Jody Macgregor from fasterlouder.com.au attended the Insane Clown Posse show at The Hi-Fi in Brisbane, Australia. He decided to write an article about the ten things he learned at the show. You can view the full article below.

From fasterlouder.com.au

1. It’s good to be down with the clown

This is Insane Clown Posse’s first Australian tour in 10 years. Not everybody in the crowd’s wearing juggalo makeup but plenty are. There’s a guy with Spider-Man makeup, a green Santa accompanied by a lady Mrs Claus probably doesn’t know about, and plenty of white greasepaint. If you’ve ever thought it was silly that in post-apocalyptic fiction gangs of cannibalistic raiders in spiked shoulderpads appear as soon as the smoke clears then you should go to an Insane Clown Posse concert and meet them in person. When a guy in whiteface with a bushranger beard shouts the traditional juggalo greeting “Whoop whoop!” in my face you better believe I say it right back.They’re pretty friendly though, especially as the night goes on. Once they take all the druggalos they stop being thuggalos and turn into huggalos.

2. We’re all family

Between support acts a member of the Psychopathic Records family in a baseball shirt amps up the crowd, ranting about how “Juggalos are super oppressed right now” but “This is our time!” He never sounds more than five seconds away from telling us to take back the streets of Gotham because we have nothing to fear from ‘The Bat’. Among all the chanting of “ICP!” as the anticipation builds are deafening unified shouts of “FAM-I-LY!” Juggalos are a community that will accept anyone who likes Insane Clown Posse, a subculture of outsiders dominated by white people with soft-drink bellies. These people don’t need to be outcasts – that’s who mainstream popular culture is for. Any guy here could shave off his crustache and rejoin polite society tomorrow, but they choose not to. They’re freaks because they want to be. Whether you see that as admirable or ridiculous is up to you.

3. They’re serious about the circus

Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J emerge to the sound of ‘Send In The Clowns’. Their first song is ‘The Mighty Death Pop’, which samples the guitar bit from ‘Every 1’s A Winner’ by Hot Chocolate – familiar to people younger than disco as a soundtrack to carnival games and rides. These guys are committed to their theme on every level, subtle as well as blatant. Their next song is ‘Chicken Huntin’’, which is about murdering rednecks, because they really hate rednecks. They may understand theming but self-awareness isn’t their thing.

4. It’s Faygo tonight

A few songs into their set Violent J holds up a bottle of soft drink. Word is they weren’t allowed to bring Faygo, their cheap American soda of choice, with them to Australia and were going to resort to the local equivalent – Passiona. “Smells like Faygo,” says Violent J, bottle in hand. “Tastes like Faygo. But officially it’s not Faygo.” The crowd boos with surprising intensity, the most robust booing that Australia’s import restrictions are likely to ever receive. “But it’s Faygo tonight!” the clown shouts, before spraying it over the audience.

This is a hallmark of their live shows. If the front third of the crowd isn’t thoroughly drenched by the end, it’s not a real ICP concert. A masked assistant brings crates of the stuff out periodically, Shaggy 2 Dope pours entire bottles over his head, and twice in the set there’s a break while a cheery nursery-rhyme plays (“Faygo, Faygo, Faygo! Who wants Faygo?” ) and more clowns emerge to throw the stuff everywhere. Other rappers spray champagne around in an ostentatious display of wealth. ICP spray low-end sugarwater in an ostentatious display of suburban tackiness. Decadence on a budget.

5. It’s not really about hip-hop, it’s about spectacle

ICP rap to backing tracks. There’s no DJ, no live musicians, no attempt to make it anything more than two guys with microphones ranting about murders and bitches. That stuff would just take up room they need on stage for the people dressed as zombies, psycho killers, and even more clowns. My favourite are the two grim reapers in hoods who spend an entire song solemnly giving the audience raised middle fingers, completely unmoving. I’ve never been flipped off with so much gravitas.

6. There actually is some variety in their music

Highlights of their set include ‘Bazooka Joey’, the saga of a man who kills people with a bazooka, ‘Night Of The Chainsaw’, the saga of a man who kills people with a chainsaw, and ‘Rainbows And Stuff’, which is Violent J’s disarmingly sweet list of all his favourite things like something straight from The Sound Of Music. “I like rainbows, leafy trails, and puppy dogs with bumblebees.” Of course, he alternates that with descriptions of how he’s going to murder you, because you’re the one thing he doesn’t like.

7. We’ve lost miracles

They don’t play ‘Miracles’. It may have a tinny beat but it’s one of their better songs, the one made infamous for its memetic lyrics about the mysteries of life: “Water, fire, air, and dirt/Fuckin’ magnets, how do they work?” Maybe they’re too embarrassed by the million internet parodies to do ‘Miracles’ live, but that’s a shame. Giraffes and stars and music are miracles and if we’re too cynical to see that it’s our own fault.

8. Community’s a powerful thing

According to ‘What Is A Juggalo?’ from Insane Clown Posse’s 1997 album The Great Milenko, “He ain’t like anyone you’ve met before/He’ll eat Monopoly and shit out Connect Four.” Aside from that stringent requirement, anyone can be a juggalo. They’re a genuine community built on acceptance. The fact that two middleware MCs who make circus-themed rap-metal can be the centre of an entire subculture says nothing about ICP though, and everything about the human ability to create social hierarchies. We’ll monkey over to any shinier-than-average rock and assemble a fandom based around it; that’s not really to the rock’s credit. That’s just people.

9. We’re all doomed

In classical artwork there’s a thing called “memento mori”, a reminder of the fact that death is inevitable in case you got carried away enjoying yourself in an art gallery. Insane Clown Posse are basically one big lowbrow memento mori, their songs elaborating on an entire Dark Carnival mythology about the judgement that awaits us in the afterlife. The climax of their show is ‘Bang! Pow! Boom!’ from their 2009 album of the same name, a Smashmouth-style good times summer jam that just happens to contain the lyrics “It’s your inevitable doom/Nobody escapes, and everyone’s consumed.” While the song plays out all their homies join them on stage to spray more soft drink around and then a huge gang of juggalos from the front rows clamber up and join in the fun. That’s their message, such as it is. We should have fun tonight because we’re all going to die some day, we’re all just Faygo caught in the moment between shooting out of the bottle and hitting a juggalo in the facepaint.

10. You can sleep; clowns won’t eat you

Coulrophobia is the irrational fear of clowns, although you’ve ever seen It you know that being afraid of clowns is totally rational. If you’re looking to cure yourself of that fear the exposure therapy of an ICP concert is the way to do it. Spend a night around juggalos in joyous togetherness and you’ll know that if a clown ever comes up to you in a dark alley there’s no reason to be afraid. Just say “Whoop whoop!” and that motherfucker will say it right back.

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• fasterlouder.com.au