Clowns crept along the streets of downtown Albuquerque and came to rest in front of the Sunshine Theatre early in the morning of Feb. 12.
With their faces in black and white and their hair in all the shades of the rainbow, the clowns looked anything but funny. They could have stepped right out of a Stephen King novel, but they were actually the dedicated fans of the band Insane Clown Posse.
ICP fans paint their faces to match the faces of the band members, thereby proving their dedication. The band is made up of Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, who paint their faces up in scary clown fashion and jump around on stage while squirting screaming fans with Faygo root beer soda. The soda has come to be the trademark soda for ICP ever since it played a show in Detroit, where the soda is made, and a fan threw a bottle up on stage. ICP is reported to have squirted more than 70 bottles in one show.
Show time was at 6:30 p.m., but the fans started camping out at around 6 a.m. to make sure they had a good spot inside. Campers played music on their car stereos loudly, painted the faces of those who showed up without the ICP look. For the most part, it was a well-behaved crowd that only yelled obscenities when passengers in the cars drove by and baited it with statements like, "Go home you fuckin' freaks, Halloween is over!" At statements like that the group would chant in unison, "ICP, ICP, ICP!"
Despite the menacing face paint, none of these clowns looked older than 16 years old.
There was even a smaller child who came with his parents in tow. The whole
family had their ICP faces on.
It seems strange that ICP has elicited such a following. It is even more bizarre that the fans are so young and so often accompanied by parents.
ICP's music can be enjoyable as long as you can't hear what they are actually singing.
The lyrics are extremely violent, especially toward women. The songs include lyrics about cutting women's genitalia off and hanging it from different places.
During its act, a girl dressed like a Catholic schoolgirl gone wrong came out on stage while another person dressed like an evil clown came out and chased her around the stage with an axe. The fans ate it up and screamed for more.
It may not be apparent to everyone why this band appeals to so many, but whatever it is, ICP seems to have the ability to tap into every age group.
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Perhaps that it seems to promote violence and that its fans look the way they do is what sent the Albuquerque police into a panic. Officers had the streets blocked in three directions and their presence seemed to create unrest among the crowd waiting to go in, and it almost seemed as though the police might have created a problem that did not exist. It doesn't seem that every concert would get this much attention from the police, not to mention the media coverage. Reporters were trying to come into the building with cameras.
In the end, the night went by without too many problems. One ambulance came for a fan who passed out on the sidewalk at about 3 p.m.
A few sad clown faces were seen when they couldn't get in to the show, but the worst part was probably the mess inside the theater from the Faygo.
At around 10 p.m. make-up smeared ICP fans, who looked like they had a rough night trick-or-treating, left the building without incident; most of them got into cars with tired looking parents behind the wheel.
