2009 Wicker Park Fest/Thriller Zombie Walk

Wicker Park Festival returns even bigger and better this year, featuring bands such as Black Francis' new project Grand Duchy, homegrown Chicago superheroes Treaty Of Paris and Smoking Popes, and closing the weekend was Junior Boys (photos shown respectively.)

Also happening was a Michael Jackson's Thriller Zombie Walk. Hundreds of people put on their messiest makeup and fakest blood, ripped up their clothes, and amassed in the park, ready to lurch through the streets.
One guy wearing a Richard Nixon face mask instructed dozens of fellow Dead-Zeds how to dance the Thriller, which they performed several times like straight out of the music video. Also funny were some militant costumers acting as some sort of Anti-Zombie League "defending" the general public from the approaching onslaught à la Shaun Of The Dead.

Everyone was having such a great time -- whether participant or onlooker -- that it kind of dawned on me that in all actuality, possibly even ironically, the Michael Jackson Zombie Walk was really quite a celebration of life.