ICP Brings Theatrics, New Music and Faygo to Hallowicked

Every year on Halloween Detroit's own horrorcore rap group Insane Clown Posse bring their annual Hallowicked concert to their hometown for their large Juggalo fan base.

The Halloween extravaganza is always guaranteed to be a evening of surprises and fun but this year's Hallowicked was particularly entertaining.

Earlier this year, ICP released their eleventh studio album, Bang! Pow! Boom!, which saw a return to the darker, grittier music that the band became famous for during their six Joker's card run.

ICP has been touring behind the new album on the Bang! Pow! Boom! tour and the Halloween date happened to be in the middle of the tour. However, despite the fact that the set was basically the same, the setlist did change a bit for Hallowicked.

This year's Hallowicked was once again at the Fillmore, which has played host to the annual event since 2003.

The evening opened with the night's special host Rude Boy, a long time friend of the band, and included a appearance by former WWE/WCW wrestler Scott Hall who currently makes appearances in ICP's own wrestling organization JCW.

Hall was there to promote the Hallowicked Afterparty at the Majestic Theatre, which featured appearances by JCW stars and performances by ICP's fellow Psychopathic Records label mates Boondox and Blaze.

Detroit's own rock/rap group Motown Rage were the surprise openers for Hallowicked.

I have seen the group a few times now and have think that the band itself is pretty great, particularly the drummer but their singer has a really rough voice that is hard to get used to.

Fortunately, on Halloween his voice sounded quite a bit better and the band put on a pretty good set which included an appearance by Awesome Dre, a old-school Detroit rapper who was the first local rapper to break into the mainstream long before Eminem and Kid Rock did it.

The Dayton Family was up next. The hardcore rap group hails from Flint, Michigan and share a similar sound with the harmonizing Bone Thugs N' Harmony.

The band's set was short but pretty great as they moved across the stage, sharing equal parts of every song and getting the crowd fired up.

Next up was rock band Hed PE, who use a strange mix of metal, punk rock and rap.

They are another band who in the past I have been disappointed in.

Their singer Jared Gomes does a little too much nonsensical screaming to allow for any appreciation of the music. However, Gomes was quite entertaining on Halloween night as he praised the Juggalo crowd and made fun of the fact that many people were taken aback by their style. They certainly got the crowd hyped up for the main attraction.

As usual, it took quite awhile for ICP to take the stage as they closed the curtain and got their massive stage set up.

This time around the Bang! Pow! Boom! stage was set up as a carnival sideshow attraction with a massive dj booth for Psychopathic's DJ Clay, swinging hatchets and moving symbols representing the characters of Bang, Pow and Boom, and dancing caged attractions Ape Boy and Many Faces.

The set was opened by a ringmaster who introduced ICP. They came out in monster masks and then proceeded to shed them launching into their Halloween classic Dead Pumpkins.

Throughout the evening they pulled out a number of classics and played some new tracks off of Bang! Pow! Boom!

Fellow label mates AMB came out and helped perform F**k The World.

ICP hasn't done a whole lot of theatrical stuff since Hallowicked 2002 so it was nice to see that make a return as they pulled out a number of scenes to match their songs.

Classic Mr. Johnson's Head featured a school desk setup and a number of rising people dressed in Michael Myers masks. As they attacked Violent J, he pulled a severed head out of his back pack and raised it to the delight of the crowd.

There was a dead dummy set up for new single I Found A Body. At the end of the song Violent J proceeded to take the dummy out. At one point they had a Michael Jackson tribute as a number of Jackson lookalikes took the stage to the beats of Billie Jean.

However, as Violent J watched them, he proceeded to talk about how horrible they were and then segued nicely into new song To Catch a Predator by saying, "Speaking of pedophiles."

To Catch a Predator had the best moment though as a pedophile chased some girls around the stage and then proceeded to get attacked by JCW champion Corporal Robinson, Shaggy 2 Dope and DJ Clay. The song ended as Robinson took a dive off a ladder onto the pedophile.

The set also stood out for it's use of some remixes of some of ICP's classic tracks including Chicken Huntin', which is a staple at every ICP show so it was nice to hear a different version of it for a change.

Naturally, no ICP show would be complete without some Faygo and they didn't disappoint, pouncing the Juggalos with the pop from front to back. At many points, the Faygo clowns were spraying the crowd as well and also threw out some streamers and confetti.

The band closed the set with fan favorite Pass Me By and new track Bang Pow Boom, which is easily the best track on the new album and amazing live.