8/9 - Comedy Bang! Bang! LIVE! at the Trocadero Theatre in Philadelphia

Kurt Braunohler of the IFC show Bunk opened the show with a pretty hilarious standup routine. 

Then Scott Aukerman came onstage and introduced the TV show as well as brought up an audience member and did a great role-playing bit. I was a little jelly.

James Adomian, whose standup I’ve never seen before but whose character work/impressions I adore, came up for a while and did the absolute greatest routine. My face hurt from laughing so hard. I think the best part was that my mom LOVED him and she laughed just as much, if not more than I did.

Subsequently, Allentown native and comedy supahstar Tim Heidecker came up and did a great anti-comedy bit. I’m not super familiar with Tim and Eric stuff or much else of Tim’s work but he was great!

Then… the real show began.

I’ve been listening to Comedy Bang! Bang!, the podcast, for about two and a half years, thus I was curious to see who James would show up as. However, I also knew that Paul F. Tompkins was in town for two shows on the 10th and 11th, so a little ray of hope deep down in my soul wondered if he might stop by the show as a surprise guest, especially considering the infamous character-duets between he and James.

And behold! None other than Garry Marshall arrived as a surprise guest!

Then James came on as Gary Busey, an impression that was so spot on and brilliant that I could hardly contain myself.

However, Gary and Tim did not get along too well, so Tim left pretty shortly after.

BUT THEN - Nick Nolte arrived! Now I know that might look a little like Tim on the left, but I promise you, it was Nick. Let me tell you, the combination of Gary, Garry, and Nick was off-the-charts hilarious.

Soon, the fun podcast times had to come to an end, but before we left, Garry Marshall made a beautiful speech about the city of Philadelphia.

After the show, all the guys signed my ticket. I told Tim I went to Temple (he also went there) and they all asked me about it and were SUPER nice. I told James how much he inspired my character work and I thanked Paul graciously for coming, and they all offered me words of encouragement and were just as awesome as one could hope for.

Then we took a pretty cool pic.

I think the best part about the show was that my mom came with me, and even though she hadn’t listened to the podcast or seen the tv show, she loved it just as much as I did. We had just gotten into Philly the day before and moved into my first apartment ever (I’m 18 and a sophomore) earlier that day, so we were both kind of worn out, but the show was so great and I can’t thank Scott, James, Paul, and Tim enough for the wonderful memory.