Charlie Sheen began his 20 city Violent Torpedo of Truth tour in Detroit to a packed crowd at the Fox Theatre last night. But apparently it didn’t go very well, as some had expected.

The whole show was just one big disaster after another, perhaps not because of the content by itself, but because the audience was promised a certain type of show. It was supposed to be an entertaining and secret sharing humorous look at the life of Charlie Sheen, but instead it was a disjointed collection of videos, which lasted more than half of the 70 minutes, and very little of the Sheen we’d come to expect from watching his videos and hearing his sometimes hilarious rants. There just wasn’t any coherency and very little humor to the show like they put it together the night before on the bus to Michigan. And once the audience discovered they weren’t getting what they felt the show was supposed to be, based on the hype, they started demanding their money back and yelling out how it sucked. By the show’s end, many had walked out in anger and disappointment.

The crowd, for the most part, felt ripped off. Things that they were assured never came to pass. Sheen assured them during the show that the events would be more and more exciting with each passing moment, but it wound up just being boring. A man who could have saved that, perhaps, was Snoop Dogg, who Sheen recently recorded a song with. He was inferred to be the big guest in Detroit, but he never showed up. Not surprising. We are quite sure that Nickelodeon books all of their talent way in advance for their Kid’s Choice Awards, especially if they are performing live on stage with another group (Big Time Rush). So why Sheen would even hint at that, knowing that the rapper was busy, appeared even more deceptive. Simon Rex tried to fill in for Dogg, but couldn’t get the audience out of the mood they were in.

At the start, Sheen did rant, in front of a huge podium like a preacher at a pulpit, going on and on about very little. He was not funny and perhaps he didn’t intend to be. The problem was that he was not meaningful either, leaving most to picture him as a guy trying to get people to join his fantasy world of being a warlock. As if an army was going to rise up out of the crowd to fight who knows what. The audience wasn’t there to be seduced into some sort of cult or coerced to buy merchandise, they were there to get the lowdown on what was going on from the horse’s mouth. They certainly did not get that.

Instead they got a film that had little to do with what was going on, except that perhaps Sheen feels that it represents his return to prominence on TV. The tale, “RPG” tells the story of redemption, of the main star, which was played by a young Johnny Depp. It was probably the first time that Depp has been in a film that was actively heckled. Sheen wrote and directed the story years ago. When he realized it wasn’t helping him “win” over the audience, he shut it off mid showing and proceeded to his next segment. Q&A.

But even his question and answer segment proved a lesson in futility. The only questions he felt were strong enough to answer were ones that were not related to his current troubles, but ones that were softball things like “Can I come up and hug you?” asked one woman, while another audience member asked “Where you would be, if you weren’t here right now?” The rest were brushed off, leaving no information or tidbits that the crowd finally thought they’d get that justified the ticket cost.

It was obvious by this time he’d lost a good part of the audience and decided he needed a break. So he turned the mike over to Simon Rex and said he’d be back when the audience woke up. After the musical portion was over, he didn’t return. Instead, the stage just sat empty leaving the remaining audience to wonder what was going on. There was no official ending. He just walked away. They didn’t get the message until the cleaning crew arrived to reset the theatre. Some say he did come back, but apparently it was a long time after the abrupt ending, when Sheen didn’t realize people had stayed around.

The show, which will be presented in Chicago as we speak, will be retooled rather than cancelled. The new format will see the axe of opening comedian Kirk Fox, who was booed off the stage, and the Johnny Depp movie will be vanquished by warlock napalm. What will be put in their places. Who knows? All we know is that he’s got a lot of work if he hopes to change the show in one night. But he needs to if he wants to avoid another disaster. The question is, will he win? Can he save the show? We’ll know the answer once we hear from the Chicago reviewers.