I Saw Jimmy Buffett For The First Time! A Journey Into The Land Of The Parrothead

A man with a shark on his head

by Aaron Brophy

I recently wasted a night away in Margaritaville. And I lost more than just a salt shaker. I think I may have lost some of my innocence.

Prompted by a perverse sense of curiosity and a ticket deal that worked out to $22 for a pair, it was off to Toronto’s Molson Canadian Amphitheatre on July 16 for “island escapist” Jimmy Buffett.

I knew virtually nothing about Jimmy Buffett. Besides a vague understanding that his shows were crazy drinking parties, the ability to sing that single chorus line of “Margaritaville,” and a twisted preconception of what he was like based on Bill Paxton’s Coconut Pete character from the movie Club Dread, I was at a loss. So this was going to be a blank sheet experience, a relatively pure bit of cultural tourism.

The promise of adventure was high just walking through the sprawling parking lots of the Canadian National Exhibition. As we snaked our way to the venue giant garbage bags full of empties were jammed between cars with hand-written slogans, tassels and fluorescent dangle bits affixed to them. There had been tailgating! Nobody in Ontario tailgates because we’re all prudes, but here was proof that it happened. This rebellion was a promising sign.

"Just like Santa Jimmys coming to town... welcome J.B."

The closer we crept towards this umbrella drink Mordor the stranger things got. A pack of technicolour trolls had set themselves up in lawn chairs at the foot of the pedestrian bridge that crosses the C.N.E. grounds into the Amphitheatre. These tie-dye shirt-wearing sentinels weren’t trying to exact a fare from us, though. They were more like defacto carnival barkers ushering us into a circus of the absurd.

And then we went inside.

Twenty years of covering the coolest, edgiest and most underground of music could never prepare me for walking in on the secret society that was stumbling around hollering, randomly high-fiving strangers and queuing up at the beer vendors.

What struck first were the colours. Not in the faces — with the exception of the three (we counted) black people we saw, and a couple Asians, this was the whitest audience ever, whiter than even a Coldplay show. No, the rainbow swirls were in the outfits EVERYONE was wearing.

Most started with a Hawaiian shirt and narrowcasted from there. We were in the midst of the Parrotheads  and unraveling their codified world became a fascination for us.

The second standard bit of the Parrothead uniform was some form of lei around the neck. From there, though, the sub-specification was mind-boggling.

There were the men in hula skirts. This was probably the third most prominent bit of costume and a clear drunkenness heat score. Basically, if you were a dude in a skirt, it was pretty obvious you were committed to being loaded this night and were effectively achieving this goal.

There were the cheeseburgerheads, the people wearing some variant of cheeseburger hat on their heads signifying loyalty to the song “Cheeseburger In Paradise.” There were the finheads, the shark fin-wearing citizens of Fin Land and devotees to the song “Fins.” And there were men in the bras made of coconut shells.

The costumes crossed generations. Cheeseburgers young and old whooped it up, and finheads, be they guppies or great whites, all nodded along together. It was like a revivalist sermon if the second coming was less about Jesus and more about the godliness of island rum.

What inspires this devotion, I’m not so sure. Yeah, “Margaritaville” is a catchy tune. But someone far more radical than I might argue the crowd’s manic shoutalong of “Salt! Salt! Salt!” in the song’s chorus has a sublimated white power vibe. And “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” may be brilliant, but it’s still kinda obvious fish-in-barrel stuff as far as drinking anthems go. Beyond that, Buffett served up some awful honkified calypso and a dose of charisma-vacuumed new country before resorting to covers of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and Crosby Stills And Nash’s “Southern Cross” to pad out the set.

If it wasn’t Buffett then, what was the hook? Undoubtedly the Parrotheads themselves. It’s really them who’ve created this community, and in many ways Buffett is little more than the convenient conduit they’ve appropriated for their purposes. He’s the circled date on the calendar, the excuse for grown men in hula skirts and coconut bras to get fall-down drunk while arm-in-arm with other dudes sporting cheeseburgers and shark fins on their heads. And when Buffet shouts from the stage “fins up!” and 14,000 people instantly put their arms in the air and make like they’ve got their very own fins cutting through the water, it’s not so much about Buffett as it’s about the fact these people have found the only other 13,999 adults in the world who are willing to play shark with them while wearing shirts that have the images of at least eight different tropical flowers on them.

I will never be able to unsee these things. And if you go to a Jimmy Buffett concert, neither will you. Consider yourself warned.

Parothdz on wheels