Bill Burr was one of the headliners this week at an epic weeklong Nashville Comedy Festival. From Kid Rock’s comedy Jam to Bert Kreischer’s sold out shows at the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman, Taylor Tomlinson’s amazing set at the Ryman, (which truly was a treat to watch. Go see her live. She’s a phenom.) Nate Bargatze dropped in all over the place as well as directed his buddy Mike Vecchione’s special at Zanies and did a live Nateland podcast there with his co-hosts, Aaron Weber and Brian Bates. Shane Gillis, Dan Soder, and Theo Vonn popped up often too. Joe Gato and Steve Byrne did a night at Zanies that was insanely funny and was capped off with Bert K jumping up. Joshua Black did a great show, Josh Wolf was incredible in his indelible way, and KFC Radio lit up Zanies for a live podcast as well. (Right after these two guys told me they weren’t stand-ups. Ha.)
It really came down perfectly. A sterling post war-(covid) festival, and a group of strong shows and comedians. Congrats to Nashville. Congrats to Outback.
Ari Shaffir is funny as hell. He’s not for everyone, but I find the guy laugh out loud, spit out what you’re drinking funny. He’s bold and sometimes stupid edgy, but that’s what I’m into. Ari’s always into trouble for saying something or other, jumping too quick on some joke. Hey, you got to break a lot of eggs to make an omelette. Ari is going for greatness all the time. By the way, this comes from a guy that when I was doing stand-up, the weekend that Art Linkletter’s daughter killed herself diving from her window out of the Standard Hotel on Sunset Blvd, across from The Comedy Store, did the joke about Art’s new book ‘Kids Jump from the Darndest Places’. I got booed like crazy every night, and I sort of loved it.
Ari is real, you have to know going in he’s not able to pull any punches. You also know that he’s not going to rest on his old stuff or easy premises. He wants to push himself and push you. His podcast is raw and honest, an open sore that feels like a cross between late-night radio and sleeping over at a lunatic cousin’s house who knows too much about the world.
He’s putting on a show tonight at the Ryman theatre here in Nashville as part of the Nashville Comedy Festival.
This is the “log-Line” they’ve given it;
Ari Shaffir is best known for the storytelling show he created and hosted on Comedy Central called This Is Not Happening. His last Netflix special, Double Negative won a Grammy for best comedy special before the award committee realized it was too filthy and didn’t represent the high standards that the Grammys has long since stood for so the honor was stripped from him. Ari has had numerous appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, as well as WTF with Marc Maron, The Adam Carolla Show, and Your Mom’s House. His own podcast, Ari Shaffir’s Skeptic Tank is a chart topper that comes out every week wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. He is the reigning president of the LOS podcast to which he has no affiliation. And he placed first in the non-steroid category of the legendary Sober October challenge, which he also destroyed shortly thereafter. The deal is, this is a dirty show. It’s not all offensive but definitely, some parts are offensive. So don’t bring that one friend in your friend group who makes that tsk noise a lot. Just tell them you’re doing something else or your grandmother died or your grandmother killed somebody and you gotta be a character witness. Whatever. Just don’t bring them. But everybody else for sure come. Ari puts on a great show every year of all-new material and he brings great openers. So it’s just a really funny night of legit mainstream standup and you’re going to have a great time every time.
He’s got some serious fire on the bill already with Sal Volcano, Big Jay Oakerson, and Shane Gillis.
It feels like there’s going to be some surprise drops in as well. You know who won’t be there though?
Nope. She’s not coming. Guarantee it. (Ari’ll just have to deal with it.)
It’s going to to be a great show though.It could be already sold out, but there’s a chance there’s still some tickets. If you want to see an amazing show and you’re in Nashville. Go down and see this one.
Today, April 18th the Nashville Comedy Festival returns and it’s a fantastic line-up. Produced by Outback Presents, one, if not the biggest promoters of comedy in the country now, in a city that’s aflame with growth in every area let alone stand-up, this has slowly over the years become one of the greatest comedy towns in America.
There are several world-class comics that already live in Nashville, quite a few from here, and more than a few are moving here. Theo Vonn has a place here, Nate Bargatze of course, Kid Rock, (a new comedian just starting out) and it’s home to a slew of homegrown talent taking off right now. It’s also home to one of the best comedy clubs in America, Zanies, which sad to say, wasn’t around when I was doing stand-up. (Although I used to love playing the Chicago Zanies.)
The only place I ever worked here was the Vanderbilt campus, but this was in the late eighties and early nineties when colleges were great gigs to get. The smartest audiences you could cobble together, as opposed to now when I think a lot of comics would rather have dental work done than play colleges today. This was a time when any subject matter was fair game, and Vanderbilt was a primo place to perform. I was there a few times, once with Howie Mandel and Steven Wright as part of a Budweiser College Comedy Tour, and once opening for Kenny Loggins.
