Canned Goods

I've been to see quite a few concerts in my lifetime. I've seen everyone from The Smiths to OMD to Van Halen (twice), Journey--heck, even Bruce Springsteen...

But now I'm taking my son to see the Wiggles in concert in April.

For those of you who don't know who the Wiggles are---be grateful. The Wiggles are a band of four GROWN men from Australia who prance around and sing songs like "Fruit Salad (yummy yummy)" and "Crunchy, Munchy Honeycakes". And the scary---I mean REALLY scary part to all of this? The songs are so catchy, I find myself humming them throughout the day.

It all started when my friend Krissy sent me a Wiggles CD: "Top of the Tots." Her twin daughters are a few weeks younger than Peter and she told me they LOVED the Wiggles. So, I put it on---and it was as if the boy had heard them before. He stood up and immediately began to wiggle to "Dorothy the Dinosaur" and the other 47 songs on the CD. I think if I had the ability to play the CD backwards, it would have provided instruction for Peter to wiggle or something because he got the hang of it so quickly.

Before long, Peter was patting his tummy to "Fruit Salad (Yummy, Yummy) and playing along to "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes". Now we watch the Wiggles every day on the Disney Channel--which is sorta like The Monkees meets the New Zoo Revue: where they pretend to play musical instruments and cut in some live footage of their concerts and their songs' characters like Dorothy the Dinosaur and Captain Feathersword grace the screen.

Each Wiggle wears a different primary color shirt with a Wiggles logo on the front right. Their costumes aren't very different from a regulation Star Trek uniform in that they also wear black pants and black boots.

The four Wiggles are: Greg, Jeff, Murray and Anthony--with each having their own wacky personality. There's Greg--the lead singer who loves doing magic tricks. He wears a yellow shirt; Anthony loves to eat and has his own little "art workshop". His shirt is blue; There's Murray who plays guitar and wears the red shirt; and finally, there's Jeff--the token Asian who wears a purple shirt and likes to take naps.

At first, the sceptic in me said that they were a bunch of pretty boy, phoney musicians (like the Monkees); but when I went to their official website: http://www.thewiggles.com/
I learned I was quite wrong. Turns out these guys weren't some pre-fabbed boy band put together by some middle age A&R freak after all. In fact, they quickly earned my respect when I realized that they became the Wiggles TWELVE years ago BY CHOICE after going through Child Development courses in college. And what's more, they actually play their own instruments and write their own songs.

I was even more intrigued when I found out that they had sold out 12 shows at Madison Square Garden. Shit, I don't even think the Stones ever did that!


Funny thing is, since they're relatively good looking, Chris and I were laughing about the Wiggles probably having some groupies (aka single moms who go to the show in the hope of getting some Romp Bam Ba Stomp of their own). It'll be fun to see what sort of crowd (and I don't mean toddlers) this group draws.

Anyway, so yeah---the concert's in two weeks. I'm a mom--what can I say?