Know,” his tone poem about J Dilla. Slum Village also gave props to the late Baatin and Amp Fiddler as the duo performed Fail in Love” and “Get Dis Money,” the latter with Dilla’s younger brother Illa J and both with the Blackstone band. “We’re always gonna represent the legacy,” the group’s T3 said before the concert. Common joined Slum Village to close the segment with a poignant rendition of “The Light.”
The Clark Sisters, in glittery gold dresses and joined by the Greater Emmanuel Choir, then took the estimated 20,000 fans to church with “Livin’” and “Blessed & Highly Favored” before backing Sheard — daughter of Karen Clark-Sheard — on a powerhouse version of her “Miracles.” Sheard stayed on stage for the Clarks’ signature hit “You Brought the Sunshine,” a stunner even if the sky was turning dark.
A pair of DJs, Theo Parrish and Sky Jetta, represented Detroit’s famed techno heritage, while White brought the rock and the White Stripes with “some songs that were written a couple blocks from here” — debuting a new two-keyboard band lineup on “Hotel Yorba” and a “Seven Nation Army” that was literally on fire as (planned) pyrotechnics and flames erupted to accent the anthem.
And while Eminem — who filmed parts of the video for his 2009 single “Beautiful” in the then-abandoned Michigan Central — was not billed as a performer when the show was announced, it surprised few that he closed the evening. Joined by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra the hoodied rapper presented the live debut of “Houdini,” the just-released first single from his upcoming The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace) album (July 5), then “Sing For the Moment” with Jelly Roll, “Welcome 2 Detroit” with Trick Trick and a bombastic “Not Afraid,” which was followed by a short show-ending fireworks display.
“Timing worked out for us fortunately great because we just dropped a single — that wasn’t always the case when we agreed to jump on board,” Rosenberg noted. “We weren’t sure we were going to have new music out. It happened to work out great, and it became an opportunity to perform a new song.”
Dionne Harmon, president of Jesse Collins Entertainment — which also produces Super Bowl halftime shows and a variety of awards shows, among other events — told Billboard that the universal appeal of the artists ultimately opened the door for “Live From Detroit” to be a streaming and network special. “Everybody knew this wasn’t just a Detroit story or an American story, but a global story,” she said. “So we started looking for a partner who could help us tell this story. We’ve done a lot of work with NBC in the past; when we took this to them they fell in love with the story and the city, the same way we did.”
The performers, meanwhile, bought into the idea of telling that story together. “These things, you never know how they’re gonna turn out, who’s gonna show up and who’s gonna be invited,” said White, who attended the same high school as Ross and Big Sean. “When they were first talking about Eminem and Dian Ross and Slum Village I thought, ‘Wow, if that really happens..’”
“It’s one of the biggest events Detroit’s ever seen,” Slum Village’s T3 gushed. “Even the other artists I just met today, like Jelly Roll, which was super cool… We’re having a good time out here, and it’s just a beautiful event.”