The Pizza Underground at Lee’s Palace

Have you wondered what Kevin McCallister is up to these days? Would you have guessed that Macaulay Culkin now fronts a band called The Pizza Underground, a parody band that takes The Velvet Underground and Lou Reed songs and makes every lyric a pizza joke? Well Macauley Culkin does in fact front a comedy/art rock pizza band. Lee’s Palace was packed mostly because of the star front man, but also to see what the fuss was about. The band was booed off stage recently in England and the crowd wanted to know if they were worth it or not. The set started off with a guy dressed like Andy Warhol who wanted to play their national anthem “New York, New York” with a foodie montage playing on a scrim. Culkin who goes by Mack, came out and welcomed the crowd “How you doing?” “I’m doing woo too!” The band then passed out about half a dozen pizzas to the crowd to enjoy and get in the mood for their songs. They played such hits like Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” with lyrics changed to “Its such a pizza day, you just keep the oven on”. They were missing one band member who plays the bands Nico, so Austin Kilham who plays the keys and tambourine, filled in by doing his own German impression of the model.

Mack cracked pizza themed jokes between songs like this gem “What’s the difference between a peperoni pizza and a boner? I don’t have a peperoni pizza.” Some guy in a Ziggy Stardust mask came out to sing a few songs with them that added to the ten layers of weirdness already. Then they had Andy Warhol come back out and play a video of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” except it was about cats. The band said the song was by Pussy Joel and how he might be someone they explore further since they know pizza puns can only take them so far. While the band tried to maintain straight faces and look very serious in their Velvet Underground duds, Deenah Vollmer was usually the one to crack a smile during the set. To lighten the mood Mack did a Tony Danza impression making fun of his career and show Who’s the Boss, which is surreal since he came from the same acting background.

While the set winded down, they had Kurt Cobain come onstage and perform Nirvana songs only in the past tense for a disorienting sing along. Parts of the set were funny, parts were great takes on art (something Warhol and Reed probably would have enjoyed) and parts were weird and uncomfortable. I still don’t know what to think of the set, but the fact that I got free pizza out of it and saw Macaulay Culkin only a few feet away from me made it a night to remember for sure. If you are intrigued, go see them, but don’t expect high art.