2011

The 12th annual Gathering of the Juggalos has officially come and gone, and what an INSANE one it was! As with the past 11 Gatherings, Faygoluvers.net was all over that bitch for the 4 official days of it, and even part of the day Tuesday, and ALL day Wednesday waiting for things to start poppin'! Before I get to the day-to-day breakdown, I want to make sure I talk a little bit about some of the things I'll eventually go into detail about. First off, this Gathering was THE Gathering where just about EVERYTHING started late. From seminars, to main stage performances, to wrestling...it was a domino effect when just one little thing got delayed. I'll cover more on this later. I also want to say how completely AWESOME the crowds were this year! Sure, there are ALWAYS going to be assholes, but even Twiztid said in their seminar that Juggalos as a whole SCHOOLED it this year! I talked to a bunch of Gathering veterans about how subdued everybody seemed to be, and pretty much everybody agreed. I'm not saying that everybody was boring by any means. It just seemed like people were more respectable this year. I've already seen some Facebook posts about how big of assholes people were this year, but being around all of the big events just to make sure that we covered them gave us a pretty good perception of the 4 day event as a whole. The shocking part is how many first-timers there were this year! I know that there was at least one seminar where the question of how many Gathering cherries were popped this year was posed. I'm telling you that 3/4 of the crowd raised their hands. The common misconception is that the "newer" Juggalos ruin it for the rest of us. I saw some older Juggalos doing some pretty stupid shit though. Finally, I want to make sure to mention that the vendor prices this year were ri-god-Damn-diculous! $6.00 for a 32 ounce ICEE, $9.00 for a turkey leg, $8.00 for a gyro, $26.00 for a full one-topping pizza, $5.00 for a corn dog...it was just flat out fuckin stupid. I know some of the crew from the Juggalo 1 Stop told me that they brought 700 hamburger patties and were selling burgers on the cheap. They were completely sold out the FIRST NIGHT. Props to them for hookin' it up, but shitty for me that I didn't get a cheeseburger. lol. OK that's my Gathering review until next year... Just kidding. Let's start off with the first few days! TUESDAY, AUGUST 9TH For those who haven't seen the Faygoluvers / Riff Raff crew every year, we have done an RV for the past 4-5 years at the Gathering. Well with that being upwards of $1500 a year, we figured it was WELL past time to just chip in and buy a good used one. We usually rent a 30 footer, but PsykoScott found a hell of a deal on a 20 footer in excellent condition! So that'll be our ride from this point on unless we find an even better deal we can trade up for. lol. Anyways, my wife (who is 8 months pregnant) and I drove to Fort Smith, AR to meet up with PsykoScott and Oxi on Monday night. We woke up Tuesday, loaded up some last-minute things, and were on the road! It's roughly 9 hours from Fort Smith, AR to the Gathering, and after stopping at Wal Mart to get our groceries for the weekend, we were bound for Cave-In-Rock, IL! The drive was uneventful, and we arrived at about 7 PM to Hog Rock. I won't tell you our ninja tactics that we use to get in, but we got in and set up on Tuesday night at our usual spot across from the Underground Stage inScrub Central. I hadn't met him before this year's Gathering, but Hazinfrom TrueJuggaloFamily.com and his girl Hashley were already there and had set up shop too! We rolled out the FLH / Riff Raff banner, set up the shower tent, and vegged out for the night. We STILL had an entire day to kill... WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10TH On Wednesday morning, they started letting the Juggalos and Juggalettes outside the gates in. I went over to get our passes from Will Call, and they were frisking EVERYBODY and checking EVERYTHING that came into the campgrounds. That didn't stop people from bringing in glass bottles, fireworks, and numerous other things that were not supposed to be brought in, but I'm sure it cut down on it a lot. We went to check on the Psychopathic merch booth on Wednesday morning as well. They were Open For Business, so we picked up the newPsychopathic Rydas CDs "Eat Shit N Die" and "Backdoor Rydas"! I was pretty surprised to see that T-shirts were $30.00. I know that printing a T-shirt for me still costs about 5 bucks in LOW quantities, but I'm sure they were doing that to cover the costs of the star-studded event this year. Between that and the cost of food there though, it's no wonder there was ALWAYS a line at the ATM! When we arrived on Tuesday afternoon, it was VERY strange to see the infamous "drug bridge" without a single person on it. Things had already picked up on Wednesday though as dealers set up shop where they'd spend a majority of their weekend. I went on a rant about this bridge in last year's review, but I still think something needs to be done about it. Not only does it make it hard to get across the bridge, but it's just flat out annoying! We found alternate routes around it just to avoid it. Fuck that bridge. A few more ninjas we were expecting rolled up on Wednesday as well after waiting in the ridiculous line outside. RandomNinja and JesterJules ofTrueJuggaloFamily.com, as well as Stitch, Shaman, his wife Stephanie, and their adorable 6 year old daughter Samantha all randomly set up their home away from home too! While we were killing time Wednesday, Amanda and I walked by the Spazmatic hangout when we noticed SP (from the food contests on thePotluck Tour Diary) standing there. We went to say what's up to him and were interrupted by an extremely intoxicated, but VERY