March 29, 2024
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Insane Clown Posse

The Carnival Of Carnage Show

El Club in Detroit, Michigan

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I know that I typically write HUGE Gathering reviews, and I appreciate all of you who take the time to read them. That’s usually my one big review of the year, and sometimes I’ll do other annual event reviews here and there. I feel like I’d be doing all of you, and myself a disservice by NOT reviewing the ONCE IN A LIFETIME show that the Insane Clown Posse performed on August 26th, 2017.

I could only be talking about one thing: The Carnival Of Carnage show that happened at The El Club in Detroit, Michigan!

Were you one of the few hundred Juggalos who were there to witness this? If so, then you probably don’t need to read a review of it.  You were THERE to see the flavor!  If you weren’t though, I’ll give you a blow-by-blow of what exactly went down that day…from my perspective of course!

First, let’s cover the most controversial part of this event: The $250 price tag.  Yes, it’s a lot to ask.  Less than a month after the Gathering, and less than 3 weeks before the Juggalo March. If you were planning on making all of those, then you had to have planned it out pretty far in advance.  I know that I was one of those ninjas clicking on “Refresh” on the ticket website when tickets were scheduled to go on sale.  They threw me for a loop on it because I wasn’t expecting to have to put attendee names on the ticket just yet. Still, after sorting everything out, I was the 18th order.

For those who aren’t familiar with this event, or the ginormous entry price, here’s how Psychopathic Records justified it.  John Kickjazz, the long lost and recently deceased 3rd member of ICP, led an interesting life that is relatively unknown.  John is Shaggy 2 Dope’s brother, and ICP feels, especially since he recently passed, that his story needs to be told.  So they are putting together a big documentary with a reasonable budget that was all raised from this single show!  Do the math…let’s say there were 300 tickets sold at $250 each. That’s $75,000 minus venue rental, employee wages, and everything else that goes into putting on an event.  While pretty meager in documentary standards, it should hopefully still be enough to do the job right, and send John off on a super high note.

OK, fast-forward to the day before the show. It was Friday, August 25th, and I was sitting at work watching the minutes slowly pass.  My flight was early in the afternoon, so I took off a few hours early to get to the airport on time.  I got there, got right through security, and headed to Gate 4, which was what my original pass said.  By the amount of people who were sitting there chillin’, it didn’t look like a plane was about to take off anytime soon.  So I checked my trusty smart phone, and sure enough, the gate had been changed.  Now why am I telling you this extra boring piece of info?  Guess what gate I was changed to?

17in!

Beamin’ in 17, right?  I was there about 45 minutes early, and had actually forgotten that my homie Jeff was on the same flight as me!  So he showed up a few minutes later, and I don’t think we stopped chatting like little school girls for the rest of the time boarding, and for the entire 3 hour trip to Detroit.  We hadn’t seen each other since Big Ballas last year, so we had a lot of catching up to do!

On a side note, I’m pretty sure I’ve been to Detroit 4 or 5 times in the past year.  I should probably look into buying one of those $5,000 houses at this point.  But anyways…

I had made plans with our homie Rachel Paul to pick us up from the airport early that evening.  As soon as we landed, we let her know, and she came by to scoop both me and Jeff up!  She’s my go-to ride when I’m in Detroit, and she always has a smile on her face doing it.  Thank you as always Ms. Paul!

Jeff and I were pretty hungry, and Rachel said that she had already eaten.   Our initial plans of seeing a movie that night had fallen through, so we were on the search for some grub.  When I’m outside of the Dallas/Fort Worth area, I heavily rely on Yelp.  Say what you want about it, but it’s honestly never steered me wrong. Every restaurant that looked interesting was either in the other direction, or didn’t sound good to someone in the car.  So Rachel said “I’ll just pull into the next parking lot until we figure out where we want to go.”

I shit you not…the parking lot that she randomly pulled into was the SAME place that I had gamed with Jumpsteady several months prior!  Rachel hit up Jump and said that he should meet us up at RIW Games to take a break from the office work.  Yes, it was like 8:30 PM and he was still plugging away at Psychopathic HQ.  That man never sleeps!

