November 08, 2007
Thosewithout children under the age of 5 have probably never heard a singleWiggles song. Those with children under the age of 5 probably wish thatthey had never heard a single Wiggles song. In the burgeoning world ofchildren's music, The Wiggles, a popular group from Australia whosefour members (Sam, Anthony, Murray and Jeff) are known by the color oftheir shirts (yellow, blue, red and purple, respectively), have becomea lightning rod for criticism. They are a band parents love to hate, astheir incredibly simplistic songs will work their way into your brainand refuse to leave for days at a time. At the same time, a number ofindependent artists and record labels have begun to market theirversions of children's music as "anti-Wiggle," by supposedly refusingto pander to the lowest common dominator represented by such musicalnumbers as "Hot Potato" and "Big Red Car," two Wiggles' tunes that areabout, well, a hot potato and a big red car.
Yet the band'srecent set at the Milwaukee Theatre revealed why The Wiggles are stillcapable of filling venues across the world: Their songs make childrenhappy. From the first note of opener "Rock-A-Bye Your Bear," there werechildren literally dancing in the aisles. The band clearly plays for children, rather than atthem, and their straightforward songs (which actually embrace some ofthe best features of pop music) sound much better live than on record.Perhaps more importantly, they really seem to enjoy interacting withthe young people who worship them. The third wall between performer andaudience was routinely broken during the performance, and the band'srepeated forays into the crowd lent the show a strong populist appeal.
Whatwas most striking about The Wiggles' set, however, was the level ofself-awareness that the band seems to have. Collectively, they seem tounderstand the absurdity of providing background music for a collectionof dancing dinosaurs and singing dogs. Bad jokes, silly skits and aseries of calculated miscues (including a Spinal Tap-likesequence where cast members struggle to inflate a large balloon of redWiggle Murray, only to have it continually fall down on them) serve toenhance this mood, giving the show a very chaotic, even vaudevillian,feel. Maybe the band isn't as uncool as its detractors would like tobelieve. . 