cool ninja. He never told us his name, but saw that my wife Amanda was pregnant and started talking about how great it was to have kids. We received ALL KINDS of fatherly advice...like when you change a diaper on a boy you have to make sure to clean all the shit off of his ball wrinkles. You know, great stuff like that. haha. He was truly genuine, and really excited for us. Props to that ninja! For me, the Gathering doesn't officially start until I run into Upchuck the Clown. He was rollin' around paintless with Leah from Psychopathic Records just scoping out the place. The Gathering was now in session! Wednesday was now just about over, so we went back to the RV, cooked some brats and hot dogs on the grill, watched a movie, and called it a night. The official start of the Gathering of the Juggalos was about to get underway! THURSDAY, AUGUST 11TH So even though Thursday is the first official day of the Gathering, events start off a little bit slow. Yes, The Underground Stage started up at about2 PM, which is fresh! But other than that, the events aren't NEAR as stacked as they are on the remaining days of the Gathering! At some point in the day, FLH's own Big Ian showed up with his homieSandman and another couple of homies from VA! They had rented some cabins nearby and were planning on commuting back and forth daily so they could shower up and sleep in climate-controlled rooms. Pussies. lol. The first thing that we decided to do was go to the Freakshow tent to see the magician that was there. Let me put this out there...I respect the shit out of anyone with the balls to stand up in front of a few hundred people and try to entertain them. HOWEVER, this is a review, so I've gotta be honest with you. This magician was pretty fuckin horrible. He was from Detroit, had some pretty crazy attire/facepaint on, and was attempting to mix humor in with his magic. Unfortunately, his suckness overwhelmed any attempt that he made at being funny. He should actually use that quote in his press kit. lol. Anyways, there was an hour of that, and when he didn't get pelted or boo'd off of the stage is when I realized that this Gathering may be a little bit different than others. After that act, something called "Flec's Bizzaro Circus Sideshow" was due up. Their act was mostly about fire juggling, fire hula hoops, and pretty much fire everything else! Their performance had all of us "Ooh"ing and "Aah"ing! It was fast-paced, fun, humorous, and they were extremely prepared in that they used mostly Psychopathic songs in their act! Thursday was a special performance by them because they teamed up with some friends of PsykoScott and Shannon's called Mercury Suspensions. If you don't know what suspensions are, it's where you take flesh hooks through certain parts of your body (ie: back, knees, arms, etc.) and are then hanged by them. (Get your Wikipedia on about it.) So to describe this last act won't do it justice, but I'll give it a shot. 4 people on the suspension team had hooks in their backs with a rope hanging off of them. 2 were on each side. They were playing tug-of-war with the rope to where it was tight enough to make a tight rope out of. As if that wasn't painful enough to watch, Flec (who was the host of the show) got up on the flesh-hung tight rope and walked across it. The shit was INSANE! It was a great way to start off the Gathering and if it comes back next year, ALL of you should go see it! After Flec's sideshow, we went straight to the main stage to check out what was left of MASTAMIND's set. Luckily we got there just in time to hearDustin Diamond aka SCREECH introduce MASTAMIND. We watched most of his set and then headed back to the RV to chill before some of the main stage acts going on later in the evening. None of us really cared to see DJ Quik, and then we had heard through the grapevine that Paul Wallcanceled. So after chillin' in the AC for a while, and keeping you posted via Facebook and Faygoluvers.net, it was time to head back to the main stage to see some E-40. We caught the end of 40's set, and then, you knew what time it was: HAMMER TIME! That's right! This was one of the nominees for the Bubba Sparxx Award as some of us OG Juggalos like to call it. (Meaning we were thinking he would be pelted / booed off stage). We absolutely could NOT have been more wrong! HAMMER KILLED IT! He wasn't wearing the parachute pants that all of us early 90s kids grew up accustomed to, but he still had ALL the moves! That's no small feat because he's pushing 50! He had a gang of background dancers on stage with him, but when it came down to it, he could still crab walk with the best of 'em! The crowd was into it like they were watching a proven Gathering veteran on stage. I for one would LOVE to see him come back! The final note I'll make about his performance is that during his grand finale song, "Can't Touch This", he invited HUNDREDS of people on stage with him to just dance alongside him and his dancers! This made for a hell of an outro! Hammer is still a showman even after all of these years! This is the part of the night where things got a little bit stale. I don't know exactly how long we waited, but I would guess that it was at LEAST 1-1/2 hours until Busta Rhymes hit the stage ready to perform. Nobody knew what was going on between the time Hammer got off the stage, and Busta got on. One thing I didn't mention before though is that Paul Wall was a no-show, so there was already a big gap in the schedule. Let me just tell you that Busta Rhymes murdered the crowd too! He was on point with his insanely fast pace, didn't just stand in one place and do his show, and had some dope crowd interaction! By the end of the show, he had won Juggalos over! He even mentioned that by the end of the set that this was a career-defining