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THE SHIRTLESS WONDERS
The shirtless wonder troupe versus the post-show banter duo; it is quite the conundrum for me to pick my most entertaining people of the evening, so maybe you can help me.
Congotronics vs Rockers playing Orange Court tonight had festival-goers freaking out in a whole new groove. The stretch of songs for up to 15 minutes, and the booty-shaking and stuff struttin’ displayed up on stage encouraged some new moves out in the crowd. The 6 guys in front of me dancing in particular. I think it was the skinny one who first decided to take off his T-shirt, then one buddy followed suit, and the next. Soon even the most conservative friend was bearing nips front house left, and dancing like werewolves around a backpack sitting in 2 inches of mud with all their shirts piled atop. Anyway, they had a little synchronization going on in a circular rain dance spectacle that had tons of paparazzi snapping shots at their bony bods. I can’t really explain in words here the hilarity of their moves, but just imagine convulsing, ska steps, and ‘the creep’ mixed in with kalimba-fueled rhythms and evolving into truly modern modern-dance over the course of 10 minutes. One guy eventually collapsed onto the backpack and shirt pile in exhaustion, favoring a mud puddle over keeping up the dancing energy that Congotronics vs Rockers commands.
After the show, the exodus out of the far depths of Orange Court hosted my other funny people episode of the day, this one heard, not seen from a few people behind. As soon as we reached FOH, Panic’s “Fire on the Mountain” was playing, and promptly got log-jammed in two American festival-goers heads. From then on, “Fire, Fire on a mountain!” was shouted, without ever any Japanese or other input, aside from eventually some comments about “Singing alone OK, you can do it is OK!” So after the Fire on a Mountain had spread beyond awkward measure, to hilarity, and finally to OK, that’s-enough-pal frequency, the pair out of nowhere began singing the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song, courtesy a young Will Smith. The song, butchered as it was, was nostalgic, however the commentary that followed was surprisingly insightful. “Like, who rides a cab all the way from Philadelphia to California?” Or, “Man, if I was a cabby, and somebody told me to ’smell ya later,’ you know what I would do…?”
I don’t think it was that these two dudes were actually that funny, but rather that the shuffling muddy silence after all their ridiculousness, and I think a few crickets, magnified the humor for me, and quite possibly me alone. So use your imagination about the dancers, and tell me, who will it be for number one Saturday night funny?
(Poor) Photo by J Muzacz
