On Thursday night, to recognize the 20th anniversary of the unloading of an enormous cascade of poop and urine by the Dave Matthews Band tour bus onto the heads of a Chicago River tour group — to acknowledge this infamous local fecaltastrophe — the Hideout threw a dance party. Chicago media had been in a tizzy all week recounting the Great Dumping with shock and awe, reminiscing in graphic detail, leaving no seat unsoiled. And yet there is something to be said for the genius of marking one memorable Chicago potty with another memorable Chicago party.
A pair of DJs opened their laptops, made their adjustments, then began:
“HA-HA-HA-HAPPY 20th annnnniersary to the Chicago River!”
The dance floor, packed, a sold-out house, milled around at first, like the first minutes of a middle-school dance. They were pioneers, scatological astronauts — how was a party celebrating a nauseating quirk of Chicago history supposed to look, anyway? No one knew yet. Piñatas decorated like smiling poops dangled from the ceiling. A lone piñata of a tour bus twisted in the air. Here and there were party centerpieces — stacks and stacks of unwrapped toilet paper rolls. Beside the dance floor, there were commemorative posters for sale, designed by Chicago artist Jay Ryan, depicting the historical moment on Aug. 8, 2004, when a band’s bus passed over the Kinzie Street Bridge and the driver emptied the bus’s septic system through the bridge’s metal grates. Two different styles of 20th-anniversary bumper stickers were also sold.
One read: “I survived the Dave Matthews Band Poopgate 2004.”
The other: “I went to Chicago and all I got was 800 lbs. of Dave Matthew Band poop on me.”
“Uh, happy birthday to … well, you know what!” shouted DJ Steve Reidell.
The first tune, “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” bounced out of speakers to knowing snorts. Dancers groaned and smiled at the pun. What followed, spun by The Hood Internet, the DJ duo of Reidell and Aaron Brink, were variations on this winking theme: “Push It” and “Take Me to the River” and “Poison” and “Did It On’em” and songs that go “I crashed my car into the bridge — I don’t care!”
Context is everything.
Alongside the stage, a screen showed a surprisingly thorough montage of bus scenes in movies — the melancholy ending of “The Graduate,” Sandra Bullock jumping a bus in “Speed,” Eminem on a Detroit bus in “8 Mile,” Kevin Costner playing his guitar on a team bus in “Bull Durham.”
“Who knew there were that many bus scenes,” a dancer shouted over the music.
Just outside the doors to the dance floor sat Samantha Irby, the funny, acclaimed essayist, who grew up in Evanston and has lived in Kalamazoo for most of the past decade. She dreamed up this event. She and Reidell began talking about doing something like this two years ago.
“It’s a dumb idea,” she said. “And now I’m starting to think it’s actually the greatest idea.”
As fans approached to say hi and get her autograph, they were treated to a bowls of party treats: free Whoopee Cushions and packets of Alka-Seltzer and doggie-poop bags and samples of Purell. Hood Internet selected the music with an ear for fecal favorites and the movie clips with buses, Irby explained, and she came up with most of the party planning and decorations.
“When Steve said we should throw a party to commemorate the incident, I immediately said, without a thought, great idea. We talked to Tim (Tuten, Hideout founder), who was excited!” Irby is an unapologetic Matthews-head. “To me, this is a celebration! I didn’t want it to come off as making fun! I’m serious. Dave didn’t do anything! His driver did! It’s Dave Matthews’s redemption!
“But I was so worried no one would even come.”
Until the 8:30 p.m. party sold out. Followed by the 5 p.m. party. That’s 5 p.m. on a Thursday. The crowd, largely female Gen-Xers and millennials, an audience raised on decades of reflexive irony, arrived in their walking-to-work sneakers and light summer jumpers and dresses, patterned with hot dogs and smiling bananas and laughing flowers and red Rolling Stones lips. They danced on a school night, embracing the absurdist, performative art of it. They reached for the toilet paper centerpieces and tossed them into the ceiling fans. They danced the Whip and Cabbage Patch, threw hands in the air, curved in slinky waves. What began as a joke of a party became a traditional party until, with the final punny song, “Back That Azz Up,” irony returned.
Watching from the bar was Tim Samuelson, retired Chicago city historian.
He said with a characteristic twinkle that he wanted to pay homage to “really one of the great Chicago stories.” In fact, earlier in the day, on a lark, he took the same 1 p.m. Chicago Architecture Foundation tour, on the very same boat, that started the whole thing. (For bonus laughs, he carried his umbrella.) Onboard, he met four tourists from Dallas, Texas, who had the very same idea. They even wore matching T-shirts reading “PoopFest 2024.” During the pandemic, quarantined together, they grew obsessed with the Dave Matthews bus legend. They decided to honor the 20th anniversary of the incident they would vacation together in Chicago.
Samuelson invited them to the Hideout.
While music pounded behind her, Tricia Sanders, who seemed like the ring leader of the Texans, said: “When we talk about the poop, they don’t know what we’re talking about back home. And we had so many questions, like what happened later to the people on that boat, and how did they walk from the boat to their cars afterward. I mean, we talked a lot about this thing.” Post-quarantine, they became close friends who plan trips together. They are pioneers, too. They are now among a new breed of Chicago tourists — they only want to hear about the crap.
“Coming here went from pie-in-the-sky dream to reality,” Sanders said.
Do you ever question your choices in life, a reporter asked?
“Occasionally,” she said. “But it’s so fleeting.”
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com