In the same parking lot, there was a Chinese buffet that we all decided sounded decent.  It was like 18 bucks each for an all-you-can-eat buffet.  It was…OK.  Don’t get me wrong, I ate the hell out of some honey glazed chicken, crab legs, and beef & broccoli, but our buffets here in Texas are definitely on another level.  We all got stuffed regardless, and like clockwork, Jumpsteady hit us up when we were paying for our meals.

Castle Panic!

All four of us stepped inside of RIW, and Jumpsteady had his sights set on a classic board game called Castle Panic. This was yet another game that he introduced me to that I had never heard of.  I will spare you the full details, but the short of it is that you work as a team to keep Orcs, Trolls, and Goblins from destroying your castle.  Anyone who has ever gamed with Jumpsteady knows how seriously he takes it.  He knows the ins and outs of every game that he plays, and Rachel even had to ask him to let her play her own turn at one point because he had already made her move inside of his head.  The game was a lot of fun, and only took about 30 minutes to complete.  (We were victorious, btw!)

The next place we had to hit was a live recording session of Cruisin’ The Barrio with the Rude Boy!  We rolled up to the studio where we met up with Coral, Jimmy, Nicole, Rudy, Jeff “The Ref” Bundy, Alcatraz, and the infamous SCRUBS crew!  I know there were more than that there, but cut me some slack!  Oh yeah! Shortly after we got there, my homie Vinnie “The ICP Kid” showed up to the studio as well!

We all went in while the regular Cruisin’ crew was on the air.  Rudy was hype to see everyone and eventually asked me to sit in for a segment!  Both myself and Jimmy (who was a nervous wreck, as usual) were on the mic, and ready for the segment to start.  Rudy gave me a gracious introduction, showing me love and saying how some of my opinions made him want to punch me in the face, but that he respected me for being honest.  Gotta love that!  I said a few words, as did Jimmy, and we handed our headsets back over to their rightful owners.

After being on the air for a minute, we spent most of the rest of the night outside.  It was August in Detroit, and I was thankful that I had packed a hoodie.  Shit was getting a little chilly already!  I bet we spent a good half hour outside talking to Jumpsteady, Rachel, Vinnie, Jimmy, the Scrubs, and everyone else rotating in and out of the studio.  When I introduced Jimmy to Vinnie, I thought he was going to hyperventilate!  Jimmy gets star struck pretty easily, so meeting Vinnie was a huge deal for him!  Me and Vinnie have known each other for 15 years at this point, and have gotten pretty close over the past 10.  I don’t remember his exact quote, but Jimmy said “this is blowing my fucking mind!” after meeting both him and Jumpsteady at the same time.  lol.  I love that guy!

We said our goodbyes I’m guessing a little after 1 AM.  We got all of our stuff out of Rachel’s car, wished her a goodnight, and loaded up into Vinnie’s ride to bounce.  We dropped Jeff off at his swanky DoubleTree hotel (them cookies though!), and then Vinnie asked if I was tired at all.  I said I was good, and he said that he wanted to take me somewhere.  We ended up at the Greektown Casino!  I am not a gambler by any means, but Vinnie wanted to check something out before we called it a night.  He is a HUGE Willy Wonka fan, and they had apparently just put in a new Wonka slot machine into play.  This game was pretty dope looking, but had someone at it every time we passed.  We only spent about 30 minutes there, but he saw what he wanted, and only ended up dropping 20 bucks or so in a random machine.

Vinnie had agreed to let me crash with him while in Detroit, so we made our way to his house, stayed up chatting for a bit, and then called it a night.  It was probably 4:30 or 5 am at that point, and he wanted to be in line for COC hella early!

Oh, don’t think he didn’t show me some of his rare stash items.  Sorry though, I was sworn to secrecy on ’em…

Saturday, August 26th

We woke up a mere 3 hours later, but I wasn’t even close to tired. I think it must have been the adrenaline, because I was up and ready to get out the door in minutes!  We stopped by a Tim Horton’s drive-through to get a breakfast sandwich on the way to the El Club. I swear on my life that Vinnie and I repeated our orders 4-5 times.   I think the drive-through attendant must have been texting or Facebooking while taking our order because it’s not like it was difficult.  Standard breakfast bagel sandwiches.  One with a coffee, one with a hash brown and soda.  15 minutes after they asked us to pull forward, the shit still wasn’t right when they brought it out.  Vinnie was heated and said he came there almost every day before work with no issue.  Either way, we scarfed them down, and I’ll just tell you that this was probably the only thing close to stale that happened for the entirety of the weekend!

