wordplay by Brian Kenney

images by Sean Hartgrove

It seemed more like tractor pull had invaded downtown's Colorado Convention Center Lecture Hall.  It seemed like a WWE Smackdown event. Or a monster truck rally. The Convention Center, a venue usually reserved for motivational speakers, evangelical gatherings, and budding opera stars, was mobbed with by-day businessmen who had traded in their Burberry 3 button suits for white tank tops and trucker hats and stay at home soccer Moms who had traded in their comfortable terry cloth leisure wear for … white tank tops and trucker hats. The bar ran dry of Budweiser and Jim Beam. The crowd's trailers must've been parked somewhere more convenient and economical than the $10-$15 Convention Center rate.

The North Mississippi All Stars ignited as the opener, with brothers Cody and Luther Dickinson and bassist Chris Chew including a multi-dimension to their usual blues for brews sound, adding hip hop guest rapper Al Kapone over their usual Fog Hat/ZZ Top inspired riffs.

But from the first strands of "Bawitdaba" to the frenzied and frolicking sirens to the flame-thrown pyrotechnics to the Convention Center's Budweiser bottle neck-gripped fists raised high in salute, there was no doubt: Kid Rock was in town. 
   And he brought an entourage.
An arena-level rock and roll cornucopia white trash extravaganza: the Twisted Brown Trucker Band.

Lines ran long at the makeshift bars, brawls broke out over dirty looks, the sonic resonance peeled the paint off the walls; it was easy to see that the venue was not prepared. And by the time Rock took the stage in front of a Wild Turkey soused audience, it was clear, this show was larger than life, a runaway truck ramp of high octane jams, a redneck carnival sideshow stranger than fiction.

Supporting his most recent offering "Live Trucker" (released in February) Rock dodged many of the obstacles that plague live shows based on live albums, avoiding such pitfalls because of his raunchy and raucous stage show recalled the heyday of arena rock icons Kiss and Motley Crue. Certainly there were the pyrotechnics and lights and go-go dancers and stripper poles juxtaposed underneath wedding archways and a sheer rock faced wall of black Marshall amps. (What? No mechanical bull?)
 

But there was also Kid Rock himself, the legend, the public persona who is no longer merely Pamela Anderson's significant other, but a carnival act all his own, both barker and side show sharpie, and pimped out in a fur coat, he rose out of the stage, slamming into "I'm a redneck rock-n-roll Son of Detroit!" 
 

A giant screen narrated much of the show behind him; a necessary element of the gargantuan stage drama that is the Kid Rock show. The scrim acted both as a voice over and an interior monologue, with stills alternating between rock and roll's heroic photo tributes and snap shots from Rock's younger yesteryears as during his cover of Bad Company's "Feel like Making Love." Photos of an actual "kid" Rock offered a rare glimpse into a private life still guarded from the public and privatized for the sake of survival. 
 

What was gone but not forgotten was the pint-sized MC of this dirty circus: Joe C. His raps on "Devil without a Cause" are now piped in over the PA with his likeness playing out on the video screen. Existing as more than just a celluloid ghost, the memory of Joe C endures as integral ingredient of the show, a cornerstone, as much now as when he performed. In honor and sorrow, Rock steps to stage right and bows his head in remembrance. Robert James Ritchie has not forgotten his roots.
 

"I've fucked up from time to time," Rock tells the crowd in his narrative intro that plays out the hypothetic situation of Rock meeting St. Peter at the pearly gates of Heaven. "And I'll be cruising up to heaven in my '59 Cadillac and know my man Joe C will be waiting for me." He pauses a beat. The crowd goes ballistic. "And they'll let me in for one reason and one reason only…’cause you've never met a mother fucker quite like me!"
 

Between Rock's quick one off, side step, musical montage complete with splices of "let me hear you say" punk rock (and a sample of The Ramones) and "let me hear you say" hip hop (with Sugar Hill Gang sampled) and "let me hear you say" southern rock (samples of Lynyrd Skynyrd), the Kid overtly tips his hats to every influence that has ever crossed his transom. He plucked gems for his set list; "Where You at Rock?" "Jackson, Mississippi" and encore "Cowboy" with enough substance to garner Rock the props that he, along with Hank Williams Jr. and Waylon Jennings, may fulfill the "holy trinity of trucker rock." But it was the self-reflective Rock that let the crowd into a heavily guarded Detroit-born gone-Hollywood persona non grata. 
 

As the night belonged to tribute and nostalgia, the audience was reminded just how many of our idols we’ve lost in years past. His rousing version of America the Beautiful, with Skynyrd's Ronnie Van Zant gracing the back drop segued into a sobering highlight of the evening: a cover of Dobie Gray's "Drift Away." 
 

Kid Rock's cover eviscerated the song's emotional content, not only from Rock himself, but from the crowd, mainly due to the rolling still life tribute behind him: Elvis, Johnny Cash, John Lennon. The biggest cheers of the night went to Kurt Cobain and Jam Master Jay.

Stepping back into a ferocious tempo, Rock, in true showmanship, exercised his versatility; stepping onto DJ Paradime's decks to spin classics, albeit classics 20 years past their prime but classics nonetheless. This keeps with his theme: nostalgia and soul. As the ever exhilarant Rock slides into (former Detroit Cobra's) guitarist Kenny Tudrick's Gibson Firebird for such quick sampled licks from "Walk this Way" to "La Grange," he brings to mind that everyday kid with a rock and roll dream. 
 

He eventually found his way to a banjo to trade bluegrass bars with metal guitarist Jason Krause, finally meandering to the keyboards where, sounding rusty on the keys and never venturing away from a single middle C Chord, Twisted Brown Trucker keyboardist Jimmie Bones took over for him. 

Touring on a live album can be at times complacent and predicable but it can also be safe. Rock's Twisted Brown Trucker band does what it can to avoid this complacency, each member bringing their own energy equal to or greater than Rock himself. Denver native, drummer Stefanie Eulinberg in particular earns proper rave reviews, driving the back beat that kept Rock spinning on his heels all evening. 

Rock's set list rarely varied from the features on "Live Trucker," with the whole show staying safe enough avoiding the promotional "new stuff" fans hate enough to use as an excuse for a bathroom break. At the same time, there was no risk taking in the show, no artistic growth and little new Rock. At times the night became as predicable as the bands he praised -ZZ Top, Journey, Bad Company, etc- who still tour and still play the same classic calculated set list night in and night out 20 years after their heyday.

We don't want to see Rock go in the same direction. The Kid has and always will reinvent himself. (He was in the game for a full 10 years before Devil Without a Cause came out in 1998) And we'll wait for some sort of musical rebirth, for him to go the Beastie Boys route, rather than the Flavor Flav route. Reinvent rather then regurgitate. If nothing else, "Live Trucker" and Rock's traveling redneck circus proves that he still has the capacity to entertain.

www.KidRock.com