To fans, it will come as no surprise that two of Comedy Central's famed comics, Dave Attell of "Insomniac" and Lewis Black of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," thrilled the filled-to-capacity Dodge Theatre with outrageous humor during the Comedy Central Live tour's Phoenix stop Saturday night.
The only real disappointment - an unplanned part of the show, I can only assume - was the unexplained absence of "special guest star" Mitch Hedberg, who had appeared in the ads for the show. In Hedberg's place was opening act and local comedian Tony Vissic.
I'm sure that being the opening act isn't easy. That person isn't who the audience paid for and wants to see. Still, Vissic could have done a lot better. In fact, there were only two memorable parts to his set: the one joke where he made fun of the governor ("What's that dude's name?") and the part of the show when he left the stage, to let the pros on.
Attell came first, and formed a quick bond with the audience, thanks to a loudmouthed heckler in the second row. From the middle of the main concourse, we in the audience couldn't hear what the man was saying, but Attell tormented him for it. Even with that, Attell's best jokes were about alcohol and sex.
Yes, this was a vulgar show. It was not for children, which made it better. Every other word, especially in Black's act, tended to be the "f" word, but for Attell, the vulgarity came from complete randomness and craziness. He talks about how he got a hernia: He was in the bathroom when he heard that "The Simpsons" would be coming on in a minute, and tried to speed things up.
I know, it's pointless to recall the jokes, as they're not going to look as good written down, but the point is that Attell was a smash.
The differences between Attell and Black were apparent almost immediately, but Black gave a great show as well. Black, who came out after a 15-minute intermission, also had his performance punctuated by a person shouting something as he walked on stage. Black looked at the person and explained that he had a microphone while the audience member did not, and thus Black could hear nothing that guy would say. For almost the entire 50-minute set, there was only laughter from the audience, but once, near the end, someone from another section shouted something out loud. Black looked at him angrily and said, "We were going so well. Did you awaken from a slumber?"
Anyway, hecklers and shouters aside, Black was hilarious. He talked about Halloween, the surprisingly cold weather in Phoenix, the government, health and Italy. One of his smartest jokes was about the recent troubles involving Michael Jackson. He simply said the words "Michael Jackson." The audience groaned and he said, "Yeah, that's the punchline. Whatever I'm going to say, you've thought of already."
There was, sadly, no encore, but it didn't matter. If you love Dave Attell or Lewis Black, this was your show to see. My only other quibble is that before the show began, there were free samples of Smirnoff Ice and Smirnoff Triple Black being given out: not a good idea, as the audience was already incredibly rowdy.
Josh Spiegel is an entertainment reporter for the Web Devil. Reach him at joshua.spiegel@asu.edu.