El Club reppin’ COC

We rolled up to the El Club at around 9:30 AM and of course some ninjas were already there!  THREE to be exact, and while I didn’t know them at first, Vinnie knew exactly who they were.  So we introduced ourselves and chopped it up for a bit until we started seeing a few more signs of life.

I didn’t catch his name, but the owner of the El Club, a dude who looked to be in his early 30s, rolled up to unlock the door so employees and Psychopathic’s crew could get in and setup.  I don’t know where he got them, but he had a bag full of Faygo trinkets that he let all of us split!  There were Faygo folding frisbees, some credit card holders, bottle openers, and even American flag sunshades!  I think I actually left my shades in Vinnie’s ride! (Side note: he got them back to me at the Juggalo March!)

By around 10:00 AM, the mysterious and elusive Mr. X asked Vinnie and me if we were down to run a quick errand for Psychopathic.  They needed 6 giant rolls of duct tape, and 24 AA batteries.  I sought out the nearest Home Depot on my phone which was 15 miles away, and we were off!

We got to the store soon thereafter, grabbed the batteries and duct tape, and texted Mr. X to see if there was anything else that they needed before we left.  He asked Vinnie if they had any black 20 ft x 10 ft sheeting.  Now this struck me as odd.  The only thing I could figure was that they wanted to use this to cover up the walls at the El Club to hide anything that may be on them.  The OTHER thing that black plastic sheeting would be used for is to protect the venue from our savory Juggalo Juice!

The Carnival of Carnage show was billed as a Faygo-less event, so that shouldn’t be the case…should it?

We got back to the El Club a little after 11 AM, and pretty much the whole Psychopathic Records staff was there already getting setup for the show!   Dean and MattE were setting up merch, Billy was getting things lined up running all over the place, Mr. X and a few other ninjas were in the stage area, and the wrestling ring was being built as well.  Shit was about to start poppin’!

We got the items we purchased from Home Depot over to Mr. X, and tried not to get too close a glimpse of the merch, but I couldn’t help looking.  I’ll show you a good pic of everything that was available later on.

I guess those breakfast sandwiches weren’t very filling, because Vinnie and I were already starting to get hungry and it was only a little bit after noon.  Someone tipped us off about a great little Mexican spot right down the road.  The

Scottie and Vinnie at El Rey

restaurant was El Rey Taqueria, and being from Texas, I’m pretty familiar with authentic Mexican taquerias.  It was time to put Detroit’s to the test.  We walked about 4 blocks down the road and went inside.  A group of Juggalos were already there and said that the food was LEGIT!  We were seated by our waitress who was like 4’5″, wearing braces.  I asked how old she was, expecting to hear “16” or something like that.  She was 21… lol.  She asked what was going on down the road and asked about all of the Hatchetman logos everyone had on.  So we gave her a quick history of ICP and told her how historic tonight’s show would be.  She seemed genuinely intrigued.  She grabbed our orders ($5.50 burritos FTW!), loaded us up with drinks, chips, and salsa, and then we waited.  Our homie Jeff caught a lift from Uber and met us there shortly after we ordered.  Our meals came out at around the same time, and Juggalos, this shit was 100% on point! I got the pastor, and it did NOT disappoint!  Much props to the El Rey Taqueria…I highly recommend it next time you’re in the D!

After finishing off our gut-buster burritos, we waddled back down to the El Club where doors were just about ready to open.  Natalie the Ring Girl and her husband Donny were checking IDs and handing out the personalized COC laminate badges.  It was great to see them again, even though it had only been a few weeks since saying our goodbyes at the Gathering.   Once the doors opened at around 2 PM, I got into the merch line with everyone else.  I swear I waited for close to an hour, and I was only like 15-20 people back!  Halfway through the line, Donny told me that I should have said something before doors and he would have snagged me whatever I wanted.  I told him it wasn’t a big deal, and that the deeper I was in line, the more likely some stuff would sell out and I wouldn’t have to spend as much.

I know a bunch of ninjas online were interested in what all was available as exclusive COC merch from this show, so check out the pic I snapped before everything started selling out:

COC Merch

There were some super dope designs there by both Shane Murphy and Relish Brand clothing.  Much props to both of those crews for the new merch adorning my closet!  I didn’t get one, but they even had a Mad Paperboy Records hockey jersey, as well as an old school Dog Beats era ICP logo jersey with “89” on the back.  Shit was on point!  My favorite design of the night was the official COC show t-shirt.  I’ll cherish that one forever!

