From the Hinterlands, an Amazing CAID Party

[Gannon]

Some of ya might have picked up that I'm spending a bit of time at the Detroit Contemporary division of the CAID collection of venues, improving their technology.

The Hinterlands theater troupe have been renting rehearsal time until their new space is finished, and they decided to throw a party Friday night.

They invited Monica Blaire, Passalaqua, and Tuende Olaniran to share the stage for what ended up being a very fresh and amazingly engaging night of music.

I don't know where to start with Monica Blaire. She blew me away from the first note during sound check, I didn't want her to stop when she dove into one of her favorite tunes to test the setup. She blends biting social commentary with audience participation and free-form experimentation that left the small crowd gasping for more. Her magnetism is simply too tough to fight, enter one of her performances at your own risk. You won't regret it.

The fellas of Passalaqua were down-to-Earth brilliant and funny and just so gosh-darned normal guys...that it is simply difficult to imagine the universes of infinite creativity that must exist in each of their nerdy noggins. I will never, ever miss another Passalaqua show, if I can help it. There may even be some collaboration in our futures, we discussed some of the fun I want to have with surround sound.

Tuende came down from Flint to grace us with a ethereality-royalistic performance. I say it that way, because he is the prince of pop of Flint...if not all of SE Michigan, to see how a few of the other musicians and the crowd were relating with him. To me, he is a humble and sweet solid rock of a person...who transforms mightily into the ultimate pop persona with a conscience, and conscious message to all...simply be true to you. His stage ensemble was broadened by two young women who somehow kept catwalk emotionless expressions throughout the set, while teaching us a deeper meaning to exhuberance through dance.

Any one of these folks would've been enough to overwhelm any party, but to have all three, with Passalaqua joining Tuende for his last number...was more than I can contain. Sorry for not announcing this in advance, or being more pro-active on the happenings at Detroit Contemporary-CAID...but I needed to make some changes before inviting too many by. We're about ready now.

After today's session with the excellent UofM student volunteers, we have entered into another phase in CAID's music space. More on that later, I'm still digesting all the wonderful stories and conversation I had while watching twenty-five pairs of eager hands helping this dream develop.


Cheers,
John