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Greta Van Fleet is a band that was made to play in arenas.
Since its formation in Frankenmuth just over a decade ago, the Grammy Award-winning quartet’s aesthetic has hit a time-defying sweet spot unifying classic and contemporary rock conventions. GVF is at once throwback and current as fit for Lollapalooza as it would have been for the revered rock ‘n’ roll palaces of the late 60s.
And its music is meant to be played in big spaces — such as Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena on Friday night, Sept. 8.
With a crowd of nearly 14,000 it was GVF’s biggest show to date in its home state — and its first in the metro area since 2018, when it played three shows just down the street at the Fox Theatre. (Nearby concerts slated for Ypsilanti and Flint last year were each canceled, twice.) That sense of occasion was not lost on the band, now based in Nashville; frontman Josh Kiszka, one of GVF’s three brothers, sang a line from John Denver’s “Back Home Again” early in the show, and during the encore he noted that, “I can’t begin to express how absolutely significant tonight is…This town is unparalleled in so many ways.”
During the two-hour and 15-minute show he also recalled the band visiting Kid Rock backstage during his venue-opening run in September of 2017. Kiszka remembered expressing admiration for Rock’s pyrotechnics, at which point he told the fledgling group that, “When you can’t sing, you blow s*** up.”
Although Kiszka demonstrated the Valhallian power of his own pipes throughout Friday’s show. GVF followed Rock’s edict as well; the 14-song set was loaded with copious columns of fire and dramatic explosions. It was Rock Spectacle in capital letters, up to and including frontman Kiszka’s five outfit changes — drawn from the sci-fi/fantasy worlds of Thor’s Asgard and “Stargate’s” Abydos — side ramps that took the band members into the general admission front of the arena floor and an omnipresent (and sometimes distracting) camera drone that flitted around the band as it played.
There was also a second stage at the back of the venue where GVF played a three-song acoustic set that included a partial cover of “Unchained Melody” by just Kiszka with younger brother Sam on piano and a soaring rendition of “Black Smoke Rising” — after which Josh Kiszka returned to the main stage on the shoulders of a security guard, handing flowers to fans as he passed by.
Unapologetically indulgent and at points even excessive (“This is a rock ‘n’ roll show,” Josh Kiszka pronounced before “Highway Tune”), it was a kind of musical communion that the younger fans at Little Caesars — a good many of whom sported glittery GVFalike outfits and carried Pride flags in support of Josh’s recent coming-out — had not yet been experienced and that their older siblings and parents could appreciate from their own youths.
And all concerned certainly appreciated the advanced musicianship GVF displayed, which included epic, extended renditions of “Lover, Leaver (Taker, Believer)” and “The Archer” led by Jake Kiszka’s guitar heroics, on display during every song and also featured during an extended late-show instrumental improvisation just before “Sacred the Thread.”
Sam Kiszka on bass and keyboards and drummer Danny Wagner had spotlight time, too, and the night’s set list focused on GVF’s latest album, “Starcatcher,” with eight songs. And the first encore, the anthemic “Light My Love,” was a moving display of Pride solidarity as Josh Kiszka wailed the song to the rafters.
“Farewell For Now” brought things to a ferocious close — and likely had the Little Caesars crowd primed for GVF’s next trip back home.
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