It was also around merch time that I met up with my homies from the Psychopathic Museum!  I’m talking Todd, Joe Urban, Zane (Yacht Club!), and a grip of others!  Just so I don’t incriminate anyone, I will say that I got hooked the fuck UP with a custom-made COC jersey that rivals ANY official jersey that I’ve ever owned!  The shit is ridiculously fresh!!  It was so good catching up and/or meeting some of you for the first time! #MuseumLife

Holy Fucking Unofficial Freshness!

I’m horrible with names, but while waiting in line, some Juggalettes line jumped and of course nobody had a problem with it. One of them was bent over the table trying to get a better view of the merch and a ninja beside me started busting balls like “Why you lookin’ Scottie?”  These ninjas were hilarious though, and showed a lot of love, even while ribbing me.  Cherry Bomb and Matt had also made their way past the entrance and texted me while I was in line!  It was so great seeing them again!  They didn’t Gather this year, so it had been a while since we last saw each other.

I picked up merch for myself, and a few others who couldn’t make it to Detroit for this one.  After stashing it away in Vinnie’s car, I came back inside to see what I could get into.  JCW was already in action, so I watched that for a few minutes.  The restroom was calling, so I made my way inside to take a leak.  I only tell you this because I’m about to show you a pic of the greatest bathroom paint job ever:

Don’t laugh too hard or you might make a mess…

I ran into Joanna who asked if I had seen Trish.  I think they rolled into Detroit together along with Paige (all Scrubs, of course) and she needed to get something out of Trish’s car.  I peeked into the stage area that was curtained off and saw Trish, Rachel, Paige, Coral and a few others working on setting up.  I grabbed the keys for Joanna, and then was asked if I wanted to help set up.

So what did setting up entail?  Balloons.  HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of Carnival of Carnage balloons!  They had a single helium tank, 600 COC balloons in red, blue, and black, and some big ass rolls of ribbon in multiple colors.  Our job was to inflate them, tie a ribbon on, and then hand them to Jumpsteady who was strategically placing them on the ceiling of the venue.  His idea was to keep the ribbons just out of reach of any tall ass Juggalos with ups so that anyone who REALLY wanted one would have to figure some way to ninja their way up to them.  So we got an assembly line started.  Rachel and I would alternate blowing up the balloons with the helium tank, Paige cut ribbon, and Coral, Trish, and Natalie would help tie the ribbons on.  Everything worked GREAT!  We were back there for a few hours though.    Like seriously…I have no idea how they would have pulled this off had they not reached out for volunteers.  We literally finished 5 minutes before they were supposed to open up the curtain.

So the initial lineup according to InsaneClownPosse.com looked like this:

  • DOORS EL CLUB 2:00pm
  • JCW – 3:30 to 6:00
  • Inner City Posse – 7:30 to 7:50
  • Dice – 8:10 to 8:40
  • Champtown – 9:00 to 9:40
  • Carnival of Carnage – 10:00 to 11:00
  • DOORS MJ’s AFTER PARTY 11:00
  • Lyte – 11:30 to 12:00
  • DJ Clay – 12:10 to 12:40
  • Big Hoodoo – 12:50 to 1:20
  • Anybody Killa – 1:30 to 2:00

They stuck pretty close to it too…but 2 acts got switched around.  After JCW, ninjas started loading into the freshly decorated venue.  It would still be a while before any acts would take the stage, but nobody wanted to miss the ultra rare performance of Dog Beats by the Inner City Posse!  So the crowd started to form, and Rude Boy took the stage only to announce that Dice would be opening up the show instead.  That was fine, and Dice put it down, but as with a regular ICP show, we knew who we were there to see.

Dice performed his 30 minute set in front of the hundreds of Juggalos in attendance, and got a pretty good reception.  I stayed for a couple of songs and then wandered off into the outdoor area to kick it with everyone. While outside, I found Aiden of the Scrubs crew who had a few people gathered around him. Why were they so enamored with Aiden? Was it his charming good looks or striking personality? Bitch, who are you kidding? He found a little baby squirrel at Clark Park, named him “Stretch Nuts”, and brought him inside of the El Club. While a clown show is probably no place for an animal of any sort, that thing was pretty adorable.

