REVIEW: The real show at CJ's wasn't on the stage

DJ Pauly D plays Cactus Jack's in Kamloops on Friday, Feb. 17.

ALYSSA ANDERSON PHOTO

For the hundreds of people who crammed into Cactus Jack’s on Friday night (Feb. 17), the $60 ticket price was ostensibly to see reality-TV star DJ Pauly D play music on his laptop.

But, the real show was everywhere but the stage.

That’s not to take anything away from the bronzed and spiky-haired self-proclaimed Guido. The music was good — just not as good as everything else that was going on.

The real show started long before DJ Pauly D — made famous on MTV’s Jersey Shore — finally took the stage shortly after midnight.

By that time, I’d already been at CJ’s for going on three hours — and I’d seen a lot.

The T-shirts were fresh to death. The fists were pumping, and almost everyone appeared to be DTF.

At 11 p.m., two DJs I’d never seen before began playing their playlists. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great — lots of bass, lots of woomps and lots of samples.

They began teasing the crowd by picking up the mic and dropping the headliner’s name.

That was the stage show. The real show, in the trenches, started at about 11:30 p.m. Three women began fighting on the dance floor and were kicked out.

Ten minutes later, the real show got better when a young man in a hoodie approached me and made a bold claim.

“You stand out way too much, buddy,” he said. “Everybody knows you’re an undercover cop.”

I denied it but, as the  man was quick to point out, that’s what an undercover cop would do.

Chalking the allegation up to the fact I was seemingly the only sober person inside CJ’s by that point — standing by myself, watching the goings on and live-tweeting (@timpetruk) on my BlackBerry — I got past it.

The stage show continued shortly before midnight, when CJ’s staff cleared out a large swath of the nightclub as Pauly was spirited in by an entourage of juiced-up gorillas.

A short time later, the DJ’s famous MacBook laptop — emblazoned with a glittery Italian flag — appeared on stage.

He took the stage himself at 12:09 a.m., and all the women screamed. The first song was a remix of one of my personal faves — DJ Khaled’s All I do is Win.

The plot of the real show, meanwhile, thickened just before 12:30 a.m., when I was outside in the “smoke pit,” as it’s referred to at CJ’s.

Two young men could be seen lingering.

They kept lingering.

The bouncer watched. Then one of them hopped over a fence. Success! The other one jumped up to follow his comrade in, and landed — quite literally — on his face.

Both ninjas were kicked out.

Tensions then escalated, not because of the failed entry attempt or the set list of DJ Pauly D, but because there were hundreds of drunk young men in the same room as attractive, scantily clad young women — also drunk.

I’m pretty sure there were a number of fights, but I kept missing them. I would see bouncers running, women pointing and men flexing on one another.

Anyway . . .

By 12:45 a.m., the guy who accused me of being a narc found himself pre-occupied with the pay-to-punch game at CJ’s — the one where you put change in and then smack a punching bag only to find out you’re not the world’s strongest man — despite the fact DJ Pauly D was dropping funky beats on stage.

Just before 1 a.m., back in the smoke pit, the break-in artists returned. Like all good ninjas, they knew they hadn’t achieved their goal and they were back for revenge.

Maybe they didn’t want to spend $80 — the rumoured rate for last-minute entry — to hear Pauly’s playlist in person.

Either way, they again snuck in a back gate. This time, they went through it, rather than over but, unfortunately for them, the result was the same — caught and kicked out.

The stage show continued. Just after 1:15 a.m., Pauly’s entourage pulled a page out of the Insane Clown Posse playbook and doused the dance-floor crowd.

It wasn’t Faygo Soda — the drink with which Juggalos are usually sprayed — but champagne.

In the moments following the three-bottle barrage of bubbly, young women could be seen shivering in the smoke pit, their tops soaking wet but their demeanors somehow level.

As the clock ticked closer to 2 a.m., a strange thing happened.

Pauly was still performing but a group of women took it upon themselves to form a line — as if they were waiting to get into CJ’s front door — outside a saloon-style entrance a few feet from a pool table.

They were apparently hoping to get backstage.

No word on if they did. Unfortunately, the lights came as Pauly left the stage at 2:06 a.m. — exactly 117 minutes after the show started.

Both shows were very entertaining.

DJ Pauly D’s music was exactly as to be expected — loud, heavy on the bass and lots of tight samples. It was very good.

The only complaint (and not one I’m making, for the record) might be that his signature track, if you could call it that, Beat That Beat Up, was nowhere to be heard.

Regardless, the packed dance floor, even as random men sprayed champagne magnums on the crowd, was a testament to the tunes.

And, the other show? The one featuring bumbling ninjas and supposed undercover operatives and so, so many pumping fists?

It was even better.