DETROIT– A host of Detroit’s biggest musical artists, including Diana Ross, Eminem and Jack White, took the stage Thursday night in a pulsating sonic spectacle, held on the eve of the historic reopening of an 18-story building that long marked the decline of their hometown had symbolized.
The 90-plus minute “Live From Detroit: The Concert at Michigan Central” celebrated the city’s renovated train station, which opens to the public Friday, six years after Ford Motor Co. took control of the building and the last train left more than thirty years ago.
Michigan’s vacant Central Station fell into disrepair and became emblematic of the decline of the Motor City. That is until 2018, when Ford announced it would purchase the building and adjacent buildings as part of the automaker’s plans for a campus focused on autonomous vehicles.
“Six years ago we gathered here and dreamed of what was possible. We dared to dream that this station, which had become the symbol of a broken city, could shine again as a symbol of the Motor City,” Bill Ford, the executive chairman of his eponymous company, told the crowd before Ross, the Motown -superstar. opened the festivities with “I’m Coming Out.”
The sold-out, ticketed outdoor event streamed live on Peacock also featured performances by Big Sean, the Clark Sisters, Common, Fantasia, Melissa Etheridge and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Presenters included Detroit Lions legend Barry Sanders, current Lions stars Jared Goff and Amon-Ra St. Brown and actors Taylor Lautner and Sophia Bush.
“For most of my life it was just an eyesore,” Big Sean said of the train station. “It’s an oasis in the middle of the city. It’s a metaphor for all of us: our time is now.”
The concert was produced by Eminem and his longtime manager, Paul Rosenberg. Eminem would not perform, but surprised those present by closing the show with a dazzling set including his new single ‘Houdini’, ‘Not Afraid’ and the most appropriate ‘Welcome 2 Detroit’.
Eminem’s performance may have been the highlight of the evening for those in attendance, but White’s performance wasn’t far behind.
When he announced that he and his band were going to “play some songs written a few blocks away,” White received a thunderous response when he strummed the opening chords of the anthem “Seven Nation Army,” which he recorded while a member of The White Stripes White, who grew up not far from MCS, held his guitar high above his head with one hand as fireworks lit up the station behind him.
Plagued for years by scavengers and urban explorers, the colossal building rose high above Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. The station will now serve as the anchor for a sprawling 30-acre mobility innovation district and a revitalized Corktown. The project is expected to create thousands of technology-related jobs. Restaurants, new hotels and other service industry businesses are already moving to and near Corktown.
The reopening of the train station also comes as Detroit is experiencing somewhat of a renaissance.
Ten years after emerging from its painful bankruptcy, the city has stabilized its finances, stemmed population loss and made progress in cleaning up the blight across its 360 square kilometers. Detroit started in April an attendance record for the NFL draft as more than 775,000 fans poured into downtown over three days.
“I love seeing everyone in our city happy,” said Bill Ford.