Bumbershoot Review Sunday Night.

[quartersmostly]

agent_PUNT says:

Holy shit it' s 2:25 am and I am pretty drunk. Just got back from downtown Seattle.

My god what an amazing time this Bumbershoot has been. I don't know where to start or where to begin. There is one day of the festival left but I am writing a review now because tonight was just INSANE.

This is about to get long and wordy. So I suggest taking your dog for a walk now so you won't have to do so half way through this report/update.

So, okay, the theatre for the comedy shows hold about 500 people. Give or take. And you have to wait in line for an HOUR to get into the shows.

Doesn't sound so bad? Well the shows start every half hour smary pants. Which means that you CAN'T possibly see back to back shows in the comedy theatre! They don't let anyone in until the theatre is empty so you can't stay in to watch two shows. Quartersmostly and I did pull a few sneaky moves, like leaving early in some shows to get in line for the next etc.... But tonight I pulled the greatest move of all.... Read on!

The 6:30 - 7:30 show tonight was Paul Gilmartin and Patton Oswalt. The 8:00 - 9:00 show was Aziz, Mike Bribiglia, Nick Swardson show. Now I wanted to see both of these shows. So here's what happened. Quarters and I (PUNT) stand in the POURING sheets of rain for almost 2 hours to get in to Patton's show. Now we KNOW that the Aziz show will be sold out. Quarters says "Fuck it, I'm gonna go home to change because Todd Barry and Eugene Mirman are doing a show at a club AFTER the festival ends tonight" So I said "great! I'll stay and watch Aziz then meet up with you"

We realized that I still couldn't see Aziz without a sneaky plan to cut in line. So Quarters decides that I should stay inside, he'll call me and let me know if the line is too big or if i should come out and get in line. So Patton's show ends and Quarters takes off. I wait behind as security ushers people out. Joe calls and says "NO GOOD! It's already a full house in LINE outside"....

See they don't let people in until they are sure everyone is out from the earlier show.

So I get his call and I quickly duck into the restroom. I run to the last stall in the room and set up a faux-poo. My plan is to sit quietly for 20 minutes and then walk back in to the theatre like I was there all along. At this point I text message Klaus saying "I'm hiding in the bathroom to see Aziz"

Well, fuck man, security is tight. They have a guy checking the bathrooms. So I wait and I flush and I flush and I flush. I wait 10 minutes and I hear people coming in, so I decide to make a run for it. I get in the hallway and the security guard catches me trying to cut in line. Without missing a beat I say "Oh I had diarreha." and he says "you can't cut in line no matter what" and I say "oh well don't worry my friend is already in there and he has my seat reserved" We argued back and forth for a few minutes and then he finally just said "yeah, okay fine, right... go ahead I don't care anymore"

So fuck yeah.


But that's all cool and all. The after show was INSANE. The local comedians where HORRID. One kid was good, the other 3 were awful. Terrible. Seattle's comedy scene is in trouble. Deep trouble.

Eugene did very good. The club was a fucking small bar and the crowd wasn't a comedy crowd. It was almost like they didn't even know there was comedy going on. Really akward. But Eugene is a pro and he did a good show. He had me dying.

Todd Barry went up and did alot of riffing off the crowds odd reactions etc... He even tried to pick on me. He said "look at this guy in the front, wearing a trucker hat and a beard" and I said "yeah?" and he said "Oh, I guess that's not really that funny. Hey you've got a note book there, what's in your notebook?" and I said "Uh.. notes?" and he said "Alright well you're being smart so now I'm gonna fuck with you HARD. I was gonna leave you alone but now you're gonna get fucked with." But then he stopped. Thankfully. The notebook was full of jokes I was just working on earlier. And they were all very raw ideas. If i had told him that he would have killed me.

Anyways, so Todd and Eugene do real well. I buy Eugene a drink. This bar is so small, maybe 50 people. And then Patton and Aziz show up. And also Paul Gilmartin and Andrew Donnelly and one guy from the Flying Conchords (New Zealend guitar comedians).

So I end up spending the night sitting with Patton and Paul Gilmartin and Andrew Donnelly. Patton and I shared a drink for Julie. I really bumbed him out. Stupid me.

Andrew Donnelly is so nice. We went with Todd Barry and Conchords guy to this TERRIBLE fast food place that was closing in 5 minutes. The manager, this 40 year old woman with blue hair was screaming for everyone to get out. Todd got nervous and took off and I said to Andrew "what do we do?" and he said "We delay this for aslong as possible" The guy is so fucking nice and fun. So we walked around the restaurant for 5 minutes pretending to be lost. I did my best not to break out into laughter. He was so good at it. Meanwhile the toothless janitor and the blue haired freak where trying to coax us to the one door they had left unlocked.

Holy shit it was so funny.

I got to meet Patton's fiance. Super nice lady and very pretty. He's married in three weeks!

I've babbled on for so long here. This is wild. I didn't talk much about the show because I will wait to get back home to "tell" you guys all about it.

Aziz had his best show by far today. He seemed to finally find his relaxed, comfortable vibe. He made a couple "finger bang" jokes on the spot directed at a small child that where great.

Blah blah blah.

a_P

[teengirlsquad]

sweeeet sound like a lot of fun

[quartersmostly]

agent_PUNT says: Oh, I wanted to add. Paul Gilmartin is originally from Chicago and he was telling me how he used to go to the open mics with Bob Odenkirk and they would both perform. I thought that was pretty cool.

