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…Vanilla Ice still performs?

Robert Matthew Van Winkle, better known as Vanilla Ice, was one of the most prolific hip hop artists of the 90s, winning multiple awards in his music and for some reason getting his own movie. Have you ever seen Cool as Ice? No? Good, keep it that way. Aside from a cameo here and a stealth performance there, Ice has been pretty definitively out of the game for at least a decade now. However, with everyone locked up and distancing due to the pandemic, apparently Ice’s creative juices have started flowing again, because he’s decided now’s a great time for a concert.

Ice announced recently that he’ll be playing a Fourth of July celebration concert on Friday in his home state of Texas. This has drawn some raised eyebrows, since Texas is currently experiencing one of the largest surges in COVID-19 cases in the entire country. According to a post on Ice’s Instagram, a major contributing factor to his decision to hold a concert is that he misses the energy of the 90s.

“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. And Mortal Kombat is still better than fortnight but we got out of the house, We danced, we invented house parties in the 90s. The last of the great decades,” he wrote, tagging the post with “#IMissThenineties.”

Credit: Consequence of Sound

According to the event’s promoter, Mike Wade, the concert will be a relatively small-scale affair, with a max capacity of 2,500. As of Wednesday night, though, only around 84 tickets to the event have been sold, according to the Texas Tribune, so it might be even smaller than that.

When faced with criticism on his Twitter, Ice responded “I take the coronavirus serious. But we can’t live in a bubble. I think at this point we all understand the severity of it. practice social distancing and wear a mask. This is an outside venue, Fourth of July on the lake with fireworks. Plenty of room for distancing.”