Aiden & Stretch Nuts!

I heard Dice perform his final track of the night, and DJ Carlito came back on to spend some 90s jams!  Carlito is just barely legal to drink, but I can almost guarantee that he would smash ANYONE on 90s hip hop trivia.  The dude is an encyclopedia of hip-hop knowledge…thanks I’m sure to his old man Rudy!

Vinnie sportin’ a Funky Ass Straw Hat!

I didn’t want to miss even a SECOND of the Inner City Posse show.  I mean the EP is only about 20 minutes long, and they’ve said that it will NEVER be performed again!  While Carlito was spinnin’, I found Vinnie in the crowd sportin’ a “Funky Ass Straw Hat” and thought that would make for a great photo opp.

Not too long after tracking him down, the Rude Boy graced the mic and introduced the infamous, notorious, Inner City Posse to perform the Dog Beats EP for the Last Time Ever!

The intro beat started, and Juggalos began chanting “Ho-ly Shit! Ho-ly Shit!” almost immediately.  The intro continued with “Throw your gang signs in the air….for the NOTORIOUS…Inner City Posse!”  Juggalos were already chanting “I-C-P! I-C-P! I-C-P!”

The Inner City Posse’s security was introduced: The one and only Jumpsteady came out, arms folded, and standing off to the side of the stage.  Then, filling in for the late John Kickjazz, Southwest’s own Tre LB (of Chop Shop) made his way to the stage!

Next up, the Southwest Strangla himself: Shaggy 2 Dope was announced…ICP chants still echoing through the crowd!  And finally, the Duke, Violent J, rounded out the rest of the Posse.

For at least a solid minute, they held up the Inner City Posse gang sign, which was basically making a “gun” with one hand and pointing to the palm of their other hand.

All of them were sportin’ a simplistic, yet super dope black beanie that just had a bold embroidered “ICP” on it.  I’m telling you, they’ve gotta put that up on PsychopathicMerch.com!  I would have bought one that night had they been on sale!

They then busted into the first track: “Ghetto Zone!”  All three were super live and they seemed to be on point reciting their lyrics.  This was the Inner City Posse, and a few hundred ninjas were witnessing muthafuckin’ history!

The entire venue went dark, and they said they would be performing the track “Life At Risk” in the dark.  Whether it was due to them not completely knowing the lyrics to the track though is purely speculation.  The “I-C-P! I-C-P! I-C-P!” chants were still echoing throughout the El Club!

Next on the list is the only track that most Juggalos have seen outside of this show before: “Dog Beats!”  I’ve gotta give it up to Tre Lb for a minute.  You can tell he took this shit seriously…almost as if his life depended on it.  On songs that he didn’t have many verses on, he made for a great hype man!  And when he did get a little bit of shine to pay homage to his brother John Kickjazz‘s verses, he fuckin’ schooled it!!

Juggalos, I can’t really describe the feeling I had when witnessing something as historic as Dog Beats being performed front to back, but I know I’ll never forget it. The 300 or so ninjas who were lucky enough to be there known exactly what I’m talking about. It was a SIXTEEN MINUTE set, but everyone in attendance soaked in every second of it! I don’t know how much footage has surfaced, but even if it came out from front to back, it would still pale in comparison to experiencing it yourself.

Shaggy, J, and Tre Lb left the stage thanking Southwest Detroit to a booming chant of “I-C-P! I-C-P!”, and that was a wrap!

Since things got thrown a little out of order, the next act to perform was Champtown! Now the only real knowledge of Champtown I had was of the throwaway line from Carnival of Carnage “Now I’m sleepin’ in a gutta, right next to Champtown’s motha.” I talked to Vinnie about Champtown, and he said that after hearing that line, he immediately went and bought Champ’s entire discography to bump and became a fan! So having him at the show was a definite bonus for him!

As for me, I watched a little bit of Champtown’s performance from the bar area where I was recharging my phone and kickin’ it with Natalie and Donny. It was at around that time that DJ Clay hit me up asking for a favor. Apparently there was a bit of a last-minute change to a set, and he had to burn a new CD! He hit me up asking if I had my laptop with me. Now what kind of IT guy would I be if I didn’t have that at a moment’s notice? lol. So I hit Vinnie up for the keys, grabbed my Microsoft Surface and USB DVD burner, and met him and his wife at their car. I’m pretty sure this was for his set at the after party later, so I was happy to help out.

