Harpo's has *gasp* IMPROVED!
Yeah sounds like a blatant lie. I know. The parking lot is still a bomb-cratered warzone, the access drives and alleys are still filled with broken glass and debris and liquor bottles and shards of metal. The bathrooms still flood EVERY night, the front pit is still 7-feet deep and scary as fuck, and the sound still sucks unless you get a good distance from the stage and hang out on the "disco" floor.
BUT.... there are now 7 fully-armed security guards patrolling the lots and around the venue. There is now a metal detector that always goes off when I walk through cuz I'm sofa king METAL, and they quell the stage diving quickly and let the moshers alone to do their moshing all they want. The cops roll by regularly during show nights, and the skanky hookers and crackheads are always non-confrontational and actually, quite amusing on some nights!
The Kamelot/Epica show was FANTASTIC even though it was only maybe 300 people, and we were hanging out after the show with two younger metalheads who shared their Little Caesars pizza with us and talking about all things metallic.
For those of you scared of Harpo's, here's the lowdown:
When you come up I-94 through Detroit, you'll want to take Exit 222A which puts you onto Outer Drive. You'll be hanging two lefts through three traffic light intersections; once to cross over I-94, passing through the street light at the service drive/exit ramp, and once again to get onto Harper Ave. That intersection of the I-94 service drive, Outer Drive, Harper Ave and one more stupid side street is VICIOUS traffic congestion. There's two street lights within three car lengths of each other, and there's NOOOO LEFT TURN CENTER LANE OR LEFT TURN LIGHTS! You're at the mercy of traffic flow. Be patient, be careful. Then you'll be fine. Harpo's it the huge building with HARPOS up and down it, then there's a "street" where the tour buses park in, then there's a little black cinder block building that looks like a garage, THEN there's the parking lot. The security guys will help out a bit.
When you're leaving, the ramp to get back onto I-94 is directly behind Harpo's. So all you gotta do is get back onto Harper Ave, and pull two right turns. Once to get through the light at Outer Drive, and one more to get onto the ramp. Nice and easy. Remember, you're dealing with drunk metalheads, so PATIENCE. You'll get through that clusterfuck easily enough.
If you want to take a longer route that doesn't involve camping out for 10 minutes praying for a left turn chance, go one exit further to 222B Harper Ave Exit. That ramp brings you straight into a dead-end into Harper Ave where you can only turn either left or right, but four or five blocks further away, and far less traffic congestion. Waaay easier to make that left turn onto Harper Ave, than waiting through three lights trying to make those left turns at Outer Drive. Also, that exit also drops you two blocks away from my favorite stage in Detroit, THE I-ROCK! Just turn right, and you'll see the giant guitar painted on the side of the I-Rock.
Here's some maps with the paths highlighted. Purple gets you there, green gets you home. This first one is if you're brave enough to fight through the three street lights in a row at Outer Drive:
Yeah, it's huge. SUCK MY BASS.
And here's the Harper Ave I-Rock exit with a few blocks of backtracking and less left turns:
There. Full tutorial on how to survive Harpo's Concert Theater.
I'll most likely have a large contingency attending this show to see Into Eternity anyways, so find me there!
