Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Comedy Death Ray This Week: Extra Awesome Edition

This was one of those shows you just wish you could see. In the Los Angeles Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, those that braved the weather-- which wasn't that bad-- were treated to one heck of a great set.

The always delightful Chris Fairbanks held hosting duties, and did great. Really great. The musically inclined Baron Von (don't worry, we've never heard of him before either) extolled the virtues of a Christmas in Vegas when your mom and family live there, and April Richardson took a big ol' dump on Tori Amos, because, well, someone should. Jerry Minor appeared as his character "Cyber Thug," told some jokes, and sang along to a sideshow filled with raccoons-- some living, some roadkill, some taxidermy. Arguably, funnier than it sounded.

The two highlights of the night were sets by some of the best comics working today. Todd Glass killed with new material and some great stuff which you may have heard on the Comedy Death Ray Podcast last week. He also had some great sound effect/song bits which are best left seen rather than described, plus his crazy rantings from the audience tend to bring in a lot of laughs. If he comes to your town, and we've said this before, you simply must see him.

We put the same advice out to anyone given a shot to see Patton Oswalt who just flew in from Vancouver and let us all know about the trials of slowly getting old while first class is available on Alaska Airlines. Or rather, his brain slowly sabotaging himself. He also cribbed Todd Glass' CD, and did various bits on the fly with random tracks from the album to varying degrees of success. (That is to say, he didn't seem happy with it, but it was pretty damned funny.) Given the comedian's recent album, it's great to see this set of new (and possibly first-time-out) jokes, particularly with such a great group of people. And it was jam-packed too, so if you ever have the chance to come out to LA to see the show, you totally should.

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