Icky Flix, 7 june 2001, Paradiso, Amsterdam

Only two years after the Wormwood show at the Holland Festival, The Residents are back to promote their DVD Icky Flix. The DVD contains a compilation of filmmaterial they made over their 30-year career with new arrangements of the old music.

When the houselights dimmed one eyeball entered the stage to wave hello and start the DVD with his remotecontrol. The band entered the stage without eyeballs this time. Of course they were masked, but with headlights this time. Mr. Skull had a new mask and there was a female singer with them.

Their live-show consisted of a big screen on which the DVD was projected and the Residents chose on the 'cube' what song to play, so that the livemusic they play accompanied the images projected on the screen. People shouting their favourites were ignored and The Residents made their own choices of what to play.

Although I was familiar with the 20 Twisted Questions VHS and the Freakshow CDrom I saw a lot of 'new' material. Sometimes it was hard to choose if you wanted to see the singers or the screen. We saw the video and film art for 'hits' like Hello Skinny and the One Minute Movies and more obscure ones like Renaldo & The Loaf. The world as a shooting gallery for the USA in a very cynical animation for Stars And Stripes Forever. A videoclip made from the Bad Day On The Midway CDrom and some excerpts from The Gingerbread Man. The latter being much more coherent than the orginal CDrom. A big surprise was a lyrically altered version of We Are The World. They played almost the whole DVD except The Vileness Fats, probably because it's about 20 minutes long. After the DVD they played two songs without screen including Blue Rosebuds as an encore.

This show, being more of a retrospective nature, wasn't as conceptual as the Wormwood show (and the other shows that I didn't see myself), which revolved mainly about the darker aspects of the bible. Nevertheless it was very entertaining and so a Residents show remains a special experience.