Nate Koehler
It’s a safe bet that the crowds that descend on State Street this weekend for the 2017 edition of FreakFest will be rife with hundreds of Donald Trumps, Colin Kaepernicks and red balloon-toting Pennywise the Dancing (drinking?) Clowns. Unlike their audiences, the performers at FreakFest don’t typically don costumes on stage. But we have to ask — why the hell not? In the spirit of embracing the Halloween vibe, we’ve made a few friendly suggestions for the headliners. Who says Elton John and CeeLo Green get to have all the fun?
DRAM
The obvious choice would be to have the Freakfest headliner embrace the silliness of his signature hit, stalking the stage as a stalk of bright-green broccoli. (He can even clutch a teeny toy boat to rep his missing feat.-mate, Lil Yachty). DRAM’s not really about the obvious, though. We’d like to see him pay homage to another hit from his first full album: “Cash Machine,” his sunny kiss-off to the gold-diggers in his expanded entourage. Let’s trick him out as an actual, bling-studded ATM; when it’s time to juice the crowd, he can even “conversate with those hundreds” and make it rain a little.
George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic
The man who popularized a look that included rainbow-colored dreads, outrageous sunglasses and stylin’ fedoras doesn’t really seem to need a Halloween costume to put the freak in his funkadelic fest, but we’re gonna suggest one for George Clinton anyway. We’d like to see him riff on his signature contribution to the funk catalogue: “Atomic Dog.” We’re thinking a glowing green spotted dog getup with his hair styled to resemble a mushroom cloud would fit the vibe just about perfectly. Add in some gold-plated starburst sunglasses and it’s totally nuclear.
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue
The title of Troy Andrews’ (aka Trombone Shorty) latest collection of brass-fueled jazz is Parking Lot Symphony. Sounds good to us. Let’s hang a plastic replica of the front end of a classic Chevy convertible over his shoulders, drape it with some Mardi Gras beads to honor his native New Orleans and top it with a license plate that reads “SHORTY.” It might be a tad front-heavy, but with no windshield or rear-view mirror to get in the way of his brass styling, he’ll really be able to shake his sackbut, so to speak. For added flair, let’s make sure the headlights can flash to the beat.
Mutemath
Paul Meany and his bandmates in Mutemath have always been about mixing musical styles. Given that their newest disc, Play Dead, takes that formula to its logical conclusion, we’re thinking that literally playing dead is the way to go: They should take the stage as rainbow-hued skeletons, making their set feel like a dead man’s prog-rock party with paintballs.