moment! This killa has been around for 20 years and playing the Gathering is career-defining? How fresh is that? Next, it was time for the LOOOOOTTTTUUUUUSSSS!!! A banner was put up showing all 5 of their faces in hoods. Then, the 5 petals emerged! This year they had on all black suits with white ties. They chose to paint their faces with the Lotus cross on them instead of wearing masks too. It was a very nice change of pace from the last few years! They played classics like "My First Time", "Hot Poison", "In Bloom", and of course finished up with"Juggalo Family"! If you didn't hear yet, Violent J mentioned during theICP Seminar that a new Lotus album would be released in time for next year's Gathering of the Juggalos! With all of the delays that happened on the main stage, EVERYTHING else that night was delayed as well. We headed back towards the RV, and then were getting ready for that night's Underground stage acts. We saw Psycho Jesus put it down, and an EXTREMELY lively set by AJAX. That dude was all over the stage and they HAD to have thrown out a thousand blunt wraps during his performance! Both Psycho Jesus and AJAX rocked it and got us ready for the 2 Underground stage acts I was most hyped about seeing all weekend: Hopsin and the Psychopathic Rydas! Hopsin got up on stage with SwizZz shortly after AJAX left, and started his set with "Motherfucker" off of "Gazing at the Moonlight". SwizZz did a solo track, and Hop continued afterwards and did "Kill Her", "You Are My Enemy", "I'm Not Crazy", and "Trampoline". Then, his set abruptly went silent. I recorded the entire thing, and it was sitting at less than 20 minutes. Then he looked towards the back of the main stage and said "They're trying to cut my set, man", and started a "Fuck that shit" chant. He left without much of a fight, but they definitely did him wrong. He didn't get to perform "Sag My Pants" or "How you Like Me Now?". I mean really, all they would have had to do is give him 10 more minutes, but the Rydaswere going on right after him, so they made way for them as soon as they got there. The Rydas had a gigantic banner for "Eat Shit N Die". They didn’t just have the seven of them on stage though! There were a grip of other Rydas just chillin' in the background in Rydas gear! It was a dope set, and they were on stage for at least a good 45 minutes! Songs from every album they've ever put out were performed! You pretty much know what you're gonna get if you've ever seen the Rydas perform, but that's not to say that it's not still the shit! Hell, you won't catch me saying a bad thing about the Rydas. I know what they're capable of! It was after 5 AM on Friday morning before they got off of the stage, so that was our cue to get our asses to bed. The first thing we wanted to do is hit the ICP Seminar at 2 in the afternoon, so we needed to catch some z's. FRIDAY, AUGUST 12TH At about noon, the god damn alarm went off. At least it was cold as polar bear nuts in the RV. I know I sound like a pussy when I say this, but waking up in a tent with the sun beating down on it with your head stuck to your pillow and your nuts stuck to your legs is NOT how I prefer waking up. We got up, ate a little bit of breakfast, and headed over to the seminar tent. We were there by 12:30, so we managed to get a pretty good spot. Now here's a little bit of a hint for those of you who have never sat through a seminar. If you don't want to get pelted with trash, wet from Faygo, beer, or other anonymous liquids, or even have bags of hay and flour hit you in the head, you are better off sitting near the outside of the tent. Some of the people are either mentally retarded, or have severe lapses in judgment while sitting with nothing to do for longer than 5 minutes. The trash throwing has always happened while waiting on artists to get to their seminars. There are "Fuck the front" and "fuck the back" chants, and we're not just talking about light-hearted Faygo throwing here. Some of these fucktards are throwing full beer cans, big chunks of ice, and even black cats. Yes, lit sticks of black cats. What I noticed this year is that the SAME PEOPLE started the trash throwing at EVERY seminar that I went to. A kid a row in front of me was throwing the lit black cats towards the front of the crowd and that's where I had enough. After the 2nd one, I stood up and said "REALLY?! Are you trying to fuckin hurt somebody?". He muttered "Sorry" and stopped. My wife got hit in the head with a half empty can of beer and ended up leaving. She had had enough. I can't say I blame her, but I stuck it out for you guys to get the footage and info we need! Moving past the bullshit, ICP showed up 2 hours late. Yes, 2 hours. They said they were tired like all of us, and couldn't peel themselves out of bed that morning. lol. I know, it was rough for me too, and I can't blame them for being tired. Especially since they performed in both Lotus AND the Rydas (speculation has it anyways). With that out of the way, we got to the good stuff! If you missed it in my post on the news page, here's the info they released:

• New Music video from "Bang! Pow! Boom!": "It's All Over"
• Vanilla Ice announced to be officially on Psychopathic Records!
• New Dark Lotus album by the Gathering of the Juggalos next year!
• New ICP book coming: "Another Decade Down" or "Another 10 years of ICP"
• "Hallowicked In America" Tour starts in late September and includes TWIZTID and JCW!
• The Mighty Death Pop will come in 3 different versions:

1. Extra album included is a new Mike E. Clark "Mutilation Mix"
2. Extra album included is an ICP cover song album where they cover groups like Geto Boys, NWA, etc. Even includes the Tears for Fears song "Shout"
3. 62 Minute ICP Rap Song - no chorus, just J and shaggy rapping for over a full hour!

