Backstage, Swallowing Glass, The Donnas, & Dead Hookers

I did it. Yes, my improv troupe performed at Lollapalooza. It was everything I thought it would be and so much more. This is a long story, but you'll like it.

We got to the show at about 10am to meet up with our contact. The show hadn't opened up yet, and we actually just walked right through the main gate without anyone really even noticing us. Just thought I'd point that out in case anyone ever wants to go see Lolla for free--show up early and walk in like you know where you're going.

We wandered around looking for the third stage and finally had to ask someone where our contact was. This was the conversation that started our day at Lollapalooza:

Us: "Hi, we're looking for Dan M---, do you know where he is?"
Roadie: "Yeah, he was right around here. Just look for the guy with stripes shaved into his head and knife earrings."

Oh yeah, it was going to be a good day.

We finally found him and he showed us the third stage. "Stage" was not the word they should have been using for the structure they were putting us on. "Tiny freakin' platform" would have been more suitable. But we didn't care, we were performing at fricking' Lollapalooza. They could have made us stand on milk crates and we would have done it.

The area we were in was not by the main stage. It was a big parking lot area where all the fun stuff was located, like a huge tent with video games inside and other distractions. It was also right by the second stage, where other musical acts were performing. Dan led us backstage where we could hang out until they got us our passes. Backstage for the second and third stage area was a tent behind the second stage. It was so cool. There was food and lots to drink, and we got to meet everyone else that was performing on the second and third stage. There was another comedy group, some rappers, a guy with long hair (more about him later) and this lady who was painting herself silver next to a guy that had just wrapped himself entirely in shiny mylar aluminum foil. Oh yeah.

And remember how I said in my last post that I really wanted to introduce a freak show where guys who hung heavy things from bodily piercings? Well, that was the guy with long hair. It was Turbo Tom's Freakshow. And he was Turbo Tom. More about him later.

The whole line-up for us was really sketchy. They were really disorganized and unclear about how long we were to be onstage and what else they wanted us to do. But whatever, we were performing at frickin' Lollapalooza.

We ended up going onstage at 1pm, and even though an hour before they said we would only have 15 minutes, five minutes beforehand they then told us, "Oh, well you can take the whole hour if you want." Wonderful planning.

So we performed. And it was not funny at all. We knew it wouldn't quite be the scene for improv comedy, but it was still pretty painful. We started off our set with the game called freeze tag and we asked for an opening and closing line from the audience (and by audience, I mean the three people that stood there for more than one minute). If this will classify what our performance was like, then I will tell you: We asked for the opening line of our game and someone yelled out, "Go f*ck your mom." So we used it. It is improv, we take what we're given. Wow, that sounded perverted. But you know what I mean.

So the show was bombing, and we decided to throw in some of the "other stuff" the organizers wanted us to do. We had a booty shaking contest--Oh geez, I forgot to tell another funny thing. When we first showed up that morning and were asking around for Dan, someone said, "Oh, you guys are third stage performers, you need to go over to the 'booty stage.'" The platform we performed on had a big neon pink banner hanging on it that said "Booty Camp." I shit you not.

Anywhore, we brought people up to play twister, and more. We messed with the crowd and it got better. Then we threw in some more sketches and got some laughs. So we did okay. Before the Twister game, actually, one of the "organizers" called me over to say someone was coming onstage at 1:30. I love how they tell us these things as we're performing. I ask her who it is. She says, "It's the fudgee bears" and points behind me.

I turn around to see about nine people dressed up in fluffy bras and they have boas and big fuzzy animal ear headbands and they're carrying huge squirt guns. I think to myself (for the 50th time that day), "Welcome to Lollapalooza." I ask the guy in the fluffy group how he wants me to introduce them (as if looking at them wasn't enough). He says in his hugely flaming gay man voice, "We are the magic dream circus theater and we'll be performing fudgee bear extravaganza." I just stared at him. He squirted me with the squirt gun.

So I go onstage and introduce them. I'm thinking they'll be doing something for about 15 minutes or so, it's a performance right? No. What followed was a surreal moment. The big crew of fluffy people with squirt guns perform to a techno song for about one minute. They're dancing around and shooting their squirt guns. I'm sure the drugged up audience was thinking, "What the f was in that weed I just smoked?"

And the freaks finish and I have to go back onstage to follow that. I grabbed the mic and say, "Anyone else feel like they just had some bad acid?"

Our show was fine, and then we had the rest of the day to hang out. We stuck around for the next hour to watch our new friend Turbo Tom the Freak. He did all kinds of crazy shit. He sucked a condom up his nose and then pulled it out of his mouth. He broke a light-blub and then ate the glass. He pierced his neck onstage. He hung a brick from his nipples. I had asked him backstage if I could hang from his nipples, since I'm a light-weight. But he thought that was a bit too much for the old nipples to take. He was awesome.

Later we got to ask him more about what it was like to go through life doing that stuff. He said he makes a pretty good living at it. He tours college campuses mostly. I asked him how much it hurt to swallow glass. He said, "Well, there's a technique. You make sure you chew off the sharpest parts, but you don't want to chew it up too much. It does hurt coming out, but a little internal bleeding never hurt anyone."

YES IT DID. But whatever, he was the coolest.

The rest of the day we got to hang out and meet the second stage bands. Our backstage passed only let us go so far, we couldn't get backstage at the main stage except for during lunch. During lunch we saw some members of the rap group Jurassic Five (who were very nice), and I stuck around after lunch long enough to see the lead singer of The Donnas walk offstage. She's hot.

I think my highlight of the day was my random moment. I was just walking over to a table that was selling some CDs of the bands performing that day. At the tent, I glanced up from the table, and there was the lead singer of The Donnas. No one was around her, I don't think anyone else recognized her. So I quickly said, "You guys are great, I really love your music." She said, "Wow, thanks!" and shook my hand. It was awesome. Then I saw The Donnas' drummer, who is also hotter than hot hot hot. I got to chat with her and shake her hand too. Sweet.

Around 6pm, the troupe was getting ready to leave. We stopped by the third stage to get our stuff, when one of the MCs called us over. He wanted us to judge a costume contest where the winners would get to sit onstage with Incubus as they performed. I love Incubus, so I was honored to get to choose which costume was worthy of going to meet them onstage.

There were 9 teams of two girls each, and the contest was that the girls had had all day to make a costume out of what they could find around the concert. Most of them had made their costumes out of trash they found, some being more creative that others. All the girls were really young, mid to late teens. The costumes ranged from the girls covering themselves in tree branches to girls who dressed up as a bag of weed to girls who had nothing on but branches and caution tape. That group was by far the most "out there." The pair had dressed up very scantily. One said she was mother nature, and she introduced her friend -- the one who had covered her boobs with caution tape -- as a dead hooker.

We had the chance to ask each pair a question (I most wanted to ask each group dressed up in trash "When did you first lose your self-respect?" but I didn't). Our question to mother nature and her dead hooker was, "Would you actually kill a hooker to get onstage with Incubus?" Mother Nature said, "Well, yeah, if it came to that, sure!"

We gave them the onstage passes. Any young girls f'ed up that much already deserve to hang around with rock stars.

By about 7pm, we were all pretty fried from the sun. We had watched a guy pierce his neck, we had awarded a dead hooker with onstage passes, I had met some of the hottest rock stars ever, and we had hung out with some really cool bands. We watched Incubus perform and then left.

We went over to another guy's house who is in our troupe but couldn't come that day to the show. We sat around in his backyard and ate hamburgers while talking about what we had done for the past eight hours. I've now decided that every one of my stories about the experience will start with, "So there's this dead hooker, right?"