First off, spelling “travelling” with one L or two L’s is a personal preference. They (the O& A people) go with one. We’re going with two.
In the maze of the backstage area at the Tweeter, there are maybe a dozen green rooms, another half-dozen offices, a large catering room serving hot food and an impromptu tequila bar set up off the concrete loading dock, just before the entrance to the real backstage– the one with the thumping bass and the tech crew, the curtains and the thick cables that supply the juice for this gargantuan operation.
Robert Kelly and Rich Vos look on from the wings.
Security is tight– not oppressive, but tight and unforgiving. There are, after all, at least ten well-known comedians and two superstar radio personalities back here. And it is a given that there will be a fair amount of scheming by the curious, the fanatical and the malevolent to get back here, into this area, and mingle among the well-known. (There was some talk that there were some counterfeit all-access O & A laminates floating around, so one can’t be too careful.) Also milling about in this bizarre party atmosphere were media types, a two-man crew from MySpace.com, a dozen scantily-clad strippers, family members, radio station personnel (interns, a P.D., promo people), girlfriends, wives, fans and undefined “others.”
Lynn Shawcroft and Traci Skene
We were backstage VIP’s as guests of Bonnie McFarlane and Rich Vos. Vos emceed the first half of this evening’s show. We hung out mostly with Bonnie and comedian Lynn Shawcroft (who opened for Doug Stanhope across the river at the Khyber Pass Pub Thursday night). A fortunate convergence of events and conditions led to our presence here on this evening– we were idle this weekend, we live only minutes away from the Tweeter, the kindness of the Vos-McFarlanes, etc. That The Female Half of the Staff would be able to partially exorcise some residual O & A demons was icing on the cake. (See her column on her January O & A ordeal here.)
Jim Shubert interviews Dom Irerra for MySpace.com
The show featured ten comics– Vos, Jim Shubert, Tracy Morgan, Ralphie May, Patrice O’Neal, Bob Saget, Robert Kelly, Dom Irerra, Bill Burr and Jim Norton. At least that’s the comedy portion. The comics were split into two groups, with an intermission between and video packages kicking off each half. And there was some sort of a halftime bacchanal that featured the aforementioned strippers. (We’re not convinced that eroticism and standup are the perfect combination. The brain shouldn’t be asked to process humor and worry about an erection at the same time.) Hosting for the second half was assumed by the hosts/heroes Gregg “Opie” Hughes and Anthony “Anthony” Cumia.
Coming out first on a show such as this one is an unenviable position, but at least Vos’ workday was done by intermission. In the giant shed that is Camden’s Tweeter Center– half outdoor, half indoor– with a crowd estimated at anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000, emceeing a show like this one might be the toughest spot anywhere, any time.
Dom Irerra onstage at the Tweeter
Add to this situation the fact that, with an O & A crowd, a set goes one way or the other. It’s a maddening combination of Showtime at the Apollo and The Springer Show.
Vos killed. Shubert was booed for nearly his entire time onstage. Up. Down. Up, up, up. Down. A roller coaster ride, sometimes within the space of a single comedian’s set. Dom Irerra, performing in the show’s second half, was crushing until, mysteriously, the mood of the crowd turned ugly. What happened? No one could say for sure. The only certainty is uncertainty. It made for some odd moments in the wings, to be sure. When noted and competent comedians like Shubert and Irerra are treated so cavalierly all comics are necessarily… concerned.
Bob Saget flanked by WYSP promo people
We’re in Camden, but this is, for all intents and purposes, a Philly crowd. The town that famously booed the Easter Bunny and threw iceballs at Santa Claus. Or was it booed Santa Claus and threw iceballs at Jimmy The Greek? Either way, they’re tough bastards on their best day. Assemble a few thousand of them in a hot amphiteater, throw in a few thousand plastic tumblers of Bud Lite and some pole dancing tarts and you have, quite possibly, the mother of all hell gigs.
Shubert, the son of a Philly cop and a tough bastard in his own right, was also one of Sam Kinison’s Outlaws of Comedy. If there was any comic who might have expected a warm reception from these folks, it was him. Shubert dealt with it admirably– he bulled through, disregarded the hellish booing and did his time with the same inflection, the same timing, as if it had been a kill. When things got ugly for Dom, he chose to deal with the reaction head-on– “Oh, one minute you love me, now you fucking hate me?” A brief reprieve, then the booing resumes, perhaps even worse than before. A bemused Irerra vows not to be intimidated, but eventually cashes in slightly early.
There was to be a third way of dealing with adversity on this night. And that was what shall forever be referred to as Bill Burr’s Philly O & A Set. We can never capture Burr’s 15-minute tirade– the slow start, the immediate booing, Burr’s quick realization that he couldn’t turn the ship around after valiantly trying for the first 180 seconds or so.
MySpace.com’s Jordy Fox talking to Bill Burr
And then… it started.
A gang of comics was slowly clumping near the giant P.A. cabinet at stage left, sensing that something significant was developing. Irerra, Kelly, Vos, McFarlane, Shubert, Jordy Fox, Cumia– a dozen and a half comics, VIP’s and others witnessed Burr as he turned the corner and launched into a vicious tirade that attacked all that Philadelphians hold dear. One by one, such Philly institutions as cheesesteaks, Rocky (Paraphrasing: “You’re biggest hero and he’s not even fucking real!! Joe Frazier’s one of the toughest bastards in history and you put up a fuckin’ statue of that 3-ft. tall piece of shit?! You racist fucks!” Here’s a clip of the meat of it, on YouTube.), the Phillies, Donovan McNabb, the Flyers (Gasp!)– even Ben Franklin and the Liberty Bell were blasphemed! It was magnificent in it’s scope, it was positively evil in it’s desire to inflict real pain.
Dead center on the stage in front of Burr, visible to all of us on near the P.A. cabinet, was a giant TV monitor that displayed, in 18-inch high characters, the number of minutes left in his set. At the 11-minute mark, Burr defiantly exclaimed, “I got eleven minutes to go, you fucks!” Cheers went up and battled the boos! It was electric. And so it went– Burr going on his devastating stream of consciousness incantation, stopping only to announce that he was yet another minute closer to the end, each minute’s announcement greeted with that cheer, each one prompting hoots and high-fives from the assembled comics as well. It was legendary.
And, although this declamation of Burr’s was historical, although no one present is likely to forget him or his speech, we very much doubt that Burr had any fun presenting it. We daresay that Burr would have gladly skipped the battle and opted for a clean kill. We suspect the whole episode unnerved him somewhat, despite the acclaim that followed.
Comics Chris McDevitt and Pat House performed on the Helium side stage prior to the mainstage event
And though we were fortunate to be present for the spectacle that was Burr’s smackdown, we were somewhat anxious, troubled about what effect “The Virus” might have on the future of comedy in general. They call it a virus, not us, so it is appropriate to continue the metaphor. Is it spreading to other venues? Other gigs? Do those infected with it behave similarly at other non-O & A events? Will comedians be forced to reckon with a rowdy, mob at every turn? Will polite silence be permanently replaced with catcalls and blood-curdling chants? We certainly hope not. For although the carriers of this virus were enthusiastically queued up afterward to get the autographs of all the comics involved, and although their response is certainly enthusiastic, it seems as though the relationship between performer and audience has been turned upside down. A certain amount of control has been ceded to the mob, specifically to a certain rowdy and intolerant element of the mob. On balance, it seems like that’s a bad direction to go in for standup comedy– for the audience members as well as the performers.
Burr, Patrice O’Neal, Anthony, Opie (standing), Jim Norton sign autographs to poster, pics, boobs, etc. after show