Kid Rock takes another jab at Bud Light as he returns to Detroit's Little Caesars Arena

Six years ago, when Kid Rock last played Little Caesars Arena — which was the first time anybody played Little Caesars Arena — his concert generated all the drama.

As Rock returned to LCA on Friday, opening night of a Detroit doubleheader and his first show there since that arena-opening stand in 2017, drama was a built-in backdrop.

In a 110-minute concert for a sellout crowd, the metro Detroit native wheeled out his well-drilled mix of Southern-flavored classic rock with the trappings of old-school hip-hop.

At 52, he may have slowed down a step or two onstage. Still, the Kid Rock essentials — mic-flipping showmanship and production fireworks with a man-of-the-people persona — were intact. For the first time in ages, pole-dancing women were back, reprising a fixture of Rock's old stage act.

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But unlike his freewheeling hometown gigs long ago, up the street at spots such as the State Theatre, a Kid Rock show in 2023 comes with an inescapable subtext: namely, his defiant, deepening identity on the political right, which has made him a lightning rod in a super-charged environment.

Friday’s LCA show was a rock concert with MAGA-rally touches, complete with golden eagles flanking the drum platform.

Former President Donald Trump appeared late in the show by taped video (the same clip was shown during Rock’s live dates last year), saluting the audience as “hard-working, God-fearing, rock ‘n’ roll patriots” and signing off with, “Let’s make America rock again.”

Rock’s set began with a recorded video prayer before the barrage of strobes, fireworks and other onstage bling launched the opening song “Devil Without a Cause” — title track of his national breakout album, released 25 years ago next month.

Amid a bustling concert season across the globe, this summer's four-city tour from Kid Rock, who has hinted at retirement, is a relative blip. His real storyline right now comes via the extracurricular stuff.

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In an April social media post, Rock was seen shooting up cases of Bud Light in response to the brand’s marketing promotion with transgender personality Dylan Mulvaney. Rock’s viral clip intensified a boycott of Bud Light among conservatives, which continues to damage sales.

We can't account for every one of Friday’s 13,000-something concertgoers, but if there was a single Bud Light can in the crowd, it was definitely hard to spot.

Mulvaney was briefly referenced Friday when a video wall flashed a screengrab from that influencer’s initial Bud Light post, the one that started it all. It was promptly superimposed onscreen with a middle finger.

The video sequence also included the logo of retailer Target, which caught backlash this spring for Pride merchandise geared to children.

Those images accompanied Rock’s “Don’t Tell Me How to Live,” an anti-woke tirade channeled through an over-the-top hard-rock grind. The song was followed later Friday by its 2022 companion piece, “We the People,” an encore number that found Rock onstage in sparkly Uncle Sam tux tails.

Rock announced last year he’s dialing down his touring career, and his Saturday LCA show will wrap a four-city No Snowflakes run that included recent arena dates in his adopted home base of Nashville. (Rock is staying in Charlevoix this weekend, flying into Detroit nightly on his private jet from the northern Michigan town.)

It comes nearly six years after Kid Rock played a six-night series to open LCA, the newly built home of the Detroit Red Wings and Pistons. Rock was a widely embraced celebrity in his home region when he was booked for the arena inauguration — indeed, the shiny new venue even featured a restaurant bearing Kid Rock's name and his Made in Detroit brand, full of his memorabilia.

But the political heat was rising fast in September 2017. Rock, an avowed Trump supporter, was met by protests outside his LCA shows; onstage, he delivered a lengthy stump speech amid a faux campaign for a U.S. Senate seat.

By late 2019, after cell phones captured Rock slamming Oprah Winfrey in a profanity-laced bar rant, Ilitch Holdings announced Rock’s restaurant licensing deal at the arena would end. (The space was quietly repurposed during the pandemic into an eatery called the Mixing Board.)

So Kid Rock’s return to LCA this weekend marks a reconciliation of sorts, even as he arrives with an edgier cultural persona.

Still, for core fans, a Kid Rock show is a familiar, much-loved Detroit ritual, and Friday's hits-filled set featured all the old staples. The stage and set list were nearly identical to those at his Pine Knob visit last September, with some minor twists. (The strip-club number “So Hott” has been transformed into a blues-country stomp, for instance.)

The exultant “Rock n Roll Jesus” came sprayed with confetti; “Born Free” got drenched in red, white and blue; “Bawitdaba” was a reliable encore blazer as Rock conjured his late-'90s sound.

Flint-bred band Grand Funk Railroad opened Friday with a 45-minute set of thick, rumbling classic rock. At 74, full-maned drummer Don Brewer showed he endures as a Michigan institution in his own right.

Kid Rock and Grand Funk Railroad will reprise the action at LCA Saturday night. Seats are available via Ticketmaster. Kid Rock hit the stage Friday at 8:48 p.m.

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Kid Rock takes another jab at Bud Light in Detroit homecoming show