Night 5 of Blowout 2013, May 3rd, 2013
The night started for me with a smattering of downtown Ferndale stereotypes. After I parked my car a nervous cougar (for real) asked me to walk her to Boogie Fever (for real), where her sister was having her bachelorette party (for real).
The first performance I saw was the last few songs of Almost Free's set at Rustbelt Market. Is that Love Meets Lusts' old lighting set up?
On that same block Michael Mars and the God Particle was playing at Found Sound. This band is comprised of one of the guys from Marco Polio and the New Vaccines. They don't quite meet the bar that's set by Marco Polio, by I was still in to it.
Pewter Cub of course had to be fashionably late at the Ferndale Library. I didn't stick around long enough to see if they would play their "radio" song, but they did do a great Pixies cover.
After circling around and sampling sounds that didn't impress me, it was back to the Ferndale Library for Pupils. The lead singer is the other guy from Marco Polio. This band just didn't do it for me, so it was time to look for something else.
Crane Wives have been getting some hype lately in anticipation of the Blowout performance at the Loving Touch, and they've also been cited as an example of too much "nu-country folk" bands on the lineup. I liked these guys, but I didn't love it.
Lightshow Bob has given his endorsement of the Ferndale expansion. He was running the lights from his self-made "lightar" at the Loving Touch. I never made it over to Kelly's Bar last weekend, but he was probably there too.
The last act of the night at Rustbelt Market was Jessica Hernandez and the Deltas. A great show from a band that I've been able to catch sporadically over the last few years. The Rustbelt was packed by this time. It was nice to some place other than the Loving Touch get a big crowd.
Back to the Loving Touch to see the Ragbirds. When I came into the room the fiddle player was doing an impressive sort of "Devil Went Down to Georgia" type thing, so I . In comparison to the Crane Wives, they can do the whole indie-folk thing better (or whatever you call folksy music that isn't being made for the country music crowd).
Bands I saw last night that I'm putting in the "whatever" category: White Shag, Joshua Davis Trio, Chris Degnore and the Black Drops, Palaces, and Pupils.
Downtown Ferndale doesn't have anything like Campau Tower, but it does have this food cart behind the WAB.
For those who might be worried that downtown Ferndale might be losing too much of its character this weekend, the cheesey night clubs were still open. I spotted the shiny shirt and garish jewelry crowd at John D. American Bistro, among other places.
Recommendations for Saturday night:
Fur, 10:50-11:20, at the Loving Touch
Electric Fire Babies, 11:50-12:30, at Como's
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I'm a dork, I live in the Detroit area, and sometimes I take blurry photos on an outdated camera
