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A stroke of luck allowed your agent to see a remarkable concert on Friday night and to see that far too many of his fellow sports writers need a musical education.

It started with a techno music festival that began Saturday in a park next to the high-rise hotel that serves as the NHL headquarters for the Stanley Cup final. As any sensible person knows, the word music should never appear in the same sentence as techno.

Listening to this dreck is the auditory equivalent of being hit over the head with a pipe. When I ran into my colleague Mike Brophy of The Hockey News, I lamented the pain of the sound checks blasting into my hotel room on Friday afternoon. He suggested the festival would go 24 hours a day through the Memorial Day weekend.

Since this was the prospect of pain more severe than even the airline industry could inflict, I went straight to the web site of the Detroit Free Press to look for a schedule. Brophy was pulling my leg, of course, as these tuneless trolls will only inflict their torture for about 12 hours a day.

As I write this, I have the noise-cancelling headphones on tight, reducing the cacophony outside my window to a dull thumping.

However, I did discover on the Freep's web site that Solomon Burke was giving a free concert on Friday night at another park near the hotel. Ye gods! Solomon Burke. The guy who sang Tonight's The Night, Cry To Me and Got to Get You Off of My Mind. The King of Rock 'n Soul. Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. Part of the famed Atlantic Records Soul Clan. The man Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler said is "the best soul singer of all time." Free.

When I rushed to my peers with this news, I was devastated to be met with vast indifference. Not even the sports writer's favourite word - free - would move them.

"Who's Solomon Burke?" said Pierre LeBrun of The Canadian Press. Since LeBrun was raised in the Northern Ontario music hot beds of Hearst and North Bay, and thinks '80s metal is the height of musical achievement, I shrugged it off.

But the same question came from famed boulevardier Michael Farber of Sports Illustrated. That Farber, a man who spends his days and nights swanning about the salons and bistros in his Montreal base, would profess ignorance of Burke was astounding.

I know Burke was always more revered within the music industry than the general public, but this was too much.

And on it went. Scott Burnside of espn.com and Cam Cole of the Vancouver Sun all expressed the same sentiment. Philistines all.

The bright lights of Windsor, Ont., were a far greater attraction in their eyes and they set off for the Paris of Southwestern Ontario.

That left only me, Brophy and my friend and Globe colleague Eric Duhatschek, who knows a thing or two about music, to head up the street to see The King of Rock 'n Soul.

I am happy to report it was well worth it. Burke is 68 years old now and has to perform in a chair, which, of course, is designed as a throne.

But his distinctive voice is still strong. Backed by a tight, eight-piece band, three backup singers and a gospel choir, Burke put on a rousing 90-minute show.

As for the boys who went to Windsor, the highlight of the night was when a bouncer at one bar mistook Cole for Matt Millen, the general manager of the Detroit Lions. Wow.

Solomon Burke certainly can't hold a candle to being confused with the worst GM in the National Football League.

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