No one (that I saw) really picked up and posted what went down when Andrew WK performed at Cinefamily this weekend as party of Everything Is Festival, but it was nuts. His show was directly before the one I took part in (which was great fun!) and so I walked in a bit before the 42:00 mark in the video above to see him sit catatonically for about 15 minutes and then lay on his keyboard like it was a horn in rush-hour traffic for another five before ending his set. It made the Cinefamily theater one of several rooms I walked into last weekend in L.A. where something utterly surreal happened (at one point, when confronted with a group of people in pirate costumes, latex gold leotards and clothing covered in inflated balloons, as well as a cooler full of Tecate, I just surrendered myself to the surreality).
While doing absolutely nothing onstage may strike you as cheap, to me what Andrew WK pulled off was an impressive balance: this was very easy, yet undoubtedly hard. Most impressively, he was able to keep everyone's attention for the entire duration of his nothingness (any longer would have resulted in anger or at least mass walk-outs). But no, people cheered, continued asking questions (you'll see that the entire show was a Q&A with musical interludes) and remained wholly engaged. How much performance art can claim that?
Also, having met the bulk of the Everything Is Terrible crew, I can confirm that they are more awesome in person than on the Internet (how rare of a phenomenon!). It was very nice to be amongst garbage-cutting nerds (Hadrian of Cinefamily was similarly awesome and owns really amazing footage of Heidi Fleiss and Peter Sellers' daughter Victoria freaking out while giving sex advice for Laugh.com).
And just as a random bonus, Everything Is Terrible has unearthed proof that extreme couponing is far from a modern development:
Loved seeing you talk about your videos, and even moreso, get to see them with an audience. Total blast. I only wish you were the MC and that they aired more of your videos!
Posted by: Michael | July 06, 2011 at 04:36 PM
at the end he looks like bob from twin peaks and that is a god damned nightmare.
Posted by: amberto | July 07, 2011 at 03:28 PM
Great show. Andrew WK is one of the most inspiring people in my life.
Posted by: nicolekrystyn | July 07, 2011 at 06:26 PM
I've always enjoyed Andrew WK. He's an original.
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Posted by: Andy | July 08, 2011 at 06:43 AM
Andrew WK is one of the most inspiring people
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Posted by: rs2shopping | August 15, 2011 at 04:01 AM
Theres no way around it, this is an amazing performance.
Posted by: JJ | September 04, 2011 at 10:28 PM
have a nice day
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Posted by: Runtime error | January 26, 2012 at 01:24 AM