All’s Fair In Clown Love and War: ICP TAKES TEXAS

Few bands have been able to gain such a cult following as Insane Clown Posse has. Even fewer bands have been able to amass a that following, invent a genre, sponsor the artists who join that movement, create a yearly music festival that they headline every year, create a record label, sponsor a weed company, carry the success of a soda brand on their backs, start a wrestling federation that livestreams every show, become successful Twitch streamers and podcasters, consistently release a record every year or so for over thirty years, hold a several-years long scavenger hunt, and tend to their kids when they clock out. In fact, I don’t think that any other musical act has done that. Insane Clown Posse is a duo of excess, taking everything they do to a total maximum (their merch table had nearly fifty items at it!) and so when given the shot at covering their once-in-a-lifetime display of lunacy, I just couldn’t pass it up.

As a metalhead who doesn’t listen to Insane Clown Posse, I had no idea what to expect from the audience or the performers. Well, except the Faygo flood. We’ll get to that. Sure, I’ve seen metal fans painted in corpse paint, dressed in spikes, band shirts, ripped jeans, battle jackets, long hair, ready to throw down, but metal and rap have very different crowds. I wasn’t sure how these jersey repping, baggy shorts wearing clowns would boogey, but I was pleasantly surprised! I took plenty of photos of the people I met, the friends I made, and the best outfits of the night. Juggalos like TJ and Hatchet Mom were some of the coolest people I’ve ever spoken to. I even got more compliments on my Mercyful Fate beanie than I’ve ever gotten at the metal shows I go to! From shirts that said “I got my mozzarella stick sucked in the Applebees parking lot” to an ocean of shirts repping Gwar, Slipknot, and Korn, it felt like a room full of middle schoolers from 2002 took over The Espee; and to be honest, I loved it. No infamous poop dollars were to be found, but plenty of warm conversations and loving clowns were around.

The opening act of the evening was the Juggalo Championship Wrestling show, a livestreamed continuation of ICP’s flagship wrestling efforts. Admittedly, I’d never seen a concert get opened by a wrestling tournament. While we’re admitting to things, I’d also never seen a guy named “Cocaine: The Devil’s Dealer” pretend to do a line of drugs as part of his on-stage wrestling gimmick. I’d also never seen someone decapitate an Easter bunny and gift his severed head to an audience member. Juggalo Wrestling was a league of its own, with crazy characters, wild outfits, loony props, occasional twerking, lots of bad acting, and an obligatory splash of Faygo. It was a hell of a way to start a show, but it didn’t disappoint.

The first musical guest was a Houston rapper by the name of Ganksta Nip. A popular figure in the Texas underground rap scene, Nip was especially beloved in the 90s and 2000s where he dropped a series of albums that – if they had been released nowadays – would absolutely be considered horrorcore. In fact, the rapper boasted his role in helping popularize the horrorcore rap genre in a song he performed with his hypeman Death Deala. I’d never seen anyone chain a severed hand to them as they performed, so that was pretty cool.

Wakko tha Kidd, lifelong juggalo and rapper, was the follow up act. With a gang of guys all showing off his weed brand, Airheadz, and a guest appearance from famous Tik Tok legend, Chef Bonez, Wakko’s set was energetic, loud, and repetitive. Admittedly, there’s only so much “hype” rap I can handle before I start to get a little bored of chorus chants and looped beats. That being said, I slammed some caffeine, wrapped myself and my cameras in plastic, and got ready to see the main event.

Opening with a haunting rendition of the happy birthday song, the stage quickly erupted into insanity as Shaggy2Dope, Violent J, their trustworthy record spinner, DJ Clay, and a gaggle of masked horror characters known as the Wicked Clowns stormed the stage and lit it up with absolute chaos. Shaggy and J sound just the same live as they do in their recorded tracks, which I always love. They nailed the energy, the motions, the songs, I mean for a duo that’s been dropping bars for thirty years, Insane Clown Posse was impressive and I loved to see it. What I didn’t love to see was the gaggle of Wicked Clowns spraying soda all over the crowd and myself. Yes, that’s right, ICP’s henchmen run up on stage with pre-shaken bottles of Diet Faygo Cola and spray their cold, sticky streams of terror all over the crowd. Clown paint began to run and curdle, outfits started sticking to skin, it was a sensory nightmare for the more sensitive folk – but juggalos are anything but sensitive. Lyrics were screamed, whoops were whooped, and there had to have been at least fifty gallons of soda thrown over the crowd. It was an insane night that I
wasn’t expecting to enjoy as much as I did.

Insane Clown Posse and their devoted juggalos are some of the coolest and strangest people you’ll ever meet. If clown love is your thing, then catch them on tour! And if it isn’t, I still recommend coming out and witnessing the party go down. You’ll never forget it.

Catch them on tour now!
9/14 – Houston, TX @ White Music Hall
9/15 – Houston, TX @ White Music Hall
9/16 – Fayetteville, AR @ JJ’s Live
9/17 – Memphis, TN @ Minglewood Hall
9/19 – Louisville, KY @ Louder Than Life
10/19 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
10/20 – Garden City, ID @ Revolution Music Hall
10/22 – Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues
10/23 – Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl
10/24 – Riverside, CA @ Riverside Municipal Auditorium
10/26 – Denver, CO @ Summit Music Hall
10/28 – Wichita, KS @ The Cotillion
10/29 – Columbia, MO @ The Blue Note
10/31 – Detroit, MI @ Masonic Temple

PHOTO CREDIT: All photos by Liam Tennant for ZRockR Magazine ©2025 – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED