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This past weekend the 4th Annual Nerdapalooza descended upon Orlando Florida. Housed in the ample spaced convention center at the Orlando Marriott hotel, the 2 day festival featured tons of great music, vendors and just a happening good time. Along with Z, I attended Nerdapalooza representing GeekDad, but of course going to enjoy the event. My weekend started Friday night outside A Comic Shop in Orlando eating free pizza and ended in the wee hours of Sunday morning, getting my face rocked off by the Protomen, but I'll get to that.
Before I start rambling here, I'd like to send a sincere thanks to John "Hi, I'm Hex" Carter and Masurao from Krondor Krew. They were the brains behind the event and they made me feel like part of the extended family. The rest of the thanks and accolades will be at the end of this post, so keep reading. If you need a visual re-cap and not just my words here, I will be posting a photo and video gallery later in the week, once everyone gets home and uploads the contents of their data cards. Which, if you search YouTube, many people already have.
Even though there were way more than just ten awesome moments from Nerdapalooza 2010, I decided to just start listing them out as my scrambled brain remembers them, so some might get missed. They may be out of order and if you were there with me, you may notice that some events may have been dramatized, names changed and other slight inaccuracies due to lack of sleep and/or caffeinated alteration to my brain.
Kabuto the Fly
At some point on Sunday rapper Kabuto the Python, a talented artist all around, took a stack of paper and a pen and started doodling. His doodles turned into marketable merchandise as fans were willing to pay for requested art work. There was Kabuto the Fly, Kabuto the Flower, Kabtu-TOE (a literal translation) and many more. He genuinely enjoyed doing this for the fans, and was more than happy to share his visual art as well as his lyrical art. This is one of those moments that makes Nerdapalooza feel like much more than just a music festival, the kind of artist / fan interaction that adds much more sincerity to the overall atmosphere. Plus it gave Kabuto something to do before his mothership arrived to take him back to his home planet.
I'll Tell You What I Want
Z had challenged the artists to each do a cover song for their sets at Nerdapalooza. Not all the artists complied, but most of them did which made for some very entertaining and interesting cover songs. The Protomen rocked their encore with their rendition of Mr. Roboto, while The Bossfights rick-rolled the crowd. However, the best cover song came during the pre-party at A Comic Shop when up and comer MC Cool Whip jumped into a high energy cover of the Spice Girls "Wannabe."
Sign my... brick?
While many people were getting their posters signed, pants signed and shirts signed there were a few fans who took a creative approach to collecting artist signatures. Of course the artists were more than enthralled to add their signatures to these items. The most creative I saw was a fellow walking around with a book bag full of bricks that he was having the artists signed. Aside from that, there was also a roller derby helmet that ended up with all the artists signatures, as well as a Master Chief (HALO) helmet. There was never a moment that an artist wouldn't stop what they were doing to happily sign whatever was put in front of them.
All About the Music
Of course, since Nerdapalooza was all about the music, there was some of that too. Over the course of two days, there were 30 plus performances and numerous collaborations. Frankly, it was a little difficult to take it all in and I did have to miss a few in order to re-energize myself with a much needed nap. Sadly, due to some sound problems (that seemed to plague the main stage throughout the whole show) Saturday ran nearly 4 hours behind schedule. That didn't seem to stop the artists or the fans however. Sunday was much better, at only an hour behind.
Highlights included the whole Scrubclub family of artists, including individual sets from Doctor Awkward, Krondor Krew and Emergency Pizza Party. They all performed with fantastic energy and humor, can you say "Christian Side Hug?" There is always one injured artist and this year it was Orlando's number one Indie artist, Marc With a C, who even after hurting his leg from a fall performed his full set. The Great Luke Ski was absolutely hilarious, adding a visual presentation to his set. I suggest checking him out. Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew brought the pirate rap to the house, though were not able to goad the ninja of the Krondor Krew into a battle.
Schaffer the Darklord was of course his famously energetic self on stage and performed a very smooth and familiar set. I missed Shael Riley & the Double Ice Backfire, but I heard they were great (sound problems withstanding.) It was good to finally hear Kirby Krackle even though their set was moved around a couple times due to time issues. Then of course there was the Killer Robots, who one would have to consider to be the Gwar of Nerdcore. They were the most costumed of any group and had a pure punk rock sound. Sadly, it seemed the nerd heavy crowd did not know how to create a proper mosh pit, no matter how hard they were trying.
As for the headlining acts; The Megas were an amazingly tight rock group with a very Megaman heavy theme. They were certainly worth the price of admission. MC Frontalot was his normal geeky self, and had a larger crowd watching him set up than the electronic group Yip-Yip (no, not Yip Yips) had while they were playing on the second stage at the same time. That was the only non-classy action by the fans. Even though Yip-Yip were a bit strange, channeling Devo for sure.
The closing act Saturday night were The Protomen. Due to issues with the sound and some other issues (see the cookie story below) they came on very late and were forced to play a short set. However, they made up for it Sunday night, playing a full set. The Protomen are one of my new favorites, they remind me a bit of Mannheim Steamroller with the depth in their music (sans the Christmas theme.) I spotted at least four keyboard set ups, a very large drum and a trumpet. There is a little 80's epic rock mixed in there, with some punk and a strong stage presence. However loud the sound system was Sunday night, they still put on an amazing show.
