Mike Inez & Jerry Cantrell don’t give a s#^*.
(Come to think of it, Sean doesn’t either)
This is a character trait that I enjoy in them, mainly because I don’t have it, and I couldn’t do what they do.
Well, basically what I’m trying to say is that Mike Jerry & Sean don’t care if you boo them, and once in a while they even go out of their way to encourage it.
And that’s what happened last night in Detroit.
Don’t get me wrong. They all want to be liked, and they appreciate that they have fans and people that respond to their music.
It’s just that occasionally they don’t mind saying, doing, or wearing something that they know will incite a negative reaction.
But before we get into that, let’s go over something obvious.
Rock Star Handbook: Chapter 1, page 1.
How to get cheap applause :
2) Mention local sports team.
4) If you’re the opening band, mention the headliner.
All performers know this.
And all performers do one or more of the above.
But occasionally, certain members of Alice In Chains will go in the opposite direction, and last night in Detroit it was Jerry’s turn.
The band was between songs and Jerry started talking about the last time he was at Ford Field, which was when the Seahawks lost the Superbowl to the Steelers in 2006.
There were a few boos after he mentioned the teams, so he decided to up the ante by bringing up the fact that the Detroit Lions have never won a Super Bowl, unlike the Seahawks and the Steelers.
Which of course led to a cascade of boos.
I’ve written it several times before, and I’ll say it again; Detroit has some of the best music fans in America.
But if you insult their sports teams, they’re gonna let you hear it.
And they definitely let Jerry hear it.
But the booing died down, the next song started up, and all was quickly forgiven.
After a few more songs, the band finished off a quick 50 minute set, and we hung around to watch a bit of GNR before the long drive to Virginia.
Two things happened during that time that are worth mentioning here.
Firstly, Guns N’ Roses went on.
In fact, their intro music started 4 minutes EARLY.
So just in case you’re headed to an upcoming show, pay attention to start times, because they might actually mean something this time out.
Secondly, Sean walked out in the crowd during GNR’s set and saw something none of us had ever seen at a rock show before.
A guy, alone, with tap shoes on.
Tap dancing to Guns N’ Roses.
I wish I had been there to see that, but just the visual itself is pretty good, so I thought I’d pass that along.
And finally, let’s tie a bow on this blog by discussing how night #1 of the tour ended.
We have a new bus driver on this tour, and we also have a new bus.
So everyone was getting used to the new surroundings and trying to get acclimated to sleeping on a bus again after 10 months off from doing it.
It was a long drive and no one was sleeping particularly well, so around 5:30 or 6:00 A.M., Jerry asked the driver to stop so he could grab some breakfast.
Long story short, Jerry Cantrell got oil spotted at a Flying J truckstop on the first night of the tour.
(If you don’t know what it is and you missed my blog from Mexico City in 2013 when it happened to me at the airport, oil spotting is being left behind by your entire group)
Thankfully Jerry had his phone with him or things would have been way worse, but he eventually got Sean to answer after unsuccessfully calling our sleeping tour manager, and we turned around and grabbed him.
Was it karmic payback for what Jerry said to the Detroit fans during the show?
I don’t know about that, but it did provide me with a way to wrap up the first entry of this tour, and it might make a few Detroit Lions fans smile, so there you go.
The 2016 summer tour is underway…
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