Concert Reports

Kid Rock returns to The 2014 California Mid State Fair! Detroit Native Rocked the Chumash Grandstand Arena. This was Kid Rock’s second appearance at the California Mid-State Fair, having last appeared in 2011. The California Mid-State Fair runs July 16 through 27 at the Paso Robles Event Center. For more information, call 239-0655 or visit www.MidStateFair.com.

All Photos: Ray Soto / Central Coast Rocks

www.KidRock.com             www.MidStateFair.com

Kid Rock is best known for his spectacular live performances as well as the songs “All Summer Long”, “Born Free”, “Picture”, “Cowboy” and “Bawitdaba”. He has released 12 studio albums, including his latest Rebel Soul, and has sold over 27 million copies worldwide. Rock is a 5-time Grammy Award nominee and multiple winner of American Music Awards, People’s Choice Awards and Billboard Music Awards.

He has, after all, been our Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp, the Devil Without a Cause, the Cowboy, the Bullgod, the Rock N Roll Jesus, the American Bad Ass and, lest we forget, a proud Son Of Detroit -- all while eating some Grits Sandwiches For Breakfast, doing a bit of Yo-Da-Lin In The Valley and getting 3 Sheets To The Wind. Rock has taken us out to the party and into the bedroom, and on contemplative trips through the Midwestern American spirit. Where he's going tends to be a lot of places.

"Where I'm going's where I'm at."

So says Kid Rock on the title track of his 9th studio album. And considering everywhere Rock has gone during the past 22 years, we can have faith that we're headed for another fascinating, fornicating, galvanizing, eyebrow-raising, endlessly surprising --- at the very least interesting -- trip on the 14 tracks of REBEL SOUL.

And Rock jots them all on REBEL SOUL, the follow-up to 2010's platinum BORN FREE and the finest, fiercest and funkiest embodiment to date of the punk rock/hip-hop/Southern rock synthesis he described on his 2001 hit "Forever." It is, in his own words, "a greatest hits with all new songs and everything I've touched on in my career at this point -- whether it's the writing style, the singing style, the attitude, the playing...It's all the things I've learned for so many years, on my own and from so many of the people that influenced me.”

"I was talking to somebody the other day, trying to explain the record," he adds, pausing before he lets out a laugh. "I said 'It's really confusing -- so it's a perfect Kid Rock record!"

REBEL SOUL also represents one of the "easiest" albums Rock has made to this point, a mark of the confidence, assuredness and -- dare we say it -- maturity he and his team have developed over time. The evolution has been genuine and organic, over the course of 26 million record sales and a slew of hits -- from "Bawitdaba" to "Born Free" -- that have criss-crossed the rock, pop and country charts. And let's not discount the impact made by his pair of studio facilities, The Warehouse and the Allen Roadhouse, in the Detroit exurbs, which contributed significantly to the almost offhanded manner by which REBEL SOUL came to be.

The California Mid-State Fair runs July 16 through 27 at the Paso Robles Event Center. For more information, call 239-0655 or visit www.MidStateFair.com.

« Back to Concert Reports