Easter Sunday once again saw The Zombie Pub Crawl this year, and yours truly was in attendance. I initially was hesitant to go, because my status as a full-time worker makes the idea of getting wasted on a Sunday a little scary, but Rachel Riot won me over with the idea of going as Dharma zombies. And I can’t turn down a Lost reference.
The crawl took on South Street, spread out along four bars – Tattooed Moms, Manny Browns, Lickety Splits, and Copacabana, with an after party at Fluid.
Rachel and I arrived to catch the tail end of the zombie march around the block – led by Zombie Jesus – and then headed to Tattooed Moms. Moms was the site of the zombie makeup station for everyone who didn’t come in costume already, so the front part of the second floor – the room with the pool tables – was packed, while the back room was almost completely empty. This led to an interesting dilemma – is it better to be alone and bored or with the group but unable to breathe. We choose to bypass the question entirely and check out Manny Browns.
Browns was much much less crowed. There were a few scattered groups of zombies throughout the bar, but mostly the patrons were all “normal” people who were trying to enjoy a nice meal or pint and had no idea what they walked into. This made Browns an excellent place to chill out, meet people, take pictures, and enjoy a more calm, social aspect of the pub crawl. For example, Browns was where we met a zombie from Oklahoma who flew into Philly on Easter Sunday just for the crawl.
After Browns we headed to Lickety Splits, which, like Moms, was packed. At this point it was about 9:30 p.m., and some friends of mine reported that they’d just been denied entry from Moms by the bouncer because it was too full. It seemed like everyone else was spilling into Splits (of course, its not the biggest bar in the world, and that probably didn’t help…).
Splits was the site of the most surreal moment of the evening: a room full of zombies singing 99 Red Balloons at the top of their lungs. Is that what the Apocalypse will be like? Will the zombies stop eating me to sing about the Cold War? I hope so.
We got a report that they were playing zombie movies at Copacabana, so we raced over there, pausing to watch two zombies get arrested on the corner of 4th and South. When we got to the bar, a group of people were gathered around the TV screen by the bathroom watching Black Sheep – a film about zombie sheep. The ten minutes I saw of it confirmed that it just may be the greatest movie of all time.
We finished up the night at the after party at Fluid. I’ll admit, I was one of the people who had no idea this club existed before that party (the hidden nature of Fluid gives me the impression that it is some super secret place that only the most hip kids are allowed to know about). In fact, I heard a couple people comment that they weren’t going to the after party solely because they had no idea where it was (the handy pieces of paper with the itinerary that were given out had no address on it). Depending on your perspective, confusing half the zombies and excluding them from the after party was either a great idea or a mistake.
Fluid, by the way, is located on 4th street, right below South. It’s the set of metal stairs in the alleyway next to Latest Dish that looks like its leading into an apartment. In actuality, it leads you into a gray tunnel that opens up into an industrial club. Complete with a stripper!
Fluid was a lot of fun. I thoroughly enjoyed the music selections, and dancing with zombies is not an experience one gets everyday and should take lightly.
Best Costumes:
My friends and I were complaining that not many people made their outfits unique. These are the people that get a special shout-out.
~ Zombie Raggety Anne. I only saw her out of the corner of my eye, so she may have been Zombie Wendy from Wendy’s. Either way though, it’s a good idea.
~ Zombie Captain America – Who looked almost identical to the Captain America in Marvel Zombies. Bonus points to you, Sir!
~ Zombie survivors of the Titanic – The Steampunk nerd in me got way too excited by the detail in their outfits. Of course my camera batteries died as soon as I tried to take their picture.
~ Can I give a clearly biased shoutout to my outfit? Zombie Dharma Initiative Kate from Lost. Complete with slips of paper to put over our beer so we were drinking official Dharma product!
We don't mess around.