After getting back into the El Club, Champtown was still onstage with his crew, but they had gone into a freestyle battle in true Detroit fashion! Guess who was up there getting the crowd hype? My homie Sburcs (Jason Leroux) from the infamous SCRUBS crew!

Everyone watching was digging it, until the end of his freestyle when he did a “mic drop”, and Champ’s crew got pissed at him saying it was a new mic and that’s not how you treat other people’s shit.  lol.  Luckily tempers calmed quickly, and everything was straight soon afterward.

I also noticed that the Mankini cutout that Trish brought for photo opps had made its way HIGH above the bar at the El Club to where I hope he remains to this day. I’ll have to swing by next time I’m in Detroit to check things out.

With this being the Carnival of Carnage show, there wasn’t much to setup to get the set ready. As long as Violent J, Shaggy 2 Dope, and Tre Lb were ready to rock the stage, the COC banners were hung to provide an authentic throwback to 1991 for a backdrop.

IT…WAS….TIME!

The spoken word intro blared through the PA as the excitement and anticipation built! As soon as the snaps of the title track began to play, Juggalos lost their shit! The lights were synchronized perfectly with the track, and when the bass dropped, all three members of the Insane Clown Posse appeared onstage! Violent J donned inverse paint which is primarily black and had his signature design in white this time. Shaggy’s paint was extremely rounded and looked closer to Violent J’s present-day paint than his own.

Shaggy 2 Dope

Tre Lb was filling the big clown shoes of his late brother John Kickjazz, and I can’t say enough about how hard he put it down! His brother would have definitely been proud. I was in the middle of the crowd reciting every word to the album so I didn’t focus on counting how many words they may or may not have flubbed on, but from my perspective, all three were on fucking point!

Another thing I was curious about was how Juggalos who were there were going to watch the show. I mean a $250 price tag wasn’t something we have ever been faced with. Would there be 300 ninjas with folded arms nodding their heads and taking it all in? Or would it be a classic ICP show with crowd surfing, mosh pits, and ninjas goin’ buck wild? It didn’t take long to figure out the answer to that. All of the OGs in attendance were dancing, singing, and having the time of their lives! I only held my phone up for a few minutes to get enough footage for this review, and then it was straight Juggling from that point on!

I can’t remember which song it was on, but Violent J got so hype that he took a dive into the sea of Juggalo hands and started crowd surfing towards the back! It was getting a little out of hand and I swear he saw me, reached for my hand, and I helped to pull him back towards the stage. It was the fuckin’ SHIT! I’ve seen ICP a LOT in my past two decades of Juggling, and it’s been a long time since I remember seeing J as happy as he has seemed on stage this year. Beamin’!

They said they were gonna give us a complete Carnival Of Carnage performance from front to back…and they did, for the most part. The only tracks they didn’t touch was “Is That You?” and “Taste”, I assume because of the features on those tracks. But what about “Wizard of the Hood?” Oh they performed it…and Jumpsteady even made an appearance, mic in hand, to school his short verse! It’s a rare treat to see Jump performing (except for when he shows up as Evil Dead….allegedly).

So after about 45 minutes of the COC album, minus the two aforementioned tracks, were they going to end it all with “Ghetto Freak Show”? That seemed a little anticlimactic.

The El Club went dark for a few seconds. Was that it? Was it already over??? NOPE! The El Cub lit back up as bright as could be, and 2 full barrels of FAYGO were rolled out onstage! YOU JUST READ THAT RIGHT!! We now knew what that black plastic sheeting was for!

Juggalos were treated to a Faygo-drenched additional 30 minutes of Wicked Clown classics! Don’t hate me for not remembering every single song, but we got to hear:

  • Southwest Song
  • The Show Must Go On
  • Hokus Pokus
  • Bring It On
  • Welcome To The Show
  • Halloween on Military Street

Then, it all ended with Faygo Armageddon in the tiny ass room to “Thy Unveiling”! They kept carrying out box after box of diet Faygo until finally there was none left. It was the perfect end to a perfect night!

