The timing of Halloween meant there were costume parties on both Saturday and Wednesday, with deejays and bands packing the various houses quite full of creatures dancing, which tended to be more along the lines of silly-quirky than the hot-sexy that has been the norm for the past few years.
Gel got the crowd going at Dibbo’s, although the biggest numbers of the costumed minions were at Dick’s, which had The New Skinny playing on Saturday and Brian Naughton on Wednesday. No matter where you chose to party, it was hard to go wrongwith finding lots of the undead.
The scene at Dick’s on Saturday, and again on Wednesday, was dominated by the stuff on people’s heads. One woman wore a headdress almost a foot high that was chock full of vegies, fruit and straw, and four days later there was a carbon copy sported that had mostly bananas and other big fruit.
On Saturday, a very tall man was one of two sporting a sombrero, and that was a good thing since the brim was so wide it could conceivably have sliced someone — although you must admit that would be fitting for Halloween. This biggie was tried on by several patrons, some of whom were just as tall. That same big guy changed it up a bit by having a baseball hat underneath the Mexican hat.
On Saturday, there was another sombrero, this one with colorful flairs along the brim. It is fitting that the Megatouch video game played at various bars had a trivia question about the Golden Sombrero, which is when a baseball player strikes out four times in a game. These costumes definitely didn’t strike out, although some did sport that other baseball cliche, The Collar.
At the Halloween party at Guv’s Place in Houlton, in this case held on a Friday, scare-fest Jess had the costume of the holiday. She put on tons of foundation makeup to essentially push her face forward, which allowed her the facial room to create an empty eye-socket look with no eyeballs. A finely made mesh at the forefront of the eye sockets enabled her to “see” who she was dancing with, although she said she had no peripheral vision.
Jess spent a lot of time dancing to the tunes of the band Off The Record with fellow bartender Cheri, who was dressed as what was described by various people as a duchess, countess or other royal figure. Her headgear, again, was tried on by many others, including a “priest” who had a hat of his own.
A last oversize head-enhancer was at the Dibbo’s party, a more than two-foot-wide, fittingly black hat that was studded with metal clips and other embellishments. Perhaps this witchy woman should have met up with the leather-and-metal-clad Edward Scissorhands, who was looking quite creepy at a place a few doors down. Another woman went that costume route with just the extended fingers — although hers were made of cloth.
Back at Dick’s, a man and a woman who were walking past one another noticed that they had the exact same oversize glasses, so they swapped these as well. Coming in the door was a woman dressed up as a bride, and although that’s not so noteworthyin itself, what got attention is that she was with a whole group of “bridesmaids.”
On Halloween night, a man put on the face of a bull, complete with big widespread horns and the biggest nose ring you’ve ever seen. Again, don’t poke anyone with those!
At Green Mill, a heavy metal rocker wore a guitar slung across his back, like the famous album cover by The Boss, but it was smaller than a regular instrument in order to fit the length of his torso. Think the size of a mandolin. Then on Wednesday at Ellie’s, Batman walked in with Batgirl, presumably to do battle with the already there Hannibal the Cannibal. But wait, that’s when The Joker was called up to do some karaoke, but not quite in time to elude the timely-entranced Caped Crusaders.
Meanwhile, at Woody’s in Bayport, the deejay wore a huge box on his head, looking like the “I’m Sexy and I know It” band member, but that wasn’t noticed by the “blind ref” who was getting the most out of his costume by agitating — poking around at people’s feet with his walking stick.
There were two super sexy costumes of note, which bucked the trend of the night. One, at Ellie’s, was a police woman with only a little leather here and there, which meant lots of bare midriff and even more skin showing on the back of her cutout chaps. The other, at Dick’s, was a Catwoman whose costume was dead-on for that worn by Halle Berry. Good thing she wasn’t at Ellie’s to meet up with The Bat Couple.
Combining sexy and quirky, but still mostly the latter, was a guy whose shirt was on a hanger that was draped across the back of his neck and head. The tag said “well hung” and the hanger was fittingly heavy-duty, made up of small pieces of pipe attached together.