Rapper Vanilla Ice Adds Edge With Crunchy Metal

Unless you were standing near the Galaxy Concert Theatre stage, it was nearly impossible to get a good look at Vanilla Ice as he performed Thursday night in Santa Ana.

Shrouded in smoke and dim lights for most of his one-hour show, the rapper-vocalist was a shadowy figure prowling the stage and bobbing up and down to throttling music that merged rap, punk and heavy-metal influences.

Staying in shadow appeared to be the 30-year-old performer’s way of forcing the audience to focus on the music rather than his image or his past.

It was a fairly bold move considering his new music, which is featured on the album “Hard to Swallow,” is nothing like the popular, if bland, hip-pop he dished out as a 21-year-old.

Backed Thursday night by a ferocious seven-man group, Vanilla Ice sounded like a refugee from a death metal band when he chose to sing. When he rapped over the grinding instrumental din, his model seemed to be bands such as Korn that straddle the fence between hip-hop/funk and punk/metal. In either case, his lyrics were generally indecipherable in the face of an aural assault that included two bassists and two guitarists.

Keeping this pompadoured pretty-boy’s chiseled features under wraps was once considered marketing lunacy. Vanilla Ice’s youthful good looks played a key part in his phenomenal commercial success nearly a decade ago.

In the early ‘90s, his “To the Extreme” album sold more than 7 million copies in the United States, and his single ‘Ice Ice Baby” became a runaway hit. He remains one of the few white artists to have found massive, if fleeting, popular success in the hip-hop genre.

Then came a backlash, one that Vanilla Ice heightened and accelerated by lying about his street credentials. He initially claimed to have been a ghetto kid who had been involved with gangs while growing up in Miami. It was soon discovered that he had actually been reared in suburban Texas.

Moreover, the soft, relatively fuzzy nature of Vanilla Ice’s rap music made him an easy target for hip-hop aficionados.

Now on the comeback trail, the rapper, whose real name is Robert Van Winkle, proved to be a decent and occasionally good practitioner of the rap/metal form.

His drill-sergeant delivery was suitably hostile and authoritative. And when he found a choice vocal hook (as in the song “Zig Zag Stories”), it suggested he might have a future if he can come up with more consistently gripping songs.

Unfortunately, a sizable portion of the Galaxy audience arrived with little clue as to what was in store. This wasn’t a surprise, since “Hard to Swallow” has been neither a popular nor a particularly visible album since its release in October. So there were more than a few befuddled faces in attendance as Vanilla Ice continued to pound out one metallic number after another.

When the now goateed and tattooed artist relented and played “Ice Ice Baby” halfway through his set, a collective sigh of relief rose from the female segment of the audience. They screamed and sang along to every word of the innocuous pop-rap song.

When he resumed the guitar assault, a stream of fans headed for the exits. Mainstream rap dominated the encore, but by then, only the hardcore fans and rowdy boys near the stage remained.

La Puente’s Freakdaddy preceded Vanilla Ice with a lively set of horn-driven ska that also touched on reggae, funk and hip-hop. The nine-member group played precisely and passionately, and two vocalists and three horn players pogoed in unison to the music’s festive groove.

You don’t often find a cheery band like this opening for an act that sounds like it wants to tear your head off.