Last evening Mrs. RickJay and I just happened to see the last ten minutes of a television premiere of the sequel to “Lord of the Dance.” It was called “Feet of Flames.”
I can say without any doubt that “Feet of Flames” was the lamest thing I have ever seen. Have you ever seen John Tesh perform on TV? It was lamer than that (and I once saw John Tesh playing the piano in time with a video presentation of a running wolf, so it doesn’t get a lot lamer than John Tesh.)
The “plot,” such as it was, reintroduced Mr. Flatley as, of course, the Lord of the Dance. The duties and privileges of being Lord of the Dance were unclear, but it seems to involve a lot of step-dancing and never wearing a shirt. Anyway, the Lord of the Dance is apprehended by the minions of some bad guy, who you know is bad because he has a cape. The minions do a group step dance which looks exactly like the big group step dance in Riverdance and Lord of the Dance. Then Michael Flatley, grimacing because he has been captured, has his Lord of the Dance belt taken from him. This belt looks exactly like a WWF championship belt, except it has “Lord of the Dance” written on it in big block letters. (You would think that if anyone was going to wear clothing that made them the Lord of the Dance, it’d be shoes.) Michael Flatley then disappears amidst a burst of stage pyrotechnics. The Bad Guy dances in joy briefly at defeating the Lord of the Dance, though curiously he throws the belt away. There’s some weird thing with a girl playing Tinkerbell and then the Lord of the Dance magically reappears, for no particular reason. A dance fight ensues, which was as dumb as it sounds, and then Michael Flatley kicks the bad guy in the face (really) and the Lord of the Dance is triumphant. Suddenly, fifty Irish people rush onstage and start doing the exact same stepdance you saw at the end of “Riverdance,” either because Michael Flatley is the Lord of the Dance again, or because they just learned they get free whiskey after the show; I’m not sure which. In fact, not only were they doing the same dance as in “Riverdance,” they were wearing the same outfits. Then the show ends, with Michael Flatley grinning at the audience, his Vaseline-slathered muscles shimmering in the stagelights.
All this is happening amidst a truly amazing amount of fire. “Feet of Flames” lives up to its name; every single thing that happens onstage is punctuated by bursts of flame. It looks like a Metallica concert with even lamer music and a whole lot of stepdancing. You don’t often see people stepdancing to “Enter Sandman” but I think there’s a creative crossover possibility here.
But what really slayed me was the audience. Though the crowd shots made it seem they were all adults, the audience was shrieking and screaming and carrying on with everything. Bad guy appears, they gasp. Michael Flatley dances, they cheer. Some brought signs that said things like - I swear I am not making any of this up - “Michael: Dancing Forever in our Hearts” and “Lord of the Dance!” to remind us who he’s supposed to be.
You know, you don’t see a lot of people going to see Hamlet with big #1 hands that say “Will’s #1” or attending productions of “Carmen” with signs reading “Bizet: Composing Forever In Our Hearts.” My sister asked if anyone there was wearing a floppy foam hat. I think some of them were.
The best part, though, was looking up Michael Flatley on the Web and discovering to my joy and amazement that his fans are called - get this - “Flatheads.” Isn’t that terrific? One thing Flatheads are not, that I could see from the crowd shots, is black. It was the whitest audience I’ve seen since the crowd shots in “Triumph of the Will.” The show displayed about as much soul as you would expect from such a gathering.
You have to admire Michael Flatley as a businessman, but man, does his show suck ass. And his fans suck crusty ass hairs. I bet these are the clowns who send me glurge and urban legends in my E-mail and hang dream catchers from their rear-view mirrors and wear black T-shirts with airbrushed dolphins on them. What a positively ass-sucking mule-fucking peice of shit this show was. What kind of adult bring s a fucking SIGN to a dance show and gasps when the bad guy appears? AWhat kind of person calls himself a “Flathead.”? A stupid kind, that’s who. Fuck Michael Flatley and fuck his fans.