The Ice Man Slumeth Vanilla Ice in Concert October 20, 1998 CBGB, New York City by Brian Farrelly

While not as big of a joke as say Milli Vanilli, Vanilla Ice does have a whole lot to live down career-wise. His war crimes are many and though he may have had good intentions during the onset of his career, he quickly became a tool of the man when he found himself dressing up in ridiculous parachute pants, releasing god-awful rap ballads, and appearing in scriptless and pointless movies like Cool As Ice and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. He sold his soul to the white devils of the recording industry for a place in the sun and when the rug was ripped out from under him, there was no one to blame but himself.

You gotta give him credit, though, for owning up to his embarrassing past. If I were the poster boy for Cheese-Whiz-on-Wonder-Bread rap, I would stick to touring South East Asia as a nostalgia act, but Ice ain't taking the easy way out. Rather than fading into the woodwork of our collective consciousness, he's on your shirt like a new stain, with a new album and a comeback tour that kicked off with a suicide gig last week at the punk rock mecca, CBGB.

It was strange enough to hear about the thawing and resurrection of the Ice Man, but it was stranger still to witness the crowd that actually showed up to see him. Surveying the music industry goons, hipsters, and the handful of genuine fans that formed a line around the block, I wondered if it was a joke or curiosity that had dragged this many people out into the cold. I guess it was a little of both, like when you slow down by the side of the road 'cause you spot a flaming car wreck full of clowns. You don't wanna look or laugh, but hey, when's the next time you'll get the chance.

Once inside, we learned that there would be no opening acts for the Ice Man (when you think about it, though, who could open up for him except maybe MC Hammer or Right Said Fred). This was unfortunate because while the show was set to begin at 9:00 pm, it didn't begin until over an hour later.

I don't know if he was backstage praying to Jesus (he's become some kinda Born Again Christian of late) or if he was freebasing pop tarts, but an opening act woulda helped kill the time quite nicely.

When the prodigal son of rap finally did hit the stage, however, all was forgiven and the crowd went berserk. Having shed his ultra-gelled pompadour and parachute pants (which I've always thought made him look like a gay Arabian Knight), he emerged with a new GQ, trailor-trash uniform: tattoos, a crew cut and a torn CBGB muscle shirt.

The new fashion accessories are all part of the new attitude and new sound the Ice Man's laid down on wax for his new album Hard To Swallow. Gone are the Queen samples, tinny drum loops and laughable raps of his previous songs. They've been replaced by a hard rock sound ala Korn/The Deftones/and the myriad of other "My Mommy and Daddy Used To Beat Me, So Now I'm Taking My Aggression Out Through Hard-Core" bands that are raging against the machine of suburbia all across the country.

Skate rock (or Adidas rock as I like to call it) is a Kool-Aid mix of white-boy, hip-hop and off-kilter thrash metal that is actually one of the fresher styles of music to come out in the last few years. Think of it as a backwoods inbreeding of the Beastie Boys and Metallica or as what Beavis and Butthead's band would sound like if they ever got their shit together.

Though the Ice Man says he's a true blue convert of this radical, new sound, ya gotta wonder if deep down he's just trying to cash in on this, like he did with rap.

Maybe I would respect him more if he wasn't jumping on this MTV-friendly bandwagon and instead came out of the blue swingin' a cello with a string quartet or doing an album of Gershwin covers played on the jaw's harp. I suppose we should all just be thankful that he didn't return to us with another album of bad-ass "Ninja rap" (or God forbid a techno or trip-hop record).

His new music is angry, introspective and punishingly self-critical. Songs such as "Scars" and "Zig Zag Stories" are confessional tales of his drug-addled and abusive past, and if you could look past his Cookie Monster vocals, you could see that he was venting some real emotions up there onstage.

Midway through the set, I found that my toes where a' tappin' and that's when my body began a full-scale rebellion against itself. My brain said, "This is Vanilla Ice. You can't actually like this, can you?" but my heart said, "Yo, fuck that. This shit rocks!" My heart eventually won out, though, because the music was just so damn bouncy. I couldn't keep my body from bopping.

He played every song off his new album, but the capper of the evening was his performance of "Ice, Ice Baby." In its new Adidas rock format, it was virtually unrecognizable from the original and while I usually say a cover is no match for the source (except for William Shatner's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds") this new version is light-years ahead of its prototype. It's been stripped down and skuzzed up with snarling guitars and falling-rock-zone drum 'n' bass beats.

I'm not sure if it's because I was expecting it to be utter crap, but the concert was a whole lot better than I had anticipated. In fact, I'd be willing to say that I had a damn fine time. I'm not saying that this is as big as Elvis's 1968 Comeback Special, but Ice has definitely done his momma proud. Vanilla Ice is back and to all those sucker DJs who wanna dis him without giving the guy a chance, I say: Yo, don't try to play the Ice Man like that. He's moved on with his life. Shouldn't we?