“Bizaardvark” Star Gets Litty at Gabe’s

At the beginning of the month, Philadelphia-based band Soul Glo tore up the stage at our favorite hepatitis-laced dive bar, screaming and singing and thrashing and sticking it to the man who had kept minorities down for so long. The performance was good, great, even, but a question lingered in the air at the end of the night: when are we gonna get a performance for white people?

Through what seems to be an act of God, the Crackers of America™ found their wish granted earlier this week, when Bizaardvark alumni Olivia Rodrigo announced that, for some reason, she would be making a pit stop in Iowa City during the tour promoting her sophomore album, Guts. All at once, roofs were blown off sorority houses, boyfriends were broken up with, and the streets became filled with ladies delighted to finally get some representation at Gabe’s, as well as that one guy who promises that he’s “different.”

Preparations were underway almost immediately. To ensure that Rodrigo’s hardcore, fuck-you-get-mine punk brand was allowed to flourish, representatives from known-rebellious conglomerate Disney were sent down to make necessary changes. The once-neutral, black walls of Gabe’s upper room were immediately stained a purple so rare that the color went extinct, and the child laborers working in Malaysia to produce the paint were brutally punished by The Mouse for their failure.

Concerns also arose about safety. Fire codes usually dictate that only 400 people can safely stand in Gabe’s upper room at one time, but the fire marshal made an announcement stating that they would suspend all fire codes during Rodrigo’s concert for no reason whatsoever; the same day, a new $100 million renovation to the Iowa City Fire Station was announced.

With the room purpler than ever and safety codes officially damned for all eternity, the big day was here. Using my totally authentic press pass, I was allowed front-row access to the concert early, where I watched as tens of thousands of women and men who are totally “different” pack the upper room. Sweaty bodies rubbed against each other and caused a cloud to form over the crowd. In the corner across from me, Michael Mouse stood in the shadows, brandishing a sawed-off 12 gauge in case anything popped off.

Rodrigo stepped onto the stage, and that’s when the chaos began. She played her most hardcore song, “deju vu,” and the ladies, so overcome with genuine punk spirit, began to mosh violently (and by moshing, I mean jumping up and down and occasionally bumping into somebody).

But it was clear something was wrong; it turns out that fire codes are important. The moshing grew more frantic as Rodrigo jumped into her little-known single “driver’s license,” and the crowd surged forward. I was pinned against the wall, nearly suffocating to death. I managed to slip through the bodies, desperately pushing towards Michael, the one man who could fix this. I called out to him over the hardcore drums and bass of Rodrigo’s punk rock, but I was only met with a slug straight to the chest, nearly killing me. Meanwhile, people began to clamber over each other, and the sweat cloud grew so large that it began to rain, flooding the hall. Seeing that their darling punk princess was in danger, Michael jumped on stage and grabbed her by the shoulders, vaporizing and teleporting both of them away from the danger (only Disney Adults knew Michael could do this).

I spent three hours in the hospital before being discharged for saying “owie” too much. In total, 427 died in the crush, and over 7,000 more were injured in some way, many due to the slugs that Michael wildly shot into the crowd. When called on by the press to compensate the victims, harkening back to the Utopia Incident with Travis Scott, Disney representatives calmly explained that concert tragedies are only the artist’s fault when that artist isn’t white.

Guts would go quadruple platinum and won Album of the Year, Rock Album of the Year, Alternative Album of the Year, and Rap Album of the Year(?) at the Grammys, while Olivia Rodrigo was immediately inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, overtaking fake-punks like Hole, Bikini Kill, and The Gits.

Machine Gun Kelly has threatened to release a cover-version of Guts, by far the biggest tragedy to come from all of this.