Last night I saw Stephen Lynch in my HOMETOWN and it was fucking awesome. For the Stephen Lynch impaired, he is the funniest singing comedian ever and you should check out all his shit. The first song I heard of his was Special Olympics, and just from that title you can tell what kind of comedian he is: funny. He also had a couple special guests sing with him. David Josefsburg(i think), whom he met on broadway doing The Wedding Singer (which Stephen said sucked), did some awesome singing and it just added a lot to the show. Also, Jeff Daniels(or someone who looks like him named Rod Cone) added some great singing. (Yes I took this picture).
While waiting for the show to start, I was a little nervous. Because I knew Stephen Lynch hadn’t been on the road too long after doing The Wedding Singer, and I thought he might not have any new material. Well I’m an asshole, this guy had loads of new material and it was just as funny, if not funnier, than his previous material. He has a very unique comedy show that I like. Most comedians get up and tell their prepared jokes, and probably throw in a bit of improv here and there. There are obviously lots of comedians who are fucking hilarious and make a good living doing this. But aside from Stephen Lynch’s songs and intros to the songs, he just talks on the spot and makes really funny jokes. Example for the naysayers: The venue was the Newport Yachting Center(under a tent) and Lynch made plenty of comments on it such as “When I think my crowd, I think Yachts” and “It’s great to be here…in this…fucking circus tent.” Okay so NOT the funniest examples but you get the point. It is so much funnier to just see that.
The new songs were awesome. There was a series of songs that he went back to every so often. The idea was that they were diary entries written, and he turned them into songs. One was someone talking about their family and their day around the house and that they’ll write back later, Signed Anne Frank. Another was about a man riding a horse, and he wrote that it was a wild one and he would tame it the next day and then write back on the progress, Signed Christopher Reeves. It’s FUNNY right? If Stephen reads this he would say ‘STOP KILLING MY JOKES’…so I will.
One of my favorite things he did was when he responded to screaming idiot dudes. He had a song called “Waiting” about waiting for an AIDS test result. I won’t give away the ending of the song, but the line before the end says something like “what did the test say?”. He let it ring, and then some idiot yelled from the back “YOUR FUCKED!”. Stephen replied while giving the finger to the guy “Thanks dick-fuck I think I know how the song ends”. Lynch may be a slightly short man, but I wouldn’t have messed with him after that. Then some other guy kept yelling out song names obnoxiously, so Stephen replied “I’M NOT A FUCKING JUKEBOX”. But then he proceeded with making up a song on the spot about how the guy should make a cardboard cut-out and pretend it’s Stephen and have it play all the songs he wants. I don’t know if those guys counted as hecklers or not, but Lynch knows how to handle ‘em.
So here comes the awesome part…
I had to move my car because the show went on for longer than expected, which was just fine by me, but I was now going to get charged for parking. So I ran a good ten minutes away from the venue to move my car, I got super lucky and found another spot downtown. Then my friend texted me saying “DUDE!” and I KNEW that she was still in the tent and that must have meant that Lynch was coming out again. I RAN AS FAST as I could (and I have asthma) to the tent and ran inside and saw a tiny group of people outside his trailer. He was signing and taking pictures.
This is me asking Stephen Lynch to sign my 30 dollar ticket…now worth millions!
Holy Shit I got to take a picture with Stephen Lynch.
Thanks to Stephen Lynch for one of the best comedy shows ever.
You all need to go out and buy or download his stuff because he gave that permission at the show. He said he is shooting for Christmas time with a new album.