We all dragged our soggy asses through the bar area and outside to congregate and talk about the flavor we all just witnessed. There was so much love in that building that it spilled over onto the streets! I caught up with Vinnie right after the show who had such an emotional experience that he excused himself for a minute to decompress. This was a special night for him as memories of his late father (Ron Monastiere, RIP) were permeating his thoughts. Love you brother!

Not long after, I ran into him talking to Jumpsteady and Rachel Paul. Jumpsteady sought out Vinnie seeking his approval for the show that he just experienced. Vinnie is the Super OG after all, so getting his seal of approval meant the world to Jumpsteady, and Psychopathic in general. Of course Vinnie had nothing but overwhelming praise to give to Jump about the whole production. I was just happy to be a fly on the wall to hear that conversation. After that brief moment, we caught this epic moment in time on camera:

Click to enlarge!

I wasn’t sure where to include the little bit of footage that I put together for the show, so here is as just a good a place as any! We’ve got a little bit of Dog Beats, and a little bit of COC for your viewing enjoyment:

THE AFTER PARTY

Luckily this show was in August in Detroit, and not February or something like that. Even though we were soaked, it wasn’t unbearably cold outside. I don’t remember the sequence of events after this, but I know I went to Coral’s car to change and drive her back since she had been drinking a little bit. When I was getting all of that situated, some car was creeping down the street super slow. It came by once and I just kind of ignored it. Then it circled and came around again. Was I about to receive the ultimate bone? Hell nah! The driver rolled down the window and asked if we had just come from the COC show. I said yeah, not able to see his face because it was dark outside. He introduced himself as Tre LB and had some music and flyers to give out. I was like “Oh shit…hey man, it’s Scottie!” and told him what a great job he did with the show tonight! It was just a weird coincidence that turned out being pretty funny.

Shortly after that, we were on our way to the after party! We got the directions and ended up at this old run-down building that looked like no other concert venue I had ever seen. We met up with Vinnie, Trish, and Paige there and were about to head inside. Vinnie told me he had to jet though due to work obligations the next morning. I mean it WAS already after midnight so that’s definitely understandable. We said our goodbyes and then the rest of the crew went into the venue.

They let us in with our COC passes, and upon going in, it looked strangely familiar. I was having a deja vu moment and knew I hadn’t been there before, but it felt like I had. Well it turns out that MJ’s (the venue) was owned by the SAME people who ran the club that the “If We Were A Gang” Psypher was shot at! It’s also where we shot our crazy intense 2 hour ICP interview. The owners had picked up and moved every bit of the furniture, bar, etc from the old spot to the new one and were back in business! The owner of the spot told me a little more about how shit works with their business, but I’m not here to incriminate anybody.

I know damn well that the after party didn’t start at 11 o’clock, but to my surprise, we still didn’t miss any of the acts. There weren’t all that many people there, but it was still a decent turnout for an after party of the smallest ICP show I’ve ever witnessed. (That’s no hate…just happened to be the capacity of the El Club.)

The “stage” was basically some pallets pushed together and had some monitors on tripods for the artists to hear themselves. I’ve never performed in my life, but artists seem to live and die by those monitors. Lyte told me that one of them wasn’t working which is why he stayed close by the other the whole time. You could tell that he struggled with it, but he still held it down!

In between acts, everyone was roaming around just kickin’ it. The bar was hoppin’, and Hoodoo, Killa, Lyte, and J were chillin’ and socializing. I saw J walk back and forth people-hopping a few times, and then as he was about to walk past again, he saw me from across the room and made a beeline over to me.  He was genuinely curious to know what I thought about the show.  I was humbled that he cared enough to ask!  I told him that while I wasn’t around back in 1991 when they were performing a majority of the COC album, this was truly nostalgic and that everyone involved should be proud of how it went down.  He seemed content with that answer, but if anyone at Psychopathic happens to read this, after months of reflecting on it, it’s STILL one of my Top 3 shows I’ve EVER witnessed!  Seriously, I hope you realize how much you fucked up by not being there.  (lol, halfway kidding)

The after-party continued with performances from Big Hoodoo, and Anybody Killa.  You could tell that they all had issues with the monitor situation, but everyone made the best of it.  There was quite a bit of downtime between sets, so Juggalos were just kickin’ it with each other.   At around 2 AM, a whole other crowd started coming into the party.  I’m talking ninjas dressed to the 9s in their night club attire! I’m sure they walked in to what is probably one of the freshest night clubs in Detroit and saw a grip of Juggalos partying and just thought “what the fuck?!”

