I spent the weekend at the Movement Festival (formerly known as the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. In thinking about it, I wanted to take a quick moment to make a pitch *for* Detroit, which is something you don't hear real often.
For all the problems we have here in Motown, there aren't a lot of places that do this kind of stuff. Detroit has at least four gigantic and completely free music festivals every summer.
1) Downtown Hoedown: 3 day country music festival in mid-may at Hart Plaza (FREE)
2) Movement Festival: 3-day 4-stages electronic music festival attracting nearly a million people every year so far (FREE)
3) Comerica Tastefest: Showcase for Detroit area restaurants featuring live music from major local and national artists (Four Stages) (FREE)
4) Ford Detroit International Jazz Festival (formerly Montreaux): 3-day 4-stage Jazz music festival featuring local and national acts (FREE)
Here's a short list of the artists you could have seen for free in the last year:
Chaka Khan, Brothers Groove (twice), Roberta Flack, Natalie Cole, Joey DeFrancesco, Marcus Belgrave Trumpet Summit, Kevin Saunderson and Kenny Larkin, Amp Fiddler, Stacey Pullen, Carl Craig, Francois K, Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Charlie Daniels Band, LeAnn Rimes, SheDAISY, Cake, Buddy Guy, The Romantics, Wilco, Ritchie Hawtin (Plastikman), John Aquaviva.
Movement was cool this year. Here's a couple of pictures to give you a sense of it.
There are usually several other events and free concerts to be found in the city. So, as much as there are real problems here, I wanted to point out one of the incredibly cool things about living in the most dangerous city in America.
Detroit News Article on Movement
http://www.lacoccinelle.net/traduction-chanson-2978-.html
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&e=4&u=/ap/detroit_devotees
Yeah, most of the stuff in that story is pretty right on. Not having kids to put through school definitely changes things. Maybe its different downtown, but out here property taxes are lower than low. (Read: less than $1G/yr for a 140 x 80 lot). The bus isn't terrible, but having been to San Fran, I know it could be a lot better (I love the SF bus system). Downtown mass xit (ie PeopleMover) is pitiful. But I can't help it, I like it here and am committed. And stubborn.
The west side of the state is nicer. Just not much to do. Except look at my fishy's. And drive to Chicago.