'Somehow Detroit wound up in Ohio for a minute'
Leave it to Rolling Stone magazine to give us the behind-the-scenes look at Bruce Springsteen's geography fiasco at the Palace concert last Friday night. To hear E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt tell it, Springsteen knew he was in the Detroit area, but somehow confused it with being in the state of Ohio.
In the process, Van Zandt leaves the impression that the crowd -- those Detroit rowdies! -- was going to tear The Boss apart for his road-weary cluelessness.
"I'm like, 'Please, God, don't give him a chance to do it again before I get a chance to talk to him.' Sure enough, he did it a third time and I'm like, 'That's it. This crowd is about to rebel. They're going to attack us!'"
Detroit radio talk show host Jay Towers this morning claimed the crowd was actually pretty mellow about the Ohio shoutouts because they were enjoying the concert so much.
This isn't exactly a monumental blunder. When musicians play so many concerts, there seems to be a certain inevitability about losing track of which concert venue you're in. After all, The Boss knows Motown well, having played a special strike benefit concert in Detroit in the mid-1990s.
But Van Zandt's attempt at damage control still sounds a little odd: "I guess the last gig was Cleveland. Maybe it was that. He didn't have the city wrong. In his mind, he knew he was in Detroit, but somehow Detroit wound up in Ohio for a minute."
Or maybe he thought he was in Toledo, but forgot that Michigan ceded ownership of that city to Ohio in exchange for the Upper Peninsula when it applied for statehood? Hey, whatever works.