• VH1 and other networks have approached ICP to do reality shows, but they will only do them on THEIR terms directed by the Psychopathic video department.
• WFuckOff Radio will be completely revamped in a new studio with both audio AND Video!

After sitting in the Seminar tent for over 4-1/2 hours, I was ready to get up and move around. It was already 5 PM, and I'm still not even sure if ABK had a seminar or not. To be completely honest, all he usually does is smokes weed with the audience. I'm not sure if that was what happened this year, but I chanced not sticking around for it. My apologies to Killa if there was something devastating released there! At this point on Friday, I went back to the RV and bought another 4 hour block of Internet service from the WiFi that was provided at Hog Rock. I'm glad that this was an option because if it wasn't, I'm not sure what the fuck I would have done to keep you ninjas updated! Since I still had to eat some dinner, sift through all of your emails, and get news organized in order to keep you all up to speed, I missed quite a few of the main stage acts that night. This included Dayton Family, CKY, Juvenile, and KMK. I heard that the Kings MURDERED their set, so I'm sorry that I missed it! We walked over towards the main stage to get ready for Ice Cube's set, but got distracted by the carnival rides! PsykoScott, Oxi, and I rode all 4 of them that they had set up! My wife Amanda could only ride the ferris wheel. Like I said...she's 8 months pregnant! That shit was fun, and we heard the "YEAAAHHH"'s echoing from Lil Jon on the main stage while riding. I kept my eye on the crowd from there and Lil Jon surprisingly kept them entertained for the most part! I mean he didn't get hit with rocks or bottles or anything that I saw, and was able to complete his entire set! Earlier, CKYdid the same from what I heard! My homie RandomNinja ofTrueJuggaloFamily.com is a big CKY fan and said that they had the entire crowd into it! I don't believe him because he's a dirty, filthy liar, but you can if you choose to do so. lol. Next up was that night's headliner: Anybody Killa! He came out with simple red and white ABK banners for his backdrop. But the simple stage setup didn't matter. ABK schooled it as always! He performed Juggalo favorites like"One Last Chance", "Hated Me", "Lose Control", and more! Killer set by our favorite Native Warrior! After Killa's set, we headed back to our RV just to take a little break beforeLate Night Comedy started. My wifey and I went over to the Freakshow Tent to see Kung Fu Vampire's set, while PsykoScott and Oxi went to the Seminar tent to get a good spot for comedy. KFV went on at just about his scheduled time (which was a change for teh way the Gahtering had been thus far), and we watched him school the fuck out of his set! He is quickly becoming a Juggalo favorite with tracks like "Dead Girls Don't Say No","Grinder", and even a funk track called "Keep It Funkin'"! He had the full live band on stage with him, and was even accompanied by MARS andLiquid Assassin during a part of his set! If you're into an extremely unique live show, you NEED to see Kung Fu Vampire LIVE! After KFV, we went over to the Seminar tent to find PsykoScott and Oxi. They were sitting near the front of the stage, but NOTHING had started yet! That's on par for this year's Gathering. Apparently, the Legends vs. Icons JCW show went on extremely late that night, so Mick Foley and Colt Cabana were running very far behind. So instead of waiting for them to start 2 hours behind schedule, they moved Harland Williams and Brian Posehn in front of them. Good move on their part! Upchuck introduced Harland Williams first, and we came on and did about a 15 minute set. That dude is really funny, and it was shocking that not everybody was yelling out "HONK FOR SUGAR!!" We recorded his act, so I'm not gonna sit and try to tell you his routine. Shortly afterwards,Upchuck came back out and introduced Brian Posehn! If you're not familiar with him, was on the Sarah Silverman Program, and was also in Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects". He's an odd looking dude, but FUCKING HILARIOUS! We recorded his set as well so I highly recommend you go and watch the 15-20 minutes he did for us! He said that he looked like a fart dressed in human clothes. That's some funny shit! After Posehn went on, the rest of the night flowed fairly well. Colt Cabanawent on after that, and while I've never seen him wrestle personally, his standup was GODAWFUL. You could literally hear crickets chirping. The funniest part of the set Was at the end when he was trying to tell his last joke, someone yelled out "You're a faggot!". Without finishing the joke, he just said something like "I'm Colt Cabana, goodnight!" That shit had the audience ROLLING! Soon after Colt got off the stage, an unscheduled comedian named Marty DeRosa came on for a few minutes. This dude was GREAT! He was a breath of fresh air after Colt sucked the funny out of the room. He was more of a storytelling comedian and talked about some of the shit that he had seen go down at the Gathering up to that point. Look this dude up! Finally, Mick Foley was there to close the night out. He brought a lacrosse goalie stick because he said he wanted to be prepared when human shit started getting flung at him. He said he was prepared to fling it right back! Foley didn't expect for it to go well, but I think that the crowd was in awe of his awesomeness. He's a legend, and Juggalos and 'lettes gave him that respect! I know it was tough for professional wrestlers to go on and try to perform standup comedy after 2 professional comedians got up and KILLED it, so I've gotta give them their props for having the balls to do it. Yes, even you Colt. After late