My friends and I attended a bona fide live show last Tuesday night. Crazy, right? The pandemic has gutted the 2020 concert season, but a handful of artists are doing drive-in movie theater tours and “Loop Daddy” Marc Rebillet is among them. For those not in the proverbial loop, Rebillet employs a loop station, keyboard and microphone to improvise beats and songs on the fly. He built his audience via YouTube videos and live streaming in silk robes. Tuesday was night two of Rebillet's two night stand at Fort Collins' Holiday Twin Drive-In. We had originally planned to attend night one (Monday), but one of my singing telegram customers was adamant about having me perform for a 21st birthday in Boulder that night. So I bought tickets for night two to make both feasible.
The Boulder birthday girl's name was Ingrid. Her friends allegedly call her “Ingy the Flamingy.” So the customer asked me if I'd rent a flamingo costume (as that wasn't something that was already in my arsenal). Denver costume shop Disguises had just what the doctor ordered, a bootylicious pink bird suit that had quite possibly been employed in a community theatre production of Alice in Wonderland (who can forget the Red Queen's croquet mallets?). Elsewhere, Rebillet and his tech crew were rocking drive-in theaters around the country. At each stop, Poppa Loop was cooking up the jams from inside a popup tent / green screen booth, enabling his team to seamlessly fuse video and other visual content with a live feed of the robe-sporting musical performer and project it onto the drive-in movie screen(s). Rebillet's VJ busted out footage of real life flamingos at one show, and Daddy did what Daddy does best: riffed on that shit. The result is “I'M A FLAMINGO (LIVE),” which has already amassed over 300,000 views on YouTube. The man has a flock.
I was blissfully unaware of Rebillet's new bird bit. But my friend Kelly attended night one of the Fort Collins' stand, and we were texting off and on throughout the evening. When I mentioned that my friends and I had decided to attend night two (instead of night one), so I could fulfill my flamingo singing telegram duties and still see the show, Kelly brought up Rebillet's new flamingo video. In pre-pandemic times, rental costumes were often due back the following day (which would've been before the following night's Rebillet show). But pandemic hours are currently limited, so I could don the big-beaked beauty at the drive-in show and still get it back to the costume shop on time. I had a hunch Daddy would get a kick out of that. It was serendipity. Synchronicity.
My friend Michelle is currently obsessed with the improv master. Since discovering him a few months ago, she's tuned into his live streams religiously. And every time Rebillet solicits calls from viewers, Michelle is on the phone, furiously dialing and re-dialing – to no avail. But wearing a highly conspicuous / ridiculous costume to a show is a surefire way to get attention. Soon after we arrived, the event photographer was shooting me in the flamingo. The tech team eventually rode up in a golf cart to inform us that they were the ones behind the flamingo footage that had inspired Daddy. They also tipped us off that Rebillet would occasionally interview audience members who were near his green screen booth. Their intel would would serve us well.
We bought face masks with Rebillet's agape mouth on them from merch. Our friend Melinda bought a couple beers. I bought a Beyond Meat burger. We made some new friends. Then we posted up in our camping chairs and waited. What appeared to be a decades-old Red Lobster commercial began playing on the twin screens. It replayed several times – seemingly stuck on an accidental loop – before minor and then violent changes played out between the characters. Rebillet careened around the parking lot in a golf cart to drum up excitement for his set. And off he went, conjuring songs from thin air. The moment of truth was soon upon us. I waddled my bootylicious flamingo over to Rebillet's vicinity. Michelle wasn't far behind, clutching an inflatable flamingo drink holder that I'd lent her for the show. Daddy quickly spotted my bird garb and asked me if I knew about his recent flamingo concoction. I told him I'd rented the suit for a singing telegram the previous evening. Michelle told him that the inflatable cup holder was his kid. Hilarity ensued.
And Michelle finally got her wish.
