Who needs a strip club when you’ve got Mickey Avalon? Photo from .
The last time I was in a strip club, it was the juice and soda kind. I had a fist full of ones, a Coke in my hand and six-inch plastic heels whizzing past my ears as a stranger wrapped her legs around my neck. I should add that this was a singular experience, but luckily for me and a bunch of minimally dressed teenage girls, brought the 18-plus strip club environment to us Monday night at the , and I was flooded with all kinds of germophobic memories.
The perplexing sexual icon appeared in his trademark low-rise flare girl jeans, a tight nautical tank top and a leather jacket combo and his longish, greasy hair hanging from under a fitted fedora. I stood at the side of the Ogden stage watching Avalon slither about, and as he finished his second song, “Roll the Dice,” Mickey delivered, two girls in sequined bra and panty ensembles appeared.
He asked the audience to put their middle fingers in the air and started in with “Waiting to Die,” the wigged pseudo-twins puffing away on cigarettes while dangling off of Mickey’s tiny frame. The petite rapper leaned over the monitors and serenaded the crowd with a new track, “Oh Baby,” kissing at the girls lining the stage, hands reaching up and begging for one touch of the scummy sex god.
Mickey rode his skanky swagger through “Mr. Right,” stepping and arching like a miniature tattooed Iggy Pop, ending up on the floor with one stripper air-grinding on his pelvis. The cocaine, illicit sex and Vaseline-themed evening continued as he spilled his real life tales in “Hustler Hall of Fame” and “Roll Up Your Sleeves,” the crowd eating up the rapper’s well-presented routine.
The dry-hump fest continued as Avalon stepped seamlessly through “So Rich So Pretty,” “Friends and Lovers,” and the new, unreleased “On the Ave,” his stripper sidekicks re-appearing in leotards and sailor caps with champagne bottles in hand. Mickey dropped “Dance” as the girls dumped glitter confetti all over the sweaty audience, and he inevitably returned to his natural state of shirtless-ness.
Avalon Jesus-posed atop a graffited bench on the stage and sang his hit “Jane Fonda,” weed smoke permeating the air as the strippers rested at his feet. Little girls from the audience scaled the stage and some even managed to get to Mickey, touching any part of him they could before being removed by security.
A first encore happened quickly with Mickey performing “F*** ’em All,” the Denver audience being the first to hear the new track live. He left again momentarily, then re-appeared for “My Dick” with openers and in tow, trading lines with Mickey as the strippers shook their asses. The smug-fest was over, and the three pasty dudes left the stage for good.
At first glance, the petite Avalon isn’t terribly attractive; he is an elfish, even troll-like gentleman with a jutting chin and nose and beady eyes that barely open. With one flick of his wrist and jerk of a hip, Mickey’s first impression melts away and his drippy, snake-like voice becomes the sexiest thing you’ve ever heard. Teenage girls panties’ drop and cocaine falls from the sky when you step inside a Mickey Avalon show; itap a strip club world where everyone’s a pimp or a pusher, and lucky for us, Mickey is the best rapper inside his imagined velvet walls.
is a Denver writer and regular Reverb contributor. Check out her and .
