Billed as The Grande Ballroom Reunion (although the ticket said SRC Reunion), five legendary bands from Detroit's garage band heyday reunited at a benefit put together by the Knights of the Grande Benevolent, a nonprofit organization. Headed by Jeff Vail, formerly of the late Fred "Sonic" Smith's Sonic's Rendezvous Band, the group is dedicated to helping musicians from the 60's and early 70's, or their widows and children, who are in need of financial help.

Along with The Gang, there were appearances by former members of Third Power, The Jagged Edge, Savage Grace, and SRC featuring Detroit's Quackenbush bros.

With the smell of incense in the air, and walls lined with classic Grande posters, it was hard not to notice the abundance of long hair (and also the lack thereof) of the attendees anxiously awaiting the start of the show. The usual blues/R&B being piped thru the sound system while folks milled about renewing old aquaintences went pretty much unnoticed till just before 9 pm. A cheer rose up when we all heard the voice of brother J.C. Crawford "Brothers and sisters, I wanna see a sea of hands"...the intro from the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams", recorded live on the stage of the Grande Ballroom, October '68.

Minutes later, The Gang hit the stage, over 37 years after their last performance, with original members Don Henderson/lead guitar, Steve Farmer/rhythm guitar, and Jim Butler/drums. Lead singer Dave O'Brien was unable to make it, so Farmer took over the main vocal chores with a couple vocals by Henderson. Rounding things out was Dan O'Connell (formerly of The Wha?, another 60's northwest Detroit band) filling in for the late Greg Arama on bass, harmonica and backing vocals.

They kicked things off with - what else - The Stones' "Around and Around", which would of course be followed with a lot more Stones including "Route 66", "Last Time", "Down The Road Apiece", Under My Thumb", Paint It Black", "It's All Over Now". Also included in the mix were "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place", "Little Red Book", The Who's "Substitute", "Shake A Tail Feather", "Gloria" and the Yardbirds "I'm A Man" (with great harmonica work from O'Connell).

Henderson proved he still had the chops with great Keith Richards style leads, Farmer was in great form relating stories about The Gang, The Lourds, and the infamous BMF shows, and Butler was full of surprises with lots of tricky fills and unexpected time changes keeping everybody on their toes. Jim suckered me before the show by showing me their "set list"...Walk Don't Run, Out Of Limits, Telstar, Apache, Theme From American Bandstand etc. Not knowing what to say as it wasn't really what I was expecting, he finally broke down and told me that they had put together a bogus list of all instrumentals to submit to the promoters as a gag.
And they didn't disappoint, after all these years, The Gang reminded us of why they were one of the best bands in town. There were moments when it felt like we were all back at the BMF over Woolworth's in Old Redford...definitely the Gang's turf. It was pure, honest, heavy on the Stones, no frills garage rock,...Detroit style!

-Dan/MFB