Kid Rock Concert Request at Michigan Prison Denied

Kid Rick is no Johnny Cash. A production company was denied their request to film a Kid Rock music video inside a women’s prison in Ypsilanti, Michigan, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

The Los-Angeles based production company Boulevard Industries requested to film a music video of Kid Rock performing in front of 2,000 prisoners at the Huron Valley Correctional Facility in southeastern Michigan. Chris Gautz, the Department of Corrections communications director, said that having a concert in the prison would create “a host of security issues” because building a concert stage could potentially result in unaccounted pieces of it being used as weapons. Gautz also said that he turns down weekly requests for cameras to be allowed in the prison to film interviews with inmates for news magazine shows, such as MSNBC lockup shows, The Detroit News reported.

“We’re not a concert venue,” Gautz said, according to The Detroit News. “We’re a professional organization, and our task is to house and rehabilitate prisoners. Attending a rock concert is not going to do anything to facilitate the rehabilitation process.”

There is a possibility, however, of the Department of Corrections allowing the production company to film the music video at a vacant maximum security prison in Standish, located about 140 miles northeast of Detroit, the Associated Press reported.

In 1968, Johnny Cash recorded a concert at California’s Folsom Prison, which produced a famous album that featured his hit “Folsom Prison Blues.” Michael Patrick Shiels, a Michigan radio host, cited this example when he first reported about the Kid Rock concert request on his Wednesday morning radio show. Cash also performed at San Quentin State Prison in 1976.

“It seemed to me like it would be a neat piece of publicity for the state, kind of like Johnny Cash did when he went into a prison and performed,” Shiels said, according to The Detroit News. “It’s not unprecedented. Lots of other entertainers did as well.”