We arrived to the San Diego House of Blues and were greeted by disgruntled door security guards: “Is RiFF RaFF already on stage?” “Nope, he’s 45 minutes late.” Already a good sign.
Excepting to head to the upstairs balcony, we were quickly ushered down the stairs and into a half empty pit area. Good sign numero dos. A sketchy DJ with terrible transitions played some slow trap music as I surveyed the room. What types of people actually attend a RiFF RaFF show? Who are Jody Highroller fans? From the San Diego crowd, I could break it down into three categories: the ironic fan, the authentic fan and the wasted fan.
The ironic RiFF RaFF fans were the beard-heavy, frame-wearing hipster types, who originally liked RiFF RaFF as a joke, but actually became a real fan and now are serious about their love of RiFF RaFF, which seems to make the original joke actually funny. The authentic fans are those who go to his show with balls to the wall, wasted on the same dranks RiFF sips, knowing all the words to his tracks and basically wishes they were smart enough to have been that ridiculous first and gotten paid for it. And unfortunately, due to the tardiness and downer DJ opener, the wasted group of fans started turning sober and were left utterly confused. These were mostly girls in tight leather skirts that had been dragged to the show by either their ironic or authentic fan boyfriends.
Jody finally appeared and the crowd erupted. He kicked things off with the catchy banger “How To Be The Man” and the stage was packed with the following, but not limited to: a Jody Highroller face cut-out, a Katy Perry face cut-out, his puppy Jody Husky‘s face cut-out, two twerking back-up dancers with cheap pink wigs and an entire entourage of black guys sippin’ dranks and taking selfies.
It was pretty much the best thing ever.
The ridiculousness ensued, with Jody’s usual cornrows out and flowing freely, dyed a two-tone of turquoise and fucia. His beard line was looking as precise as ever, trimmed in perfect jagged lines, to match his bejeweled shark teeth. At one point, the two back up dancers grabbed crowd member phones and either took their own selfie or snapped an up-close-and-personal RiFF RaFF selfie as the ultimate keep sake. The entire experience was weird and ratchet and beautiful. If you ever get the chance to see, hang, or smoke a blunt with Mr. Jody Highroller, I insist you take it.
Photos By: Arlene Ibarra
By: Amanda Martinek