Emerald Theatre Celebrates 10th Anniversary in Style

Last night the Emerald Theatre in downtown Mt. Clemens celebrated it's 10th anniversary with a all star show featuring a number of Michigan's biggest acts.

The building was built back in 1921 as a movie and vaudeville house but in 1999 music industry veterans Joe Nieporte and Ronny Masters bought the building and renovated it into a high-tech night club and concert venue.

Last year Nieporte stepped aside to form a new venture and popular rock band Critical Bill's guitarist Mike [Scott] Mitchell stepped in to join Masters as co-owner. Mitchell also runs local Mt. Clemens bar/venue the Hayloft.

Since then, Mitchell and Masters have been working on updating the venue and have already remodeled the second floor's Rock Room.

Some of the music industry's biggest names have performed at the Emerald Theatre over the years including Kid Rock who filmed his 2003 VH1 Christmas special there, Eminem, Uncle Kracker, Disturbed, Alice In Chains, Insane Clown Posse and Skid Row.

Last night's show was a way to pay tribute to the history of the venue and to showcase some of the best music coming out of Detroit.

The evening was emceed by Mitchell and featured video footage of some of the venue's greatest moments.

In between performances the Howling Diablos rolled out to play a song featuring their classic rock/blues jam-style that makes them a great live band.

For their last song, after being prompted by Mitchell, they brought out their classic drum battle on "Go Gene Go".

Early in the evening Black Irish performed a solid short set that got the crowd's energy level up.

This was followed by a performance from Paradime, who rushed to the show after performing his deejay duties for Kid Rock at a rehearsal for his upcoming birthday show at Ford Field.

His set suffered from the lack of a live band and a deejay booth but he did what he could despite sound setbacks spending a bit of time beatboxing to the delight of the crowd.

Mitchell performed a wardrobe change before his rock/rap outfit Critical Bill took to the stage receiving the evening's biggest crowd reaction as they jumped and sang along.

Unfortunately, due to the evenings many performers no one was able to play too long of a set but all of the bands did the best they could with their short time limit.

Critical Bill pulled out a few of their most energetic hits including "This Is Critical", "Beam Me Up", "Rock Like That" and "My Suicide".

Their performance was followed by a set from Grand Rapid's own rock band Pop Evil, who are getting ready to release their sophomore album, War of Angels, in February.

Their set Saturday featured two of their most popular songs, the heavy hitting "Hero" and rock ballad "100 in a 55".

Hard rock band Taproot, who are from Ann Arbor, were up next and got the crowd worked up immediately prompting them to jump up and tear down the stream of balloons hanging from the ceiling throughout the venue.

Their performance of their two most popular songs "Calling" and "Poem" were the highlights of their set.

To close out the evening in style, Mitchell booked post-grunge Detroit band Sponge, who are known for their gritty sound and lively stage appearances.

The band had the crowd singing and swaying along to their nineties hits "Have You Seen Mary" and "Plowed" and then closed out the evening with a raucous performance of "Party Till We Drop", which featured the band inviting the venue's female population on to the stage to sing and dance along.

The evening's lineup was a fitting one to help celebrate the diverseness and history of the Emerald Theatre.