Comics I talk to today go on and on about the crowds in Nashville. They love to play Zanies, and the Ryman, which used to be the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974 and is just a flat-out iconic room. Newer comics like Theo Vonn, and Taylor Tomlinson work it partially just to rub ass with the Ghosts of Minnie Pearl and Junior Samples.
It makes sense that Nashville would be a crazy great comedy town. It’s so artist-friendly to begin with, and the denizens here love to laugh and have fun, in fact they’re famous for it. I’ve spent a lot of time here in the last eight or so years. I truly love the people and I have a lot of friends here. Also, any place with this many venues has to be a natural fit for a comedy festival.
There’s a load of competition these days for the comedy town throne. Hell, there’s New York, Edinburgh, I know that Netflix is going all out on in L.A. on the ‘Netflix is a Joke’ fest, which will be huge, Montreal’s Just For Laughs is baked deep into the top DNA of Stand-up, and of course, there’s Portland. That’s a fun town these days. The streets are always on fire. (Sorry. Saw the joke, had to sling it.).
Austin has rebranded, and Rogan-Hinchcliff-Segoura-sized itself into an unstoppable comedy nation, there’s also Melbourne and London, but I can’t help think Nashville could easily grow into one of the most important comedy festivals in the world in a few short years.
Especially with lineups like Bill Burr, Ari Shaffir, Bert Kreisher, Taylor Tomlinson, Joshua Black, Josh Wolf, Eddie B. Janeane Garafalo, Eleanor Kerrigan, Nikki Glasser, Steve Byrne, Joe Gato and so many more.
Hell, I’m here to see Shane Gillis alone. Damn!
I mean look at this stud. Tell me that’s not comedy’s future??
Anyone that knows the great Jeff Ross knows he’s lost a few of his best friends recently. Anyone that knows him well, as luckily I do, knows he’s a wonderful man, and a great comfort in tough times. He’s been so there and caring for Bob’s people, and now is in so much pain and so available for Gilbert’s beautiful family. All of that, and the heartfelt, open, revealing, and cathartic, piece he wrote on Alopecia and his real life experience with the horror of it in the wake of the Will Smith debacle at the Oscars has sadly given many others a chance to see what those close to Jeff all know so well. There’s so much more there than the ‘Roastmaster’ or the comic. Jeff Ross is one of the people that makes me proud to be in this business. I’m so sorry for all of his loss and pain during this rotten ass month or so. He’s one hell of a special guy. Bob, Norm, and Gilbert were damn blessed to have him their camps.
Stand-up comics are an important part of our lives, they dramatically affect our culture. They always have, and they do now more than ever. Check out how many arenas and concert halls are full of comedians performing for ten and twenty thousand fans at a time, and more. Not cuddly ventriloquists by and large these days, not sweet country bumpkins for the most part. I suspect if you did the detective work, the bulk of those ticket sales are for monologists who are speaking out, straight, harsh, against the grain, and raw. Each in a way that a large chunk of us wish secretly we could be speaking out.
And Politicians? They sure aren’t seen as people that are driving culture. No one sees any of our politicians as having any sense of true north. Not one of them. That group sucks off of opinion polls so energetically it’s as if they were all teens in the fifties getting high on airplane model glue. Even worse are the media personalities. Reporters? Journalists? They’ve all sold their souls out for book deals and second homes on Martha’s Vineyards so badly they can’t even influence their gardeners not to use their leaf blowers outside their windows when they get home from “covering” Davos.
So yes, it’s only the comic on stage with the microphone and the jokes, talking any version of the truth that’s interesting and real nowadays that strikes any kind of an emotional chord in a moment craving authenticity.
So who are the top ten comedians in terms of influencing our culture today?
The Great Gilbert Godfried has passed on. A beloved comic by family and friends, and fans, but surely by comedians. Gilbert was a comics treat. He was adored by his fellow comedians who he loved to make laugh, amuse, shock and tell jokes to. He was one of a kind. A wonderful soul. There will never, ever be another ‘Gilbert’. This is such a loss. He’ll forever be missed.
The Recording Academy awarded Louis C.K. the Grammy for best Comedy Album last night. C.K.’s album, Sincerely Louis C.K., bested five other nominees — Chelsea Handler’s Evolution, Lavell Crawford’s The Comedy Vaccine, Lewis Black’s Thanks for Risking Your Life, Kevin Hart’s Zero Fucks Given, and Nate Bargatze’s The Greatest Average American.
It obviously didn’t go down well on Social Media. Some saw it as political. Nothing to do with the fact that it’s a great special. Which of course is their right to feel and think. It makes it hard to take, especially when it comes from the ‘smarter people’, as seen below.
Others took it personally in terms of the comics past ‘transgressions’. (His proclivities they find abhorrent.) They of course have every right to stalk and berate and bemoan him at every turn for the rest of his existence for these ‘choices’, and for the ‘choices’ several others made in unison with him, but I personally applaud the Academy and am just happy no one got slapped.
*I myself was rooting for Chelsea Handler. She’s done so much for the culture.
I mean look at this stud. Tell me that’s not comedy’s future??
