Kid Rock paid tribute to Eddie Money on Friday night (Sept. 13) at a venue that had become an adopted home for the late singer.
Rock and his Twisted Brown Trucker band played a version of Money’s hard rocking “Shakin’,” a hit song from 1982’s No Control, during their concert at the Detroit-area DTE Energy Music Theatre, formerly known as Pine Knob. The group accompanied their performance with a video screen photo of Money and the caption 1949-2019.
“I’m sure you heard that Eddie Money passed away today,” Rock told the crowd. “And not only was Detroit like a second home, I’m sure many of you know that Pine Knob was absolutely his house. He opened this place every summer for decades. So we wanted to come sing one tonight and pay tribute to him. So rock on Eddie.”
Rock finished the song asking the crowd to “put one hand in the air for Eddie Money. God bless you, Eddie. Rock on!”
Money, who passed away Friday after battling advanced Esophageal cancer, had performed at the amphitheater 38 times during his career, according to 313 Presents, which operates the venue. Over the past 28 years, he played an annual Memorial Day weekend concert there, often as the summer season’s opening act.
“That’s the most exciting show I do every year,” Money told Billboard in 2016. “It’s a real privilege and a real honor and it really puts a feather in my cap … The (DTE) show means a lot to me.”
Rock, who’s played more than 30 shows at the venue himself, acknowledged Money’s legacy there in a statement issued before Friday’s show. “Pine Knob and Detroit were like Eddie’s second home. He entertained so many of us here, for so many years, with so many great songs. Rock on, Eddie. Rock on.”
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Tom Wilson, 313 Presents’ interim president, called the venue’s relationship with Money “a marriage of convenience which became sort of a love fest between him and us and him and the crowd.” Money became the venue’s most frequent season opener because of availability, Wilson explained.
“Every year it’s a matter of ‘Who do we start the season with?’ and you’re sort of subject to who’s out touring. Then we had the idea, ‘Who’s always available,’ and it was Eddie because he wasn’t quite big enough to go on formal tours. So he’d be around and you could call four or five months in advance and he’d pencil it in, so we started to bring him in every year.
“I think he recognized it was a big deal for him,” Wilson added. “His agent could say ‘Eddie just did 14,000 at Pine Knob and take that to the next place and the next and the next place.”
Memorial arrangements have not yet been announced for Money. AXS TV, which hosted the reality series Real Money, will air a tribute to Money starting at 8:30 a.m. Sunday (Sept. 15), featuring episodes of the show, Eddie Money: The Real Money Concert and his episode of Dan Rather’s The Big Interview.