Up to that point, security was letting everyone in and out with their COC lanyards/wrist bands with no issue.  At that 2 AM mark though, they said they would charge ninjas if they left and came back.  The performances were over anyways, and if you’ll remember back to the beginning of the review, I was only on a couple hours sleep.  So it was time to jet.

Coral was awesome enough to let a handful of homies crash at her apartment for the night, so we all headed there, chopped it up about how dope the night was, and passed out after one of the best concert experiences of our lives.

That’s gonna wrap it up for this review of the truly EPIC, one-time only Carnival of Carnage show!  I didn’t see any professional videographers there, and the ones who did take video have kept it to themselves for the most part.  I don’t know that it will ever get released in its entirety, but even if someone did leak it, it will pale in comparison to actually being there to experience it!  I don’t know how this will ever ever be topped, but hope you enjoyed reading my recollection of everything that went down that night!  Much love y’all!

Location:

  • El Club
  • Michigan
  • United States

Guests:

  • Inner City Posse, Dice, Champtown

Record Label:

  • Psychopathic Records

Websites:

Reviewer:

Review Date:

  • 08/26/2017 - 08/26/2017

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    Faygoluvers Comments

  1. Francis6

    Francis6

    Comment posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2018 10:14 pm GMT -5 at 10:14 pm

    Such a great day/night.. I framed my badge/ticket along with a poster from that night and look at it everyday! Still bummed out about the merch debacle though… my boy and I where maybe only like 7 ppl back from the table and shit was sold the fuck out by the time we got up there… PSY definitely needs to work on the merch crowds to make it far for everyone… shits gonna sell out regardless maybe it shouldn’t be to the first asshole in line buying multiple size runs of stuff to make a quick buck on eBay. 1 item per design per person… you want more shit? Get back in line..

  2. SPANGE

    SPANGE

    Comment posted on Monday, August 27th, 2018 01:58 am GMT -5 at 1:58 am

    That was a fresh ass dope ass Review! Much mutha fuckin clown Love. My favorite joker card always changes, but it’s been Carnival of Carnage for a couple years, I really enjoyed the footage. Mad props to Faygoluvers and much love to all you juggalos. Freshness!

    I can’t wait for the John Kickjazz documentary, that’s shit’s gonna be Dope.

    Peace.

  3. Carnivalkilla44

    Carnivalkilla44

    Comment posted on Monday, August 27th, 2018 08:39 am GMT -5 at 8:39 am

    Doooooppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeee review SD! Sounds like a fuckin classic show to go down in Juggalo history! I’m not familiar with Tre LB. (I don’t think i ever heard they had someone fill in for Kickjazz…) Gotta check out some of his catalog

  4. Juggalo Keselowski

    Juggalo Keselowski

    Comment posted on Monday, August 27th, 2018 09:22 am GMT -5 at 9:22 am

    I remember there was a giant piece of carpet taped to the floor too, which i found odd considering the faygolessness of the evening. Thy Unveiling was great, ninjas went bananas, i got hit square in the chest with a red 2 liter carrier, which i promptly took home as war spoils.
    $250 is a shitload by all means, but i looked at it like a Campaign Fundraising dinner, a room full of people that pay a cool G for a tiny ass plate of food; except it was to help fund the March and we got this bomb ass show in return. Good times, good times.

  5. Scottie D

    ScottieD

    Comment posted on Monday, August 27th, 2018 10:31 am GMT -5 at 10:31 am

    Juggalo Keselowski, my thoughts exactly! Only a few hundred people got to experience this once-in-a-lifetime show! I’ll cherish it forever!

  6. dribblybob

    dribblybob

    Comment posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2018 07:57 am GMT -5 at 7:57 am

    Great write up.

    There’s a liquor store right across the street from Greektown Casino that has a badass little chicken joint that I highly recommend if you enjoy Popeyes.

  7. Radam

    Radam

    Comment posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2018 07:38 pm GMT -5 at 7:38 pm

    Damn man, another amazing review. I almost felt like I was there and reminded me of how amazing and special it is to witness ICP’s history. Being a Juggalo is the best! It means a lot to me to get these insights because I miss out on so much freshness being in Australia! MCL

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