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God help whoever at the Hawthorne Theater had to clean up after Insane Clown Posse.
It wasn't just the Faygo…but Christ, the Faygo. The first bottles were cracked open two songs in, and for the next 90 minutes it was a baptism by soda—an unending sticky-sweet rain, alternating between a carbonated mist and a full-on downpour, which the assembled Juggalo masses accepted like the consecration of their maniacal, rapping clown gods.
And then came the chicken feathers. And then the ticker tape. It was 90 degrees outside, so the club—a windowless black box, totally sold-out—was already well damp before Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J emerged and began the nonstop soft-drink ejaculation. When the house lights went up, the room looked like a bomb had detonated in the center of a carnival midway. The walls were tarped off like the front row of a Gallagher concert, but to borrow a phrase, they did nothing.
These are the things you want to know about an Insane Clown Posse show, right? You didn't really want a review, did you? Like, a legitimate, detailed critique of its artistic and performative merits? What good would that do? At this point, either you're part of the tribe or revolted by it, and telling you, "Hey, it wasn't that bad," isn't likely to inspire a deep Spotify dive, nor will saying, "It was as bad as you think," make you cancel your trip to the Gathering and go back to college.
What you want are those sensorial details: the smell of warm root beer that hung in the air; the pools of sweat and soda that gathered on the floor; the stage hands in B-movie horror costumes waving prop hatchets and giant teddy bears; the crowd of people you've never seen walking the streets of Portland before, in gradually smearing face paint and oversized shorts, rapping along to every word. Going to an Insane Clown Posse show as an outsider, like me, isn't much different from attending a Flaming Lips gig when you have no connection to The Soft Bulletin. You're judging the spectacle, not the music.
For the record, the music fell between the poles of "not that bad" and "as bad as you'd think." The duo's current tour is in honor of the 20th anniversary of fan favorite Riddle Box, which, truth be told, is a perfectly acceptable mid-'90s rap record. It's sophomoric, sure, and contains as much cartoonish cackling and faux-carnival barking as "rapping," but it mostly just sounds like low-budget Cypress Hill. It's fine, really, but long. And whether it's The River or Riddle Box, not every song on even a classic album belongs on a set list. Even the hardcore Juggalos might agree. Whether it was the heat, the stickiness or the deep album cuts, somewhere around the oddly trip-hop-inspired "Ol' Evil Eye," the energy level dropped considerably, and a good chunk of the crowd retreated outside. At that point, even the spectacle began to wane. There's only so much Faygo and dancing demon-clowns one person can take.
But in the grand scheme of Juggalodom, it didn't seem to matter. Good show, bad show, it's all secondary to just being in a room together. And that's what struck me the most. For its fans—who, it must be said, are exceedingly polite for a group that enjoys bathing in soda—Insane Clown Posse began as something to rally around, but it's now become a self-sustaining culture, to the point where it doesn't seem like they even need the pair anymore. Indeed, I sensed an odd disconnect between the artists and their audience: Other than spouting prepared conceptual gobbledygook about "the Dark Carnival" or whatever, there was no organic interaction between them. For the finale, the stage flooded with fans, and the show descended into a full-on Faygo orgy, with Shaggy and J disappearing in the scrum. As the house lights came on, the chant was not "I-C-P!" but "Family!" As far as I'm concerned, the Clowns you can take or leave. But the Juggalos are all right.
Related:
The Gathering of the Juggalo Facts
Posse Time: A Historical Insane Clown Posse Timeline
Name That Juggalo: Can you identify the Psychopathic Records Artist by Facepaint?
All 13 Insane Clown Posse Albums, Ranked
All photos by Thomas Teal.
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