The fateful day arrived. Ice and his entourage had already rolled into town the day before, and aww shit, things were just getting started. The nineties have definitely taken their toll on the king of white rappers, who at one time topped the Billboard charts with his hit single "Ice, Ice Baby". After five solid years of harsh criticism and fading into rap obscurity, Vanilla would continue to perform in spite of it all. It is amazing that he even dares to be seen in public after the epic motion picture "Cool As Ice", where Vanilla uttered the timeless phrases,"I gotta go shling-a-shlong", "Drop the zero and get with the hero" - (stolen from Doug E Fresh), and of course, the granddaddy of all Ice-isms, "Yo Kat, what's it like havin' parents and all?", among many others.

Great Scot warms up the crowd, sort of.

Let me state now for the record that there is nothing whiter than a room full of white people trying to be black.

As Austin pretty much clears out during the summer months, there weren't many people out that fateful evening. Besides, it was a Wednesday night and there wasn't much going on in town, except for at Bob Poplar's, of course, where a huge mob had assembled outside. It was around 10:30 when we arrived, and people were fighting to get tickets to see the "Iceman". Luckily for us, we had purchased advance tickets the night before and were allowed to enter. After we all stumbled through the masses of people out front of the club, we entered the scene of the crime. "Rapper's Delight" blared through the sound system. Sure, Texas is a little behind in the times, but this was ridiculous. Little did we know that this was just the beginning.

All of this went on until around 1:00 am, when the DJ finally came clean. It went something like this: "I have an announcement to make. Vanilla Ice is in Seton hospital right now. He will not be performing tonight. Everyone exit through the back doors and you will be issued tickets for Friday night. Vanilla Ice will stay in town and perform here Friday night." The crowd erupted with a variety of screams of displeasure and hostility. Immediately, rumors spread through the room that the club had known since 11:00, and had been stalling all along. But why? It looked for a while that there might be a riot inside the club. The bouncers were trying to keep everything together as everyone was funneled out into the alley behind the club where the cops had already assembled themselves in a line. At the end of the alley, squad cars and cops on horseback blocked the street from the alley. (see gauntlet) Awestruck Sixthstreeters watched in drunken curiosity as the Vanilla Ice Riots of p97 were contained in the alley behind Bob Popular. Well, it could have been a riot. Then again, it also could have been a rap concert.

The MAN!!! JOHNY LAW!!!

The rumors about the spectacle had already begun to blossom as the sun rose Thursday morning. Maybe I had been wrong in assuming that Bob Popular would be Vanilla's safe haven. The first of many conspiracy theories about his disappearance that I heard was that there was a pack of around twenty people that were going to jump Ice when he came out, and when he found out right beforehand, he canceled and split. I called Monica back to see if she had anything to say about what happened, and to ask for an interview. She said that "nothing like this has ever happened before at Bob Popular", and stressing the fact that it was a sold out show, that it was "etched in stone" that Vanilla would perform on Friday night. She said that "he (Vanilla) was admitted to St. David's hospital for a severe case of food poisoning", and that this was the reason he did not appear. This, of course, contradicts the D.J.'s claim that the sickly rapper was in Seton hospital during the catastrophe. A simple mistake? You be the judge. On this very day, the Statesman was preparing to publish an article which stated that his name wasn't in the hospital's records under his real name or his stage name. Time to call Unsolved Mysteries.

Prior to the scheduled performance, Vanilla and his entourage had eaten next door at Wylie's Bar and Grill, where it was rumored that they had all eaten the same dish. So why didn't everyone get sick? Vanilla later claimed that it was the chicken wings that got him. Jonathan Hieb, manager of Wylie's has stated for the record that there were a total of three orders of buffalo wings given to the Ice and his party, and that they were eaten by at least four people. Not only did the other three people not get sick, but this all happened at 9:00, only two hours before Ice was to go on,

and a mere forty-five minutes before the Ice fell ill. It takes about six hours to feel the effects of food poisoning, so if he did in fact have it, it wasn't from next door. Sure enough, another rumor soon surfaced that he had really gotten sick from some bad Mexican food he had at Poncho's the night before. Wylie's has requested a formal apology from Vanilla Ice for his comments that he has made about the restaurant's wings. Don't hold your breath.
It must be rough going from rap superstar status, where taking sex pictures with Madonna and making corny movies about nothing are your job, to haggling over bad chicken wings in public. Aside from all of the food poisoning talk, there was a lot of speculation as to why the show had not been called off earlier. The management of Wylie's stated that they were informed of the alleged food poisoning at 10:00 that night. One theory was that it had all been planned out so that Bob's could rack up some good liquor sales on a usually dead night. One person claimed that the owner of Bob's paid Vanilla in cash before the show and soon after that, he disappeared, never to return. Another theory is that they were waiting from 11:00 to 12:30 or so for the police to assemble themselves in the alley because they didn't want the scene to spillover onto 6th Street. Although this may have been the case, it could have been a lot easier on everyone if it had been broken up sooner. It was all a bunch of bullshit.