[CptPlanet]

dude you should have had gilmartin get me annabelle gurwitch's number

[pg13]

It was at The Mirabeau Room, a hipster joint just a couple of blocks away from where Bumbershoot was taking place. They'd never done a comedy night before--and the show was actually billed as the official Bumbershoot after party for The Stranger (our local alternative weekly paper, originally started by ex-Onioners)--which was weird in two ways: one, Bumbershoot wasn't even over on Sunday night...it kept going for another day...and two, The Stranger hates stand-up comedy and I got the feeling that the people who came were there for the rock-star dj's they'd promoted as being part of the show...as much as for the comedy.

When I got to The Mirabeau Room, they had three microphones on stage--all with the "musicians boom arm attached. And, they immediately began clearing all of the tables and chairs away from the stage. When I asked why they were doing that, I was told "because we're expecting a lot of people tonight."

And, evidently, they were expecting those people to stand through a comedy show... Bad idea.

Luckily, before the show started, the mic stands were fixed and the tables and chairs were brought back...so that some of us who were interested in seeing the comedy could actually sit and watch it.

The majority of the people in the house were not into paying attention to the comedy--and I think, more than the comics being "horrid," that's what happened early in the show. I've seen all three of the local stand-ups (Owen Straw, Dan Moore and Fahim Anwar) kill...but, especially for Owen and Dan, their pacing and style of comedy requires people to pay attention to them for it to work...and this room wasn't giving them that.

Fahim, having more energy, squeezed some decent laughs from the room. That guy is going to be huge...he's really sharp.

Up next was the Reggie Watts Tangent. Reggie is the singer from Maktub--Seattle's own Sly Stone, who seems to have his hand in nearly every artistic pursuit. He'd just come back from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival...and because he's a local name in the music scene, more people gathered to see what he was going to do. What he did wasn't exactly comedy...more of a music-based performance art... He'd talk in elliptical structures that never got to a point, but were odd enough to elicit a few giggles...then, he'd create a song using a sampler/loop device and his own voice... Not so much Bobby McFerrin...more human beatbox--but the guy also can deliver operatic style singing that became loops for him to rap over...

Again...incredible performance art...not exactly comedy.

Then, they took a break...the dj (from Pretty Girls Make Graves) switched from the glam rock he'd played before the show started into some rare grooves...which lead until the second part of the comedy show. The crowd, now drunker and teased into thinking the nightly meat market was in full swing, was now even harder to gain control of... Owen, who hadn't exactly won the crowd over during the first half of the show, attempted to do more of his own material to start the second part of the show--but he doesn't have the stage presence to stop drunken guys staring down the shirts of drunken girls...

Eugene Mirman was finally brought on stage--and he's got some cred in the local scene...his cd is on a local label, he's played rock clubs instead of the local comedy clubs... Having a video to show helped, as the crowd could watch or not watch as they chose...and he ended rather quickly with one of the audio clips of his choosing an anti-gay marriage phone company.

He got the best response of the night--but I wished that he'd done more time.

Owen then compounded his earlier mistake and tried to do more material in between Eugene and Todd. I really like Owen's comedy but this wasn't his night, and he should have taken the momentum that Eugene earned and got Todd on stage as quickly as possible.

So, Todd Barry went up...and played to the people who were listening... Without multimedia enhancement, much of the bar faded back into their drinks and their conversations, only mildly aware that some guy was saying something on stage.

The promoter of this show--who is a member on this board--believes that he can tap into the alt-comedy vibe...and, if you've read other threads on this board, you'll know that he's producing a weekly comedy show at this same venue to try to hook into that vibe. The question is...can the indy-rock/hipster scene be convinced that comedy is the new punk rock...and can the local comedy talent produce the type of comedy that hipster scene would support on a regular basis?

I wouldn't agree with agent_PUNT that the Seattle comedy scene is in trouble... I'd say that it needs careful cultivation, however...

pg--seattle

PS--The next day, at Bumbershoot, I caught the Tony Camin/Paul Gilmartin/Patton Oswalt show... (I managed to touch base with Mike Birbiglia in the lobby before hand and apologize for missing his show--but he's coming back to Seattle with Greg Giraldo in just a month or so...) Compared to the struggle that Owen had as the MC of the previous night's show, Tony Camin came out and OWNED the crowd from word one...which was nice. Paul Gilmartin was AMAZING--not only did he do a character for his entire set (a Republican representative) but he did his entire set as a question and answer session with the audience...and not all of the questions were from audience plants, either. Even Patton was impressed saying "Way to go Paul...doing an act that can only ever work in the one town you did it in..." Patton rocked the house...and bemoaned the fact that he was getting spoiled by the crowds at Bumbershoot--that he won't have it so good when he leaves and gets back on the road.

Good times were had people.

[quartersmostly]

And the award for longest first post goes to . . .

[pg13]

Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'll be here all week. Tip your waitstaff, they're working hard for you.

pg--and there are a couple of people on this board who know that post length was not an abberation--seattle

[ComedySnobedy]

Is someone here doing the azizansariisafuckingbadass.blogspot.com

[Brain Stew]

Originally posted by CptPlanet
dude you should have had gilmartin get me annabelle gurwitch's number
She's purty :)

http://www.firedbyannabellegurwitch.com/images/circle_annabelle.jpg

[agent_PUNT]

Originally posted by ComedySnobedy
Is someone here doing the azizansariisafuckingbadass.blogspot.com

it's someone from Seattle.

[teengirlsquad]

i enjoyed that site

[VincentF'nGallo]

Originally posted by Brain Stew
She's purty :)

http://www.firedbyannabellegurwitch.com/images/circle_annabelle.jpg

If you like google eyes.