night comedy, it was time to hit the hay and get ready for a jam-packed Saturday! SATURDAY, AUGUST 13TH Late night comedy ended hella late as everything at the Gathering tends to do, so we slept until a little past noon on Saturday. As you can probably tell by my review so far, I'm not a wrestling fan at all. I was when I was growing up...especially when ICP made their stints in the WWF and WCW! However, I guess I kind of just grew out of it. The reason I'm saying this is because I didn't make it to the JCW Seminar. Sorry wrestling fans...I can't cover it all! During that time, Amanda and I saw Upchuck riding around on his golf cart, and I asked if he knew where JCW Senior Official: Kevin Gill was. He said that he would bet that he was over at the oddball Wrestling at the JCW ring. We started the long trek that way, and by the time we got over there, it started to rain. The wrestlers who were in the ring quickly got out, and the people on the metal rafters got the fuck off of them. Some weren't smart enough to realize that they were metal, which conducts electricity, and were leaning against them underneath to be shielded from the rain. Fuckin lightning, how does that work? (Sorry, I couldn't resist). I told the ninjas under there that they may not want to lean against them just to prevent a tragedy. They didn't listen. It soon started POURING down rain, so we retreated to the Bomb House where Ron Jeremy was just finishing up his hosting duties at the Neden Game. We didn't catch much of that, but it looks like the Juggalo playing made a good choice! After the Neden Game ended, the packed ass Bomb House pretty much stayed right where we all were. It was still coming down pretty hard, so nobody wanted to get wet. (Even though that was probably the first time water would have hit some of their skin since before they left towards the Gathering. lol) We saw a break in the rain, so we ran (as fast as myself and an 8 month pregnant wifey could) back to the RV. We sat the storm out a bit, and then decided to head towards the merch booth to see what artists had set up there. We saw Vanilla Ice's merch booth there, and he basically just had 1 design of shirt that he was selling. The guy running the booth saw that Amanda was pregnant, and said he'd give her a discount! Only $10.00 per shirt! We both ended up buying one! Here's the kicker though. Anyone who bought a shirt got to do a little meet and greet with Ice after his set tonight! Amanda gets giddy when meeting celebrities so I know she'd be all about that. Now, it was time for the Blaze Seminar! Blaze didn't really have a set list of criteria that he wanted to cover, but as we wawlked in a little bit late, he was talking about his former hype man J-10 and some of the drama surrounding that. I wish I would have caught the first 10 minutes of that seminar, because I know what Blaze, myself, and CLAAS talked about after the Dallas show, but I don't know what he covered. Until I see it online, my lips are sealed on that subject! He talked about all the cars he ever drove with specific stories about some of them, his biggest influences on being involved in the music scene, and other randomness. See the entire seminar Right Here! (Other than the first few minutes because we came late) After Blaze, it was time to go hit up the main stage. This was SATURDAY NIGHT, and in my opinion, the BEST day for main stage this year! Potluck was scheduled to go on first. Even Blaze said that he was trying to end his seminar because he wanted to go see his homies perform. We walked straight over to the main stage, and nobody was on. It was only about 6:10 PM, so we just figured the Gathering was running behind schedule as it had been all weekend. We then found out that Potluck had already been on and performed their entire set! They went on SUPER FUCKING EARLY. I'm really not sure why, but I was bummed as hell that we missed their set! It figured that one of the main stage acts that I actually REALLY wanted to see went on EARLY instead of like 2 hours late! Vanilla Ice was due up next. If you are one of the few that HAVEN'T heard yet, he has OFFICIALLY been signed to Psychopathic Records! Here's a quick fact: Ice's drummer Clint Eastwood actually owns a venue in Dallas called "TREES", which hosts many of the bigger underground acts (REHAB, KMK, (HED)P.E., Vanilla Ice, more!) Ice always wows the crowd, and did the same at this year's Gathering! He played a ton off of his Bi-Polar, "Born on Halloween", and of course "Ice Ice Baby"! There were half naked girls all over the stage dancing around, and the crowd was hype! THEN, he played some stuff off of the new album "WTF" that he had been working on. All I can really say is: WTF?! It was literally techno / dance music that you'd hear in a nightclub. I felt like we needed to bust out the X and glowsticks. I think he played 2-3 tracks, but it just sounded like 1 long track. Definitely not my cup of tea. I am extremely anxious to hear what Mike E. Clark puts together with Vanilla Ice for his first official Psychopathic Recordsrelease! George Clinton was scheduled to come on stage next. But like I told you earlier, Vanilla Ice was having a meet and greet for those who had picked up a shirt from his booth earlier! (You could also buy one right then and there as well.) The line was pretty long, but not as long as it was in the autograph area earlier that day! As we were waiting, we bumped into some ninjas who rode the officially sanctioned Juggalo Express from New York City! They both told us how awesome the trip was saying that it was the best time they had ever had on a bus! They mentioned that they got official t-shirts, a "survival kit", the bus pass (of course), and I'm not sure what else. For those interested, they said the survival kit