Vanilla Ice throwing July 4th concert despite coronavirus

The ‘Ice Ice Baby’ rapper will perform for thousands in Texas, where coronavirus cases are surging.

UPDATE: This Vanilla Ice concert has been canceled. Here are the details including a statement from Mr. Ice.

PREVIOUS: Alright… stop.

Vanilla Ice is throwing a Fourth of July weekend concert deep in the heart of pandemic hotspot Texas.

The Iceman will cometh this Friday at a concert venue in Austin, where all the bars are otherwise closed due to COVID-19.

The concert is titled the Independence Day Throwback Beach Party and it’s happening due to a legal loophole, the Austin Chronicle pointed out. The venue — Emerald Point Bar & Grill, located on the shores of Lake Travis — is technically a restaurant, even though it also has a large capacity outdoor general admission concert space. So fans don’t have to collaborate with or listen to current recommended coronavirus guidelines that seek to eliminate large crowds.

“I can’t wait to get back to this,” the “Ice Ice Baby” singer posted on Instagram along with some of his previous packed concert footage. “The 90s were the best. We didn’t have coronavirus, or cell phones, or computers. We had 5.0’s, blockbuster, Beavis and Butthead, Wayne’s World, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan … Mortal Kombat is still better than Fortnight … the last of the great decades.” The singer added in another post on Thursday: “Music makes people happy. I think we could all use some happiness with all this corona mess happening.”

Also on Thursday, the Travis County Health Department warned people to stay away from Vanilla Ice — not in general, but this show specifically — with spokesperson Jen Samp taking a dig at Vanilla Ice’s ’90s nostalgia by telling TMZ: “[Attending a concert] is not wise regardless of who is performing at any gathering right now. The best way to be nostalgic is by protecting your parents and grandparents and staying home.”

The concert is selling 2,500 tickets, which is roughly half of the venue’s potential capacity. Tickets range from $25 for general admission to $300 for VIP seating (the latter is sold out). When you buy a ticket it comes with this warning: “Please note any interaction with the general public poses an elevated risk of being exposed to COVID-19 and we cannot guarantee that you will not be exposed while in attendance at the event.”

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Another retro act, Color Me Badd, will sex up the same venue on July 4.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered all the bars in Texas to re-close last Friday due to a large surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. Earlier Wednesday, the popular ACL music festival announced it was scrapping its planned fall 2020 shows. Texas also announced 8,076 new cases, a record daily high, despite tests being increasingly in short supply. The test positivity rate for tests the Austin area is now at 28 percent, according to local news station KVUE.

Will it ever stop? Yo, I don’t know.

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