 "Photo: Levon Kafafian -- For The South End")
 "Photo: Levon Kafafian / For The South End")
Bubbling up out of Maryland’s post-industrial center, the Baltimore Round Robin Tour came to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit on Oct. 8 and 9. Close to 30 artists and their crews drove up in what has been described as a traveling circus by the tour manager, Rose Chase.
Among this caravan of sorts were three trailers and a school bus powered by waste vegetable oil. Stopping in a total of eight major cities, the tour began on Oct. 2 and runs until Oct. 18. The tour is scheduled to spend two nights in each city to accommodate for the sheer number of acts. Pontiac’s Crofoot coordinated the Detroit dates of the tour.
Conceptually, the Round Robin Tour aims to give the audience a wholly unique experience, according to Chase. One of the major ideas of the tour was to encourage strong audience participation throughout the nights.
The bands were set up to surround the audience on all sides. Each played a song before shifting focus to the next band playing across the room. Moving as a singular organism, the crowd gravitated fluidly toward the music with each shift.
The tour organizers strongly encouraged a sense of performance beyond just music. Many of the bands had colorful and creative backdrops, videos, costumes and audience participation activities incorporated into their shows.
Not only unique in its approach to the concert layout, the Round Robin Tour also organized itself into two distinct nights of art. Eyes Night, the first of the two, focused on the visual and the experiential aspects of music and performance art. In contrast, the spirit of Feet Night was dance, or movement of the body in general.
EYES NIGHT
Featuring an intimate and visual approach, Eyes Night opened with what could be described as a meditative chant. Encircled by a chain of artists who held hands, spectators were packed together in the center of the room. Here, they were instructed to hum a low tone, slowly increasing higher and higher until dropping out in sync.
Members of the audience were free to express their vocal range, some experimenting with techniques in vibrato. Silence spoke for a moment before applause exploded from the artists and audience alike, connecting everyone in the room.
Amazingly, 12 bands were able to share the spotlight as there was no specific headlining act. Bouncing the audience from wall-to-wall, the bands would perform in a round, which consisted of one song from each. After one band played, the next would begin across the room and the crowd would shift and relocate themselves appropriately.
Allison Grugner, 23, described her amazement at the round-robin technique.
“This is f*cking brilliant,” Grugner said. “I am impressed how this is set up. Lesser known bands perform and everyone stays for the show.”
In addition to the innovative round-robin technique, the music was essential in furthering the uniqueness of the event. From folk to noise, chant to sound collage, the audience was driven to think and feel what they heard. Instruments were not limited to guitar, bass and drums, but included ukulele, home-made synthesizers and reel-to-reel players.
“It’s not as weird as I thought it would be,” said Gordon Smith, a music technology major and senior at Wayne State. “It’s actually more accessible.”
Performances by artists such as Ed Schrader, who featured a solo drum and scream act, or Blue Leader, who lectured over programmed music on the glory of video games, proved music could have humor and legitimacy rolled into one.
Breanna Cloonna of the Michigan College of Beauty commented that the music was “very inspiring.”
“Just being here inspires,” Cloonna said. “People are accepting and open at this time in music.”
FEET NIGHT
Reminiscent of childhood summer camp, the show began with several activities inclusive of both audience and performers. Dan Deacon took the role of the ultimate camp counselor, leading the room in action and then song, vividly animating his listeners.
During the first half hour, the crowd seemed under a trance, moving from position to position with enthusiastic intensity. As the night continued, various bands filled the enclosure with motion-inducing vibrations.
Apart from popular dancing styles, some bands played music that inevitably created quite a large mosh pit in the crowd. Among these bands were The DeathSet and Nuclear Power Pants, whose members looked like radioactive shark men from the 1980s.
A barrage of swooping owls, moving at near breakneck speeds, were among the animations adorning the walls behind a few of the bands.
Other visuals, such as inter-splicing cartoon characters, like Puff the Magic Dragon and the Berenstain Bears, with live action shots, also gave the audience something to keep their eyes as entertained as their feet.
Lizz King, who sang and danced in front of a video backdrop full of lips, featured a musician playing a saw blade with a violin bow.
Lea Selitsky, a student of Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Mass., was impressed by King.
“She was sexy and sultry,” Selitsky said. “I liked her style.”
Describing his music as neo-soul, the performer Adventure produced electronic bliss for the crowd.
“[Adventure] seemed the most appealing to the crowd and the most fun,” commented Allison Young, an art major at WSU.
With sporadic acts from Funny Clown and others, Deacon continued to be the master of ceremonies between his own turns. Disassembling his set after more than three hours of mayhem and movement, Deacon described playing in Detroit as “like kissing God on the mouth.”