had a few candy bars, some gum, and I think even a condom. lol. Still, for $295 a person round trip, that's not bad at all! I also recognized the guy in front of us just seeing him at the ICP seminar from the day before. His name was Doug and he was outta Boston. Doug knew all about Faygoluvers and said that he was checking it daily from inside the campgrounds on his Blackberry! He even called me out on some info I had missed posting from the ICP seminar! He ended up being a super fresh Juggalo, and we crossed paths another time or 2 over the weekend. Hope to see you again next year homie! The line was moving at a steady pace as soon as Ice arrived, and we eventually got to the front. A few ninjas were in line that hadn't bought a shirt, and said they were gonna call him out on the fact that he was making people buy shirts just to say hi, get a pic, and an autograph. I would have bought a shirt either way at that price, so I wasn't butthurt about it. When we got up to meet him and got our pics/autographs, he was cool as hell. We've met before, but this time I talked to him about lining up an interview with FLH! So hopefully that happens soon! We headed back to the main stage, and George Clinton was still on with his dancers and band. I'm not quite sure what songs were played or anything like that, but I do know that the last song was like 10 minutes long. Mr. Clinton wasn't moving around a lot on stage, and he definitely wasn't singing most of the words either. He's literally 70 years old though, and the crowd showed him a lot of respect! His dancers and background singers more than made up for his lack of singing or action. He was never on my list of people I'd love to see perform, but I'm glad that I did before he hung up the microphone. Now, we were about to get into the meat and potatoes of the Saturday Night performances! Blaze was next on the schedule, and you know the crowd was ready to see him rock the Gathering! One thing that we had noticed at this point was the lack of Charlie Sheen. Several people were talking about rumors of him no-showing, so that had me a little worried. I'm not gonna front...I fuckin LOVE Charlie Sheen! I was hype to see him this year, even if it was just to host for a few hours! I don't care what you've heard from the mainstream media...he fuckin SCHOOLED IT! He came up with the 2011 Juggalo Gathering catch phrase: "Whoop Whoop Winning!", the crowd was chanting "Charlie! Charlie!", and other than a few people throwing trash (as they do with ANYONE on stage), 'los and 'lettes were eating out of the palm of his hand! This was ESPECIALLY true after catching a Redpop can that was thrown at him! After that, he caught a flying glowstick that was thrown his way too! He was like Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn all over again! Charlie's first job was to introduce Blaze. I'm sure Blaze never thought he'd hear Charlie Sheen mutter his name! On a side note, Amanda was up in the handicapped area (she's 8 months pregnant...that's handicapped motherfucker!) taking pictures, andPsychopathicLive.com was also up there doing interviews with 'los and 'lettes! If you were watching Saturday night's iPPV, you most likely saw my wifey being interviewed! I haven't even seen it yet, so if you've got it bootlegged or something, send it my way! Now back to your regularly scheduled review! Blaze was announced, and he came out and opened to "The Crypt Keeper", and then proceeded to do tracks from ALL of his albums! "Dead Man Walking", "Real G Shit", "Juggalo Anthem", and "Dead Body Man" were just a few that he did! Juggalo favorite The R.O.C. even came out on stage and did a few tracks like "Blaze Up" and "Ill Connect"! With R.O.C. back on the scene, I'm hoping that means that the chance for aZodiac Mprint album is resurrected! ABK came out later for a few tracks as well! This was a pretty long Blaze set, but being the big Blaze mark that I am, I loved every minute of it! Blaze wrapped up his performance, and it was time for probably the favorite non-Psychopathic act out there: Tech N9ne! Charlie Sheen came back out to introduce Tech N9ne and company, and then it was ON! I think Tech's set was well over an hour, and he was just as lively as he always is! WithKrizz Kaliko and Kutt Calhoun backing you up, you really can't go wrong! I went to the "All 6s and 7s" Tour and I'm pretty sure he did a completely different set at the Gathering! I could be wrong...hell I go to a lot of shows! But either way the shit was dope! He performed his verse from "Worldwide Choppers" live to a tribal beat, "A.S.S.H.O.L.E.", "Welcome to the Midwest", "Riot Maker", and just a plethora of others! Tech is a smart motherfucker because he did mostly fast-paced tracks that would keep the crowd moving! The set closed out with the 816 Boyz track Areola, which I'm sure could be heard echoing for miles! In fact, that was one of the favorite chants at the Gathering this year. It was time for Charlie Sheen to wrap up his hosting duties for the night!Upchuck came out and introduced Mr. Sheen for the last time, but their mic was obviously fucked up. You could barely hear them, but could hearMonoxide talking backstage clear as day. They got that fixed as Charlie was yelling at the crowd for being dead! So he got a little bit of pop at the end when he announced TWIZTID! Jamie and Paul did their set a little different this time. After last year's where they performed for roughly 30 minutes and then played the entire"Heartbroken and Homicidal" album, they caught a lot of grief. This time, they fuckin SCHOOLED IT! The set started out with about a 2 minute video of Madrox, Monoxide, Blaze, and Prozak sitting around a campfire telling stories. It was some funny shit! The video screen then changed to videos of spiders and