| Concert Review of Kid Rock in Chicago, IL on 03/12/2004 |
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Kid Rock defends everyone's right to party
Rap-rock hedonist is a formidable showman
By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
Published March 15, 2004
Kid Rock's the "all-American" they didn't tell you about in school.
Forget about mom and apple pie. This is the America that adores guns and hard liquor that Rock sings, raps and brags about, and a nearly full house Friday at Allstate Arena reveled in his celebration of trailer-park hedonism. In this era of post-Super Bowl cultural lockdown, it was refreshing--even darn near heartening at times--to hear the erstwhile Robert Ritchie of Romeo, Mich., stand up for everyone's right to get stupid once in a while.
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Equally comfortable wearing a pimp's derby or a white cowboy Stetson, and a self-proclaimed lover of both Johnny Cash and Grandmaster Flash, Kid Rock is an equal-opportunity hedonist. The black-clad rap-rocker, a nine-piece band and a prodigious arsenal of fireworks and pyrotechnics made for an eye-popping display of hockey-rink rock. Four strippers writhed on risers flanking the stage and an orgy of ear-shattering special effects punctuated nearly every song.
Best known in the tabloid press as the off-again, on-again squire of a certain silicone-enhanced "actress," Rock has also sold tens of millions of albums in a career that bloomed in 1999 after 10 years of relative anonymity in the Detroit clubs. His music makes no pretense to significance--in one song Friday he derisively jabbed at British art-rockers Radiohead--but instead strives for the kind of blue-collar appeal that turned Detroit forebears such as Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder and Grand Funk Railroad into stars.
He's the people's rock 'n' roller, the Kid would have us believe, and he's updated his '70s rock populism with more than a touch of rap's swaggering rhymes and larger-than-life sense of identity.
He grabbed a bar stool and sat center stage with guitarist Kenny Olson and harmonica-player Jimmie Bones for a talking blues in which Rock outlined his agenda, dipped in sarcasm, if he were "president for just one day." Under President Rock, there'd be Monday Night Football every day of the week and Lynyrd Skynyrd on every radio station. He'd also provide a paid vacation "to all the good women raising our children" and "turn the churches into strip clubs."
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