Taste Fest Part 1

For those never stranded in Detroit over July 4 weekend, BrooklynDodger wants you to know about Taste Fest.

http://www.newcenter.com/tastefest/info.htm

Years ago it started, when GM was in the GM building on Grand Boulevard. Close off the weekend-deserted Boulevard, get some restaurants doing no business over the holiday to set up stands, maybe some art fair-type stands as well, and a couple of stages with music. There's plenty of weekend-deserted parking for GM, Fisher Theater, etc.

Now, GM is gone to the Ren Cen [the William Crapo Durant Building is now the State of Michigan Cadillac Center, a takeover which was a gift from Gov. John Engler (R) to Detroit mayor Dennis Archer, not to endorse Geoffrey Feiger, the Democratic governor candidate.] But Taste Fest has a dynamic, especially in the music.

The taste part is maybe not that great. 4.80 for a 16 ounce budweiser, 6.00 for a chicken kabob sandwich from La Shish. And, no particular place to sit.

So, get this. Friday, July 1. Weather is cool - 70's at sundown. Los Lobos, for free, at 8 pm at the Motor City Casino Main Stage. Street and sidewalks jammed with people, like Times Square any weekend night, but still, this is Detroit where people never crowd together.

Where'd all these white people come from, mid town Detroit, sun going down? Median age looks maybe 40; younger than Symphony or Meadowbrook, but most are showing considerable tread wear. This is crowd about the same age as Los Lobos. Sitting in the Fisher Building parking lot, watching the sun go down behind Henry Ford Hospital. The crowd is fueled only on beer or maybe Jose Cuervo premixed, no weedy smell.

Los Lobos come on late but then do a great set with two encores. They cycle through some kind of LA mexican influenced rock, through up tempo blues, a polka [mexican music includes polkas and schottiches influence by tonality] , a series that sounds cajun [or, rock with the accordian guy from the polka still playing], to R and B and motown. Middle aged dudes and duddesses dancing in place...

Some life in the old town that wasn't there before.