Jamie and Paul came out rockin' Michael Myers shirts! The first song? "Spiderwebs" of course! Did I mention that Jamie is skinny as fuck now?? I don't think he's quite as thin as Monoxide but pretty damn close! We'll go into more of that when we talk about Twiztid's seminar a little bit later. They then jumped into "DieMuthafuckaDie", "Murder Murder Murder", "Sex, Drugs, Money and Murder", and "We Don't Die"! Everything on the giant video screen behind them went with the track they were playing, so it made their set EXTRA fresh! Then, after"Bussyoheadopen", we started to get the bone. Rain started coming down...hard. I was enjoying the shit out of the Twiztid set, but with my wifey being 8 months pregnant, I had to do what was best for her. We headed back to the RV as they were playing another short video clip intermission. I later found out that their set was like 80 minutes long, so it had barely just begun when we left! FUCK! That's what PsychopathicLive.com is for though! The rain didn't last very long, but I was glad to not be soaked. The plan for the rest of the night was to kill some time before both CLAAS and(HED)P.E. came on. So what did I do? I bought another 4 hour block of WiFi and did another post! You guys should fuckin love me! I had heard thatBloodymania 5 had started late, which in turn pushed everything else back. So when CLAAS was supposed to be on the Underground stage at 3:30 AM, the first act of the night hadn't even started yet. So PsykoScott, Oxi, and I made our way to the Freakshow Tent. If any of you have been to a Gathering, and haven't stayed up late to see(HED)P.E. play til the sun comes up, you have NO idea what you're missing! That has become one of my top MUST SEE shows at the Gathering! If ANYONE from Psychopathic is reading this, please don't leave (HED)P.E. off of a Gathering list in the future! I actually kind of prefer them being on the small stage of the Freakshow tent versus the main stage. I know they would get some more exposure on the main stage, but the show seems more intimate with several hundred of us packed into the Freakshow tent. So this was a (HED)P.E. set, which if you've ever seen them, you know what you're going to get! I'm talking fast-paced punk rock, rap-rock, all sprinkled with some Bob Marley tracks. Jahred cut all of his hair off and now has a mohawk. None of them painted up this time, which is cool with me either way. we got tracks like Sophia, Peer Pressure, Bartender, and of course ended their set with Renegades! The pits were pretty great! I didn't partake this time since I was in flip flops, but I was on the perimeter of the giant one in the middle of the tent helping ninjas who had fallen get up! It was a hype ass set as they always do! Much props to the whole band for showin' love every year! "OOOHH...I...Need Some HED! I said OOOHH I NEED SOME HED!" It was now nearing 5 AM and the last day of the Gathering was upon us, so it was time to get some sleep! Besides, Sunday is the day of the Twiztid Seminar and the official closing of the Gathering: ICP's Set! SUNDAY, AUGUST 14TH We woke up at around 12:30 on Sunday afternoon and wanted to make our way to the Seminar tent. Today both Boondox and Twiztid were scheduled. Amanda and I held our breath hoping that nobody would be insanely late again. Shit started right on time though! I was there for the ENTIREBoondox Seminar with camera in hand, aiming right for the down-south killa. Guess what though? I never pressed Record. I fuckin suck...I know. He talked about doing work with all producers from down south for the next album. He even told the audience that he was going to let them name his next album! There were some funny names ("Oops, I fucked my cousin!"), some serious names, and some straight up retarded ones that you know were drug-induced. lol. At the end he really didn't say that he made a 100% decision, but hopefully the ninjas who suggested some gave him a good starting point. Boondox talked and answered questions for close to an hour, and he's just a genuinely cool motherfucker! So after Boondox's seminar, do you think we went anywhere? Hell No! The infamous Twiztid Seminar was up next, and you know we had to get a good spot for that one! I think Jamie and Paul were only about 20 minutes late, so that's not all that bad. The seminar started, and what can I say about them? They were fuckin HILARIOUS! If you weren't there, or haven't seen it yet, we have the whole seminar On Youtube. There was a chick there that kept screaming a blood-curdling scream throughout the seminar too. The first time, it was hilarious because it caught EVERYBODY off guard. The 2nd time, it was still pretty funny. The 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. time it just got annoying. 'Los and 'lettes were starting to tell her to shut the fuck up. Highlights of the seminar were Jamie / Paul talking about Madrox's weight loss, when the Lay's potato chip bag landed in Monoxide's lap, their love of ninja turtles, how they watched live Rage Against the Machine DVDs before shows to get ready to go on stage, and tons more! I highly suggest watching it! After laughing for a solid hour, it was time to set off on our mission to find JCW Senior Official Kevin Gill! I found out that he was gonna be chillin' at"Violent J's Juggalo Jam: Michael Jackson vs. prince Cheeseburgers and Pop, Drop the Beat & Move your Feet Dance Off Party!" Yes, that was the OFFICIAL name of it! We headed over there and the cheeseburgers and hot dogs were flying! There were buns with no burgers, hot dog buns with no hot dogs, and occasionally the meaty goodness made it to the 'lo or 'lette in the crowd in tact! KG spotted us from the stage and came and kicked it with us for a while. He got mistaken for Jumpsteady while we were talking to