| Their Infantile Majesties Request
Bad boys of rock, watch your backs. The Wiggles rule while their fans drool. by Christopher Arnott - September 1, 2005 Feature Screw the Stones. The biggest show in the state last Friday night was not Mick and his sweet sexagenarians in Hartford, but a whole other breed of Brit-accented wigglers and groovers. While scalpers were having to suck up thousands of dollars in unwanted Stones tickets, another band had quietly, quickly and totally sold out two back-to-back shows at Bridgeport's Arena at Harbor Yard. Meet the Wiggles. The pre-school fab foursome is currently the most successful entertainment export from Australia (take that, AC/DC!). The first time the Wiggles toured, a few years ago, they sold out several shows in one day at the Shubert in New Haven without any advertising . Last year, they packed the Oakdale. Now, Bridgeport. Wiggles fans aren't just legion, they're rabid. After all, if you miss the Stones this time around, you can be relatively sure they'll be back three years from now. But, for their biggest admirers today, the Wiggles won't exist in three years. Those fickle fans will have moved on to older pursuits, like video games, or maybe the Rolling Stones. So parents fight tooth-and-nail for tickets, battling for their right to "point your fingers and do the twist" in public. Even with all my arts connections, I was lucky to get tix to Friday's show. In-laws drove in from Vermont for the big event. My three-year-old daughter, who's already seen such ace kiddie concert stars as Ella Jenkins, Dan Zanes and Dora the Explorer, was awestruck. The hits just kept coming: "Rock-A-Bye Your Bear," "Swim Like a Fish," "Brown Girl in the Ring," "Mop Mop," "Hot Potato".... The opening number, "Toot Toot Chugga Chugga Big Red Car," the intro from the Wiggles' Disney Channel TV show, featured live footage of the group motoring around the Arena at Harbor Yard parking lot. And in true rockstar fashion, "Play Your Guitar With Murray" featured a house-sized blow-up doll of that famed red-shirted axeman; the doll comically toppled onto the roadies and the band throughout the song. Not exactly the giant inflatable penis from the Beastie Boys' first arena tour, but more family friendly. The Stones crow about appealing to multiple generations. Well, a Wiggles show can draw infants, toddlers, older siblings, parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents, each forking out $30 for a 90-minute show. Those were mature voices which broke into spontaneous pre-show chants of "Fruit Salad, yummy yummy." To an extent, the Wiggles seem modeled on the Stones (and in some ways kick their asses). Drummer Jeff is the oldest member of the band (and so laid-back that he's constantly falling asleep). The Stones are known for associating with Hell's Angels, but the Wiggles share their show with an actual pirate, the eyepatched, tricorn-hatted Captain Feathersword. The Stones are derided as dinosaurs, but the Wiggles perform with a singing, dancing dinosaur named Dorothy, not to mention Wags the Dog and Henry the Octopus, who equal anything Mick and Keith can offer in the sniffing and groping departments. Toward the end of Friday's second 90-minute show, Captain Feathersword turned his signature song, "Quack Quack," into a mean parody of other top pop acts. When he twisted the barnyard ditty into the melody of "Start Me Up" and starting strutting like a rooster, it was a better impersonation of classic Jagger than Mick himself has done in years. |
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