Whether it was his striking sequined vest or his flamboyant charisma, Steve the Regurgitator had everyone in the audience riveted. And a little grossed out. A full house eagerly awaited the return of Steve Starr this Saturday night in Kemper Auditorium. Starr visited Andover two years ago and many upperclassmen, remembering this previous performance, came out to see his return. Throughout the evening, Starr swallowed several potentially dangerous objects, including a lightbulb, a billiard ball and thumbtacks and then regurgitated them all completely dry. He even swallowed powdered sugar, drank water and regurgitated the sugar still in powdered form. Starr said that the items he swallows do not hurt him because his stomach is lined with Diet Coke, which he said he drinks a lot of. He said that he can also control if things will come up wet or dry with a special suction technique. Starr first realized his talent when he was very young. “I grew up in a Scottish children’s home and would eat my pocket change from a very early age. That’s how I got started, and found out I was good at it,” he said on stage. The amazing part of the show was not only what Starr swallowed and regurgitated, but what he could do with objects in his stomach. Starr swallowed liquid soap, water and coins, then cleaned the coins in his belly. He also smoked a cigarette and swallowed the smoke, but managed to regurgitate half of the cigarette smoke in a bubble. He then popped the bubble in midair, releasing the smoke. Besides Starr’s bizarre talent, his personality between tricks kept the audience engaged. Throughout the show, he made strange noises, cracked jokes and called for audience participation. At one point, he collected five rings from girls in the audience. He held the microphone in his mouth and the audience could hear the rings clink in his stomach. He called the five girls onto the stage and threatened to hypnotize one of them into eating a live goldfish. He said he chose the shiest girl to complete the task. Starr dragged the gag on forever, making Emily Rademacher ’11 believe that she would actually have to eat a goldfish. He kept taunting her throughout the show, until he was just about to put the fish in her mouth before revealing that it was all a joke, and that she would die if she had swallowed a goldfish. “I actually thought he was going to make me eat the fish. My heart has never beat so fast in my life. I’m naturally nervous in front of people in public anyway,” said Rademacher. Starr ate the three live goldfish himself and then regurgitated them alive. He eventually returned them all into the tank, after faking out the audience by pretending to throw the fish out into the crowd. “Steve was freakin’ crazy! He was weird. He scared me when he pretended to throw the fish at me…he was mad funny, though,” said Khadijah Owens ’11. Starr has won a Scottish Talent Contest as the only non-singer and performed in Scottish clubs for a few years. Since then, he’s proud to say that he’s performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno fifteen times.