Cookie Anyone?
There was an individual (who shall go unidentified) that was handing out homemade cookies to some of the insiders and artists. I think they were lemon zest cookies, and the zest wasn't just added sugar. The cookies seemed to be spiked with what I can only say here was a "special" ingredient. There were certain points in the day when you could tell who had a cookie, because they appeared to be content not moving, staring into space, possibly seeing something the rest of us weren't.
Sadly, the cookies ended up in the green room and in the hands of several of the band members from The Protomen. Not knowing what kind of cookies they were, the band members ate them as if they were regular cookies. This completely incapacitated those particular band members, causing an even further delay. However, the Protomen showed that they are truly class acts by playing a full set the next night, an excellent set, adding in a little self deprecating humor around the whole cookie incident. This may serve as a warning to the organizers in keeping such items out of the hands of the artists until after they have performed.
The Bossfights
While MC Frontalot, the Protomen and the Megas were the headlining acts, the surprise breakout act and my favorite performance came from Zealous1 and The Bossfights. Led by Doctor Awkward and Zealous1, The Bossfights are one of those rare fusion bands that mixes hip hop and rock with fluid lucidity. Doctor Awkward, normally a very expressive but still subdued performer completely went full epic during the set with his energy level. The crowd went spastic during their performance of Zealous1's "Headshot." Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised by their performance and if I didn't already know the artists individually I would have thought they were the headlining act or at least close to it. They don't have a full length album yet, but you can head over to their site and check out the few tracks they have available for free.
How Much is the Free CD?
One of the squares on GeekDad's Nerdapalooza Bingo (created by Z) was to score a free CD or Demo. There were more CD's being sold than being given away, but independent comedic hip-hop duo Shammers & Lefthand were giving their home pressed "Shmix" tapes away for free with a little incentive. Donate, and receive a rare Pokemon Foil Card. I picked up a nice shiny Poliwrath. The comedy item here, was how many people asked them how much the free CD was - in all seriousness. Too many cookies I think.
Epic Win Burlesque
Saturday night closed down with the Protomen playing their short set, but not before the Epic Win Burlesque Show starring Schaffer the Dark Lord, his partner in crime Nelson Lugo and a few women who don't mind taking their clothes off in front of a room full of geeks. While I've seen mostly naked women before, it was amusing to see the looks on some of the faces of those who hadn't. Plus, they dressed (until undress) like geeky characters such as Gozer the Gozerian, Rorschach (this one was disturbing in a good way on so many levels) and the Riddler. The best part about the Epic Win show wasn't just the ladies, it was the humor and banter of Schaffer and Lugo. Maybe I can say this because naked women are nothing new to me, but those two were hilarious together and Lugo had a great slight of hand bit to Jonathan Coulton's "Still Alive."
Bohemian Rhapsody
When the crowd gets bored at a hard rock show, they drink. When the crowd gets bored at a punk rock show, they fight. When the crowd gets bored at a Paul Anka show they call the paramedics because most of them have probably stopped breathing. When a crowd gets bored at a nerd music show at around 2:45am Sunday morning waiting for the Protomen to come out, they break out in song. It started with "Yellow Submarine" then turned into a full version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." This is what nerds are good at, entertaining themselves. Check out this video from Corey Clark Media and see for yourself. If you look closely, you can see my brother actually having fun.
It was a Team Effort
Ok, here's my thanks section. Overall Nerdapalooza was a fantastic event and is only going to get bigger every year. There were a lot of people in the crowd that were not just hardcore geeks or nerds, there will be crossover into the mainstream. The performers were all fantastic, even through all the sound problems (which are best to be fixed by next year.)
Thanks again to John "Hex" Carter and Masurao for putting on an awesome event and making me feel like part of the family. Thanks to Z for hanging out and driving to get food on Saturday. Thanks to the Scrubclub crew for being awesome people and making me cool by proxy; Madhatter, Doctor Awkward (and Mrs. Awkward), Zealous1 (and Mrs. Zealous1 who did an awesome job tagging shirts with The Bossfights logo), Benjamin Bear, StarF, Funky49, Shinobi, King Pheenix, Kabuto, Emergency Pizza Party, La1ka and The Bossfights. Thanks to free_geek, freakapotimus, datavortex, Dale Chase and awfulwaffle73 for hanging out. Thanks to snipeyhead and lundegaard for taking all the pictures and video, which I'll be using for the Nerdapalooza photo gallery later this week. Thanks to all the artists I met and watched perform. Thanks to the ones I forgot to mention above like Rappy Mcrapperson, Zombies! Organize!!, 3P!C-1, HD Ninja, Devo Spice, and MegaRan who got stuck here at the bottom of the post. Thanks to all the sponsors and vendors who sold me cool crap. Also, a final thanks to everyone else I met and forgot to list here. See you all next year.
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[All photos by Curtis Silver.]
