Rob Peters noted that since his bubbles were made of soap and water, they wouldn’t stain any clothes - which came in handy, given the number of kids popping them left and right.
By James Kinneen
Hometown Weekly Reporter
“You can’t not have a good time with bubbles.”
These were the words of “The Bubble Music Man” Rob Peters after performing to a raucous crowd of kids and adults outside of the Westwood COA on Monday night.
Unfortunately, with much of last year being spent worried about the social bubbles we operated in, in fear of contracting COVID-19, the event couldn’t happen last year.
But rather than take the year off completely, Peters revamped his show to include some moves nobody had seen him do before - most notably a new trick involving placing kids inside of bubbles.
But with people still worried about their youngest kids (who’ve yet to be able to receive vaccines) and lingering fears of being in large groups, it was entirely possible this hesitation might burst the bubble of the Westwood Young Women’s Club (WYWC), who view the event not as a fundraiser but as a free and fun thing they put on for the community.
Instead, according to the members on hand to set up the event, the exact opposite happened.
“This is the second week that we did it. The first [concert] was last week, and even though it was raining it was very well attended. I’ve been in the club for five years and this was the biggest crowd I’ve seen here.”
The fifteen year Bubble Man and DJ who had a small role in the Disney movie “Godmothered” knew how to keep the crowd engaged with both bubble tricks and bubble dancing. Using a machine that spits out 600 bubbles a minute, Peters played loud music and blasted the floating orbs into the air while kids danced, jumped up and down and popped as many as they could with their fingers.
This was the bubble dance party element of the show, which was interrupted by Peters both crafting giant bubbles himself and asking for some help from the crowd. At one point, he asked what you need to make bubbles and quickly heard “soap and water.” Asking the crowd what else you need, one little boy yelled out “love,” which was adorable but wrong - since the answer was “air.”
Next, Peters pulled up a couple volunteers and taught them how you only need to make your hand into a circle to blow bubbles out of it.
But it was Peters’ next trick that was the true showstopper.
Placing a hula-hoop-sized bubble wand on the ground, he filled it with liquid and quickly pulled it up to trap kids inside of the bubbles.
After the show, Peters explained that this was a new addition to the show - one he had not used in Westwood performances before.
“When we first started the show, I actually adopted the program from my mentor who got really sick and wasn’t able to do it anymore, but the premise of it was originally a bubble dance party, which we still do. But we’ve been doing it for so long and last year we had a break because all of our events basically stopped, so we got creative and started playing around with things we could do for a little more wow-factor. So putting kids in the bubble, a lot of the big bubble presentations, some of the nets and some of the tricks are all new this year.”
This was a pretty high-risk move, since according to Peters, kids are very aware when your tricks don’t work the way they’re supposed to.
“It did take a little work. Like anything, you don’t just pull it out of the box, put it together and hope it works. You want to make sure its perfect because when you’re live with kids, they know if you’re afraid, and they know if you screw up. But that’s what makes it fun. I missed doing this last year. We got creative and were doing smaller events, but we missed towns like Westwood having this kind of a gathering. Obviously for safety reasons you couldn’t do it, so I really felt like doing new stuff this year really fit because the people who’ve seen it before still come back year after year, and I’ve given them something new.”
But just as much as the kids were happy to see the show return, Peters exclaimed after a year off, he was very happy to get back to it himself.
“Being in business, you look at dollars and cents. But being in my business, it goes beyond the dollars and cents. You look at communities like this and how much fun and how receptive people are. This is a program that I really did miss doing last year, and I was really glad to be back this year.”
