A journalist from the Toledo City Paper got to fulfill what I imagine to be every Juggalo/lette’s dream a couple of nights ago. His name is Saul T Jacobs, and if you were in Toledo, OH for the ShockFest tour on Tuesday, then you saw him onstage soaking you with diet Faygo throughout the entirety of ICP’s set!
Saul admits that there’s a method to the madness, and gives a good behind-the-scenes look at what goes on, how tough it is to get a good mixture of dancing and spraying down, and the insanity that is the Faygo Armageddon at the end. The full article has videos of past Faygo armageddons, and you can check that out right here.
The full text from the article can be seen below:
Faygo Mania
My night as an Insane Clown Posse Faygo Monster
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to interview the Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J, where I talked to him about Michael Jackson, his family life, and of course, Faygo. Toward the end of our conversation, I had to ask, “What’s a Ninja gotta do to get onstage for a Faygo Break?“ He laughed and responded, “That’s actually easy man, just ask J Webb.” J Webb is the PR man for ICP’s Psychopathic Record label and a longtime friend, so I quoted Violent J on that and passed my request along. When I received word that my request had been granted, I knew I was going to have an interesting Monday night when the Dark Carnival rolled into Toledo for the third stop on the Insane Clown Posse’s Shockfest tour. And though I’d covered the Gathering of the Juggalos a couple months earlier, participating in this show, dressed as a deranged clown, and baptizing thousands of strangers in Diet Root Beer Faygo altered my life and solidified my respect for ICP.
Though I’m a fairly new Juggalo, having been to only one show prior, I made it my aim to learn the spraying-the-crowd-in-soda-pop trade quickly. I was told to find road manager Billy Bill when I got to the show, where he promptly took me backstage to meet the evening’s clown crew. The backstage crew immediately took me under their wing, showing me their pre-show routine: filling buckets with Faygo, stocking confetti and hanging out with the Juggalo fam. I was surprised to find out that Otis and Bonez Dub from Axe Murder Boyz, ICP’s Psychopathic labelmates, would be my fellow stage clowns. And Ash, a seasoned vet in the music business, was to be my guide for the show. We reviewed the setlist and prepped the props that would be used for different songs. After what seemed like an eternity of opening acts, the Dark Carnival was poised for launch. We donned our clown suits and masks, preparing to help make this spectacle of American culture happen.
Violent J and Shaggy showed up backstage just before showtime. Shaggy fist-bumped with the whole clown crew before retreating to a dark corner behind the stage . Calm and collected, the duo took the stage and shifted into full throttle, bringing the ruckus to Toledo.
We set up for a small Faygo tease (which is less intense than a Faygo Break, a point in the show devoted to unleashing massive amounts of Faygo) after about two songs. Ash handed me a two-liter, then motioned for me to follow him up the ramp and out toward the edge of the stage. Thousands of fans howled with animalistic lust for the sweet sticky liquid that we were about to unleash on them.
At first, I had trouble getting the spray technique down. My main problem—something I hadn’t considered prior to the show—was twisting the cap off of a pressurized two-liter bottle. The move may look easy, but it takes a little practice. And although I’d familiarized myself with the physics of Faygo with the aid of an ICP-produced YouTube video about spraying Faygo, it is, in reality, much more difficult in front of a thousand people. I got into the groove and began spraying Faygo like a deft veteran, emptying two-liters as fast as I could, with no regard for the crowd who endured my good-natured soda wrath. I began to draw parallels between myself and the Exxon Valdez.
The Faygo Monster’s art combines many skills: emptying Faygo gracefully-yet-efficiently and dancing in a way that elicits both joy and depravity, while dressed in a clown costume and following the cues unique to each song. The whole ritual was more than just spraying Faygo; we were entertainers. The crowd’s hoots and screams testified to our success.
The night progressed through several Faygo Breaks. These breaks start with the clowns throwing buckets of Faygo into the crowd before reloading and emptying as many two-liters as we could in the minute-and-a-half intervals. Two clowns flanked either side of the stage with super soakers full of Faygo, smattering the crowd with sweet root beer. We used diet soda to avoid the sticky mess a sugar filled drink would have created (although this was a futile tactic, as far as the stage equipment was concerned).
The end of the night was the highlight for me. I’d finally gotten in the groove of being a Faygo Monster, and felt ready to take the antics to the next level. We threw confetti and Faygo during the song “Down with the Clown,” a crowd-compelling ICP classic.
The show ended, as they always do, with a song called “Bang! Pow! Boom!,” the soundtrack to the show’s veritable Faygo armageddon. The other clowns and I carried all of the remaining cases of Faygo to the stage for the finale. Members of the audience joined us as we drenched the building with Faygo, unloading upwards of 100 cases (8 two-liters/case) on the crowd in a 10-minute period. A lake of Faygo appeared in the dispersing crowd’s wake, a testament to our hard work that evening.
The performance was incomparable to any show I’ve witnessed. Standing in with this veteran Faygo Monster crew—some of the clowns have been at this for over a decade—was an honor. These are truly the hardest working men in show biz, orchestrating a theatrical performance with a hook that turns newcomers into fans.
An Insane Clown Posse show is a complete sensory experience, a combination of thumping sounds with lights, stage antics, and the feeling, smell and taste of Diet Faygo Root Beer. This niche music/performance art has developed over decades to assume the spectacle status it enjoys today. Although ICP isn’t widely accepted by the art and entertainment community, this is the type of experiential performance art that, by my estimation (as a yet-undiscovered gallery curator) deserves an exhibition at the MoMA. I can’t thank ICP, Psychopathic Records and the larger Juggalo family enough. Keep pushing, refining and redefining the boundaries of music and performance.
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