Day Three: Friday, June 20, 1997
Ice Finally Graces
the Stage

Vanilla Ice @ Bob Popular,
6th & Trinity
Night of the Living White Boy,
Part II

By the time Friday arrived, I was beginning to lose interest in the whole thing. I couldn't stand the thought of wading through a sea of bullshit to see Vanilla Ice, even if it was going to be the most amusing thing I've witnessed all year. Upon realizing that I was already in the sea of shit, I quickly remembered the old story about the guy who swam halfway across the ocean and decided he couldn't make it, so he swam all the way back. I wasn't going to be that guy. I loaded the camera once again, and headed out for the spectacle.
Things sure had changed in the past two days. There was hardly anyone out front of Bob Poplar's when we arrived. Some of Vanilla's crew threw a banner up out front, and ticket holders were told to enter through the karyoke bar next door. Upon entering Bob's through the garden out back, we instantly noticed the lack of people inside. It seemed like there was about half as many people as before. The atmosphere was completely different. Braille wasn't there, but his friend Lucky arrived, hoping to get an interview that he would never get. The place was mellow before the show, and there was to be no opening act tonight, thank god.

The room soon filled up, and after a much calmer pre-show lag time came to an end, Vanilla Ice's muscle came out on stage and announced the king. Vanilla Ice burst onto the stage in a fury, belting out lyrics alongside his partner, backed by a DJ. Sorry, I don't know their names. As expected, from Ice's chameleon-like tendency in the past to blatantly change images even faster and more often than Rikki Rachtman of MTV fame, he has done a complete makeover of his act, removing his "dread", and opting for a more simple Southern California, hip look. The razor marks in his eyebrows have now been replaced by the standard eyebrow ring piercings. Sporting tons of ink and wearing a wife-beater, Vanilla has jumped on the pot bandwagon too, an act for which I commend him. I bet he hooks up with some unreal herbs. His raps are faster and more aggressive now, and he has completely abandoned the choreographed dance steps. (This was upsetting because underneath all of the disguises, there remains only one Vanilla Ice, and to abandon a talent like that is horrible. Maybe the critics really did get to him. C'mon Ice!)

 

Soon enough, it was "This is how we do it". Well, no one has ever called Vanilla original. And then he called out, "How many marijuana smokers do we got in da house tonight?" The crowd roared, and then, "Roll 'em up, roll 'em up, roll up the hootie-mac..." blared throughout the room. He said, "Would you like to hit my joint? Would you like to hit my bong?" (see photo) As soon as the song ended, Ice shut the crowd up and made an announcement. (see quote)

Soon enough the show cranked up again and the crowd was loving every minute of it. I gotta admit, seeing Vanilla Ice in such a small venue was quite entertaining, and at times hilarious. He had the crowd going the whole time. Unfortunately, it was only a brief time, about a half an hour. One of the highlights of the show was when he did the beatbox, an SFS favorite. After that, he segued into some sex raps which included some Ice classics, such as: "...she makes Vanilla's blood boil, open that hood and let me check that oil...", and the timeless, "Let me pull up to your bumper, andif your battery is dead, I'll pull my cable out and jump ya..."
Eventually, he closed with the crowd pleaser, "Ice, Ice Baby" which sent the crowd into a fury. At one point, there was some crowd surfing going on. Vanilla simply held the mic over the crowd as they sang along. The scary thing was that they knew all of the lyrics verbatim.
Although it definitely wasn't worth all of the trouble, and I know that Vanilla Ice has the potential to be a lot better, I would say that it was a pretty good show. It was a whole lot better than most of the utter shit I had to wade through at this past year's SXSW festival, and it was only five bucks. Vanilla Ice is a pure entertainer on stage. The more people criticize him, the more they reveal what makes him worth paying any attention to. It's his ability to say fuck it and break out a new style every couple of years, regardless of how late it is. The fact that he's tardy makes it all the more entertaining. Vanilla Ice doesn't give a fuck. At least he doesn't mince words. It's all about "makin' money, money, makin' money, money, money..." Somehow I get the feeling that he'll have the last laugh.