Back in my day The Road Show was this too-cool-for-school punk rock store at The Shops at the Top, a weird upstairs mini-mall at the 12 Mile and Gratiot shopping center. The Shops at the Top never came close to leasing out all its storefronts but for years The Road Show was a mainstay. I often went there to loiter and pick up the free Fun tabloids, a precursor to Orbit, which was a precursor to Real Detroit. With no way out to Royal Oak, The Road Show was about the only place I could see this subculture. I rarely bought anything, an MC Escher shirt here, a weed pipe there, a Ministry t-shirt and one time a Dinosaur Jr. t-shirt for a tour I never experienced live. I was a young poseur still trying to iron out my identity and the Manic Paniced employees heaped scorn on me. It was a beautiful, formidable, awful place.
Things changed a lot when The Road Show decamped to their own street level building years later. They now offer a lot more things for sale, but in trying to be a catch-all store for all things offbeat, they've lost a certain special something. You can now find Boomer friendly merch with Betty Boop, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles alongside Siouxsie Sioux and Suicidal Tendencies. They have two poster rooms, one with black light, candles, knives, old school non-internet porn, smoking accessories- with recreational legalized in Michigan I don't even think they have to pretend they're strictly for tobacco, t-shirts, bobble heads and even pets. I'd probably avoid buying a lizard or a bunny here. It's hearsay but I've heard bad things about how well they care for animals.
Bruce the original owner is still kicking, rocking a plexiglass face shield in the face of the pandemic. There's always plenty of employees milling about to help you, and without a whiff of the elitism of the old days. The old spikey haired brigade would probably shit seeing stuff with Marvel characters and Eminem peppering the place.
They're paranoid about shoplifters, I think largely because they have so much stuff adolescents would like to swipe. Don't try it, kids. There was a viral video making the rounds recently of a young woman caught stuffing her backpack with merchandise. I wonder how she even made it into the sales floor with it.
The Road Show currently closes at 6:45 which is just weird, but it's nice the place is still kinda off. After years of not passing through the doors here, I recently purchased a pocketknife, a Buddha figurine and some nice woven gloves here. A lot of stuff is a bit pricey here, you could likely find better deals on the Interwebs, but the knife and the gloves were pretty easy on the wallet, and the Buddha wasn't terribly outrageous.
It's funny how I went from trying too hard to being comfortable in my own skin while The Road Show lost some focus and now tries too hard to be all things to all people but time changes all of us. It's no longer an event to go here and I rarely do but it's nice knowing The Road Show is still abiding, the original Hot Topic before there was Hot Topic. read more