Leaderboard

....comes out on stage, grabs an electrified mic and proclaims, "I'm still here." (Not one of his more enlightened moments)

The guitar playing incident occurred at the one and only ROA held at the Lima Fairgrounds in Lima, OH. IIRC it was ROA 1975. It rained cats and dogs for most of that rock and the Lima location honestly, just sucked! During one of those late afternoon downpours, vic walked out on the main stage in his finest “dress” overalls with that small acoustic guitar reported previously. The crowd was trying hard to “be blessed”, but by now, the rain had become depressingly annoying. So, vic comes out and thanks everybody for being so blessed, brings Ted Ferrell out, and they do like a little talk show leading up to vic performing his obscure old classic from childhood, “Ole Rattler”, a song about a dog named Rattler. It lasted about 1:20, was pretty piss- poor imo, but vic and Ted were out in the rain together doing their hoakie routine. Later on that night, again, under a steady, cold drizzle, da Forehead was the main teacher. He was out there in a suit and tie, with some poor schlepp standing next to him holding a big golf umbrella. Suddenly, out comes vic, yelling “I stood in the rain today, why can’t you??”. He takes the umbrella from the poor schlepp, throws it toward the drum set, and storms off the stage! The pictures referred to above by WW were pictures of Vic’s afternoon performance of “Ole Rattler” from the main stage of the ROA ‘75.

Enjoy some excerpts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yabmXuDN5Zg I was out of TWI by 1985, or I might have been in this. Definitely dodged a bullet there. A couple of random thoughts for this thread: the lead dancer/choreographer had already put together a version of AOS back in 1979-80 with a different male lead. Backstage after the performance, I recall Craig asking the choreographer if "we" invented the flexed foot! No one more surprised than I was to later learn that Craig became the lead. Perhaps he thought he was cementing his position as a ministry rockstar. about this same time, asking if I could join Way Prod. as a dancer, I was asked if I knew anything about clogging, because VPW wanted cloggers (**sigh**) AOL was a production of amateur dancers with a lot of money thrown at stage sets and lighting. I give the choreographer credit for trying to fulfill LCM's larger vision with the cast she had, but she just didn't have the cast that could work at that level. The choreographer carefully put the better dancers in front of each group of devil spirits to give them someone to follow, but the longer they danced, the weaker it all got. Ditto the music. Maybe Socks can weigh in, but it seems to me that most of the professional-level talent was gone or going by then. The musical score is pretty repetitive and simplistic, nothing for John Williams or Leonard Bernstein to worry about. But there was also the problem that Wierwille wasn't much for complex music that didn't feature "rightly-divided" lyrics front and center, so there may have been a lot of pressure on the composer to not go too far afield. (Side note -- does anyone have any evidence, other than VPW's say-so, that he actually played an instrument? When he would warble with the singers or walk around snapping his fingers off the beat, it sure didn't look like it.) back when I first saw the video production, I was struck by how much the demons were glorified, both in having the better dancers doing those parts and in the length of time they were onstage. Dancers simulating sex seemed unnecessary, but giving HQ's fixation on all things sexual it is not much of a surprise, I guess. It was a part of the doctrine, this fixation on the devil, that I didn't buy even when I was in. What happened to "greater is he that is in you...?"

Btw, Socks, I appreciate your update with the secret subliminal message. :) Might this be a trailer for the movie you were describing?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055151/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_(1961_film)