D-Pollen 2004

It’s really impossible to describe what a visit to the Hasting Street Ballroom brings, but I’ll give a try – (otherwise why I am even doing this website).  First of all, there are threes stages and you can pretty much see something going on all the time on each of the stages.  It might be punk, garage, hard rock, a comedian, burlesque dancers or anything else for that matter.  That’s what make this festival so unique and worth attending.

I was there all three days and saw more acts than I can ever hope to in a couple of months of bouncing around the clubs in Detroit.  Luckily you get a handy little program to help you out with the logistics, but schedules change and bands get shifted around, so you can easily get confuses (especially on Sunday evening when they run the $1.00 beer special).

Friday night was cold and rainy, but that certainly didn’t stop me or a lot of other people from heading down there and collecting the coveted $20 weekend bracelet, which would stay on my hand for another 72 hours.  Based on the program and my hazy recollection I have managed to reconstruct most of my movements and they roughly seemed to coincide with the following bands: Pearlene, Doll Faces, Back in Spades, Capitol Cities, Salt Minors and Gypsy Kings.  I’m sure that I missed somebody along the way, but these acts really got the weekend rolling.

I’m really a rock & roll type, but the Salt Minors were extremely fun to watch even though I originally wandered into the Buzz Stage to get out of the rain.  I know absolutely nothing about folk or bluegrass and probably haven’t heard any since the Beverly Hillbillies theme song, but I was busy tapping my foot along with the music like everybody else.

Saturday night was just plain awesome – it started well and ended even better.  The Doll Rods were a blast to see as always and I’ve never one to skip a burlesque show, but the real reward came to those of us that stayed till the very end to see the Sights.  I have seen the Sights many times, but their performance that night just topped about anything I have seen in ages.  It was one of those perfect rock & roll moments that come along all to rarely.  The bend was just absolutely spent at the end of the show – I wish that I could work as hard at my job as the Sights do at theirs.

After all of this I refused to cut that wristband off, even though it was beginning to change color already so I headed back for one more night.  My main objective was the Tough & Lovely from Columbus, Ohio – about the only thing that I like from Buckeye capitol.  They didn’t disappoint and would have made the evening complete by themselves, but I was also lucky enough to catch New Grenada, the Blackouts, My T.V.’s and Downtown Brown (even though they’re not listed in my program.  All of these bands really rocked my Sunday night and New Grenada even covered a Buzzcocks song for me.  My evening and weekend finally ended with the Come On’s and I could get rid of the F-Pollen wristband before it became permanently embedded into my arm.

 Even though I probably missed more great music than I actually saw – I’m happy to say that D-Pollen has something for everybody and I can’t wait for the 2005 version.