I’ve always tried to use the term “pop music” loosely, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. really takes it all over the map.
Best known for wearing Nascar racing outfits onstage, the band took things to a different place on this tour. First, they came out in matching “Corporations Are People Too” t-shirts in promotion of their new album It’s A Corporate World. This is clearly an ironic twist, as I think everyone who has seen or heard this band would agree that a few young dudes from Detroit with scraggly long hair that play in an eccentric pop band would be the last individuals to be a part of a corporation.
But whatever the band’s actual attitude on corporations is, it is definitely clear they still strongly hold onto their hometown love for Detroit.
In a slight departure from the synth-pop sound of many of their other songs, the band performed the more bluesy Gil Scott Heron cover “We Almost Lost Detroit” in shiny, puffy Detroit letterman jackets. But you can see the band perform the song in their Nascar get-up and with their odd rotary phone microphone (which also made an appearance at the DC show) here:
The band also did an homage to R.E.M. in the wake of the recent news that the group is officially breaking up by performing “Everybody Hurts,” which gave the show a moment of slow-down and a break from flash and surprise for a few moments.
For their encore, however, it was an entirely different story; the band came out under black lights in blazers painted with brightly colored squares reminiscent of their Horse Power EP. Bubble machines and light boxes flashing “JR” were kicked into high gear as the band did a cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”
Crammed in the sold-out upstairs of the Red Palace’s venue space was the perfect place to hear this song, as the entire crowd erupted in dancing and singing as soon as those first synth notes were played.
Despite their light, bubbly demeanor, many indie pop bands today make it clear that they take themselves and their music very seriously, only making New Yorker-level intellectual jokes and coming from the most recently gentrified corner of Brooklyn or some similarly hip town. I must say, it is simply refreshing to see a band from the Rust Belt dance around with bright outfits and stage props and do a Whitney Houston cover.
Photos: Sarah Gormley
