Scenes From Whatever The Hell Last Night's Pizza Underground Show at Dada Was Supposed To Be.
They say a sucker is born every minute. And, oh my lord, is that ever true.
Last night's Parade of Flesh-promoted “concert” from Macaulay Culkin's pizza-themed Velvet Underground tribute band The Pizza Undergound at Club Dada proved it. A whopping 550 people paid 13 of their own hard-earned dollars for the privilege of taking in this sold-out performance — a display that could be best described as half an hour of people slowly realizing that the joke was on them.
It was rubbernecking at its finest: Nostalgia fiends heard about Culkin's involvement in the show, decided it would be funny to go, then came to terms with the fact that maybe this whole spectacle wasn't so awesome after all. It didn't take some in the audience long at all to admit defeat: 15 minutes into the show, people started leaving.
Not everyone left, of course. And those who did were quickly replaced by yet more people — those without the foresight to purchase their tickets in advance. These people happily stayed in line outside, at the venue's front door, awaiting this very entrance opportunity afforded by the early leavers. One such late entrant excitedly jogged into the space wearing a Miley Cyrus “Bangerz” tour T-shirt, which he'd presumably acquired at that other child star's performance from across town at the American Airlines Center on this same night. It's worth noting that he also wore cargo shorts and flip-flops, which I guess just completely cements his role as The Guy Who Makes Every Bad Decision There Is To Make In A Single Night.
Most people, it should be said, endured the offering's entirety. And, somehow, these people seemed to genuinely enjoy what they got. Or, rather, they seemed to at least have some fun with it — enough so to cheer on the five-piece band, of which Culkin is not even remotely a central figure, and request an encore. One fan was beyond excited to leave the show having been gifted the used pizza box one of the performers had used during the set for percussion.
Anyway, all this over-the-top demand was enough to justify the venue's moving this show from its main room to its larger, back patio space, which is only used on certain occasions because Dada doesn't actually own any of the gear it uses for shows out there — the owners rent it.
The Pizza Underground's members themselves seemed pleased enough about this fact, coming off rather smugly with their sunglasses and falsified accents as they used their time on stage to insert lyrics involving cheese and sauce and crust and nationwide pizza chains into the late Lou Reed's canon.
That's what the Pizza Undergound does. That's it. Their performance was fairly basic and it wasn't wholly musically inept, which is maybe the best thing that can be said about it. They also gave a couple Nirvana songs their unique spin. Oh, and they told some bad pizza jokes, too. (Query: Are there any good pizza jokes? Aside, I mean, from the one about the hipster who burned the roof of his mouth because he ate it before it was cool.)
But, hey, Los Angeles-based dance-punk act Moving Units, which opened the show, was pretty decent. And, surely, they had to dig the chance that this show gave them to play before a packed house so far from home.
They might've appreciated a little more shine, though. The Pizza Underground denied press requests to cover this show, resulting in the Dallas Morning News (and maybe others) completely dropping plans to come and cover the event. We got in through other means.
But, well, this is 2014. And if you told me that there was a single person in attendance that didn't take at least one cell phone picture at this event, well, I would just call you a liar right to your face. So there will very much be a visual record of this show, regardless of Culkin and Co.'s wishes.
At the moment, however, no videos have yet reached YouTube. They're coming, though. I'm sure of it. I saw too many people filming the set on their cell phones to believe that they won't be shared shortly.
In the meantime, here's a video Macaulay Culkin eating a slice of pizza. It's infinitely more interesting than any of those other videos will be. Maybe. I dunno. But it doesn't bastardized Lou Reed.
Also, here's a serious question: What does it say about Dallas that this so-obviously-a-joke Macaulay Culkin musical project and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Vanilla Ice reunion each sold out of tickets in advance of their recent in-town forays? Nothing good, I'd argue.
Unless this is the exception and not the rule. And unless Dallas is more ironically sensible than I've heretofore understood it to be.
I hope that's the case.