him, and he said that happens all the time now that Jumpsteady is back on the scene. At any rate, I'm glad we caught up with KG because I didn't want to go another year without saying what's up! Much love homie! While we were at the WFuckOff Radio tent, I saw our homie SP running merch for Wolfpac. He told me that Scott Hall aka Razor Ramone came up to Wolfpac's merch tent, which got them all hype! Hall then pulled an asshole move and said they would be hearing from his lawyers because of the Wolfpac name. Really? Fucking seriously? I'm pretty sure Wolfpac (the group) has been around for a minute...and what are Scott Hall's drunk ass and his lawyers gonna do...sue The Hangover movie too? Fuckin tard. Another funny occurrence that happened around this time is that Big Ianconvinced me to go into the moon bounce with him and his homies. He had been wanting to rub his sweaty frontbutt on me since the day we got there. Well, it happened! He rolled around all over the place while the rest of us jumped in there acting a fool! It was a good time! You can see some footage of it Here. You can see who clearly came out victorious! He claims to have a mystery pin while we were in there, but if it's not on tape, I don't remember it. lol. Anyways, after that, it was about time to hit up the main stage! So we went back to the RV to drop some shit off, and headed up to see Prozak opening up the main stage festivities for the night! He did a good 30 minutes, and actually filmed part of a new music video for a track called "Wake Up Your Dead"! Dope shit! That killa ALWAYS puts it down on stage! OK, so now comes the dead part of the night for me. I wasn't really feeling sticking around for SALIVA, so we retreated back to the RV for a minute. It was time to start breaking down our chairs, tents, and cleaning up around our area. Unfortunately, it took a little longer than we expected. We made our way back over to the main stage, and I saw Upchuck for the last time this year. He was riding around with Leah on a golf cart, and I HAD to get my annual pic with him. Big ups to ya Upchuck on another successful year of hosting everything you did! We DID catch the end of Boondox's set, and after that, we decided it was time to get our last of the carnival rides. I may not have given them fair chances, but Paris, Mystikal, and Xzibit just weren't very high on my list for this year. So we had a lot of time to kill. They DID make for good background music though! Next, it was the moment we had all been waiting for. The PINNACLE of the Gathering of the Juggalos every year! It was time for ICP's SET! This is the grand finale of the Gathering, so we had to make the best of it! We got our spots by the handicapped platform just because it was still muddy over there and nobody was there to speak of! It made for a perfect viewing experience! ICP played an exceptionally long set too! Shit like "Hokus Pokus", "Dead Body Man", "Bitches", "My Kinda Bitch", and other favorites were performed! They wrapped up their set with "If I Was A Serial Killer", and then went into what was at LEAST a 10 Minute Faygo Armageddon while performing "Bang! Pow! Boom!" What a fuckin way to end the Gathering this year! I came out of the show SOAKED as usual! I don't care how many times you've seen them live...the wicked clowns NEVER disappoint! It was a cold ass walk back to the RV...I was DRENCHED, and at that point in the night, the temperature was probably in the mid 60s. You've gotta remember, we came from Texas where we had just had 35 straight 100+ degree days. This was a DRASTIC change. The hot shower afterwards was awesome, and we finished up packing what we had left to make the morning exit easier. At this point, the grounds of Hog Rock were already thinning out. I know some hardcore Juggalos stayed as long as they could on Sunday just so they could drive back and make it to work the next day. Much props to you, even if you did have to miss the last main stage acts! There was nothing that happened to speak of that night. We said our goodbyes to Big Ian, Sandman, and their VA homies. We kicked it for a bit and then decided it was time to get some sleep for the trip back home. THE JOURNEY HOME AND CONCLUSION If you drive from ANY kind of long distance to get to the Gathering, you know that the road trip back home SUCKS! I had plenty to do as far as starting on this review, answering emails, and just generally catching up on my FLH duties. So that made time pass by pretty quickly! One thing I will say about this year is that I adjusted much better to the schedule of things! Last year I struggled to stay up late because I was used to waking up (for work) when everyone else was just now going to sleep at about 6 AM. I just never quite got adjusted. This year I was waking up at around noon every day, and was able to stick it out for the whole day. This made for a much better Gathering experience! Take this shit to heart Juggalos! That will just about wrap up my review of the 12th annual Gathering of the Juggalos! I do have to reiterate how completely AWESOME that 99.9% of you ninjas were! I hope we can make that happen again every year from this point on, because you REALLY wow'd the artists! Assholes and douchebags: just stay at home. You're NOT WELCOME there! Before I officially close out this review, I want to say Rest in Peace toJesse Waters who was found dead Sunday morning. Judging by The Articlethat was written about him by the Village Voice, he was a sincerely cool person with a bright future ahead of him. Our thoughts and warmest wishes go out to his friends and family. Juggalos and Juggalettes, you've got 353 Days to plan for next year's Gathering! Start saving your pennies NOW because you do NOT want to miss another one! On that note, I'm out! Peace y'all!