It was hard to tell if Young MC was being snarky or pathetic with his introduction of "Bust a Move" exactly 13 minutes into Saturday's Minneapolis installment of the I Love the '90s Tour, but either way it summed up the overall embarrassment of the night.
"Please stand up for this one," the rapper pleaded with the Target Center crowd. "This is the one you know."
Five of the six acts that took the stage Saturday had one — and only one — big song to get the 8,000 mostly Generation X-aged fans up and dancing. The exception was the lone women's group on the lineup, Salt-N-Pepa, who delivered multiple hits with ample gusto but somehow didn't land the headlining slot. Yet another example of women losing out to less-qualified male job candidates.
The top dog instead was a shameless but fitting choice, Vanilla Ice. Now an HGTV star (if that's not an oxymoron), the real-life Robbie Van Winkle made the crowd sit through a half-hour of intellectually challenged songs and a bizarre stage show with cheap inflatable monsters before he finally got to "Ice Ice Baby."
No surprise, many fans had actually left by then.
Here's a rundown of Saturday's acts.
Young MC: Introduced by Coolio as "the very first from the West Coast," the 49-year-old MC couldn't rise above the dubious opener. He performed without a DJ amid horrendous acoustics, exacerbated by empty seats. It looked like he couldn't "Bust a Move" fast enough to get out of there.
Coolio: The "Gangster's Paradise" hitmaker — who still sports some pointy braids but is otherwise bald — brought up a drummer, guitarist and saxophonist despite only having 15 minutes to play. His sax man soloed so long in "C U When U Get There," they had to cut short "1,2,3,4 (Sumpin' New)."