Moontower Comedy & Oddity Festival Day 1: Expect the Unexpected

The first night of Moontower Comedy & Oddity Festival 2013 was a lot of fun…and some of the most fun came thanks to some potentially unpleasant surprises.

The big draws of the night were Bill Hader at the Paramount Theater and Maria Bamford at Cap City Comedy Club. I stuck to the showcases at venues along 6th Street (no hour-long lines!) and I’m glad I did or I would have missed some of the more interesting moments of the night.

My first stop was The Parish for ASSBLASTERS with Brendon Walsh, with a killer lineup of  Austinite Matt Sadler and some of Brendon’s funniest friends from L.A. – Christina Pazsitzky, Sean O’Connor, Kyle Kinane and Ari Shaffir. About halfway through the show, there was a flurry of phone calls because Ari hadn’t arrived yet.

Turns out he was detained by the TSA at his stopover in Dallas and was potentially not going to make it in time. It all ended well, with Jared Logan joining the show and Ari ultimately arriving to close it out, starting off with a frustrated and very funny retelling of the incident.  You could tell from the crowd’s reaction when he came on stage that most of the folks at The Parish were there to see Ari. But the real highlight of the show was Sean O’Connor. He MURDERED the place.

My second stop was The Velveeta Room for Triple Threat and a solid set from Myq Kaplan. All of the comedians I spoke to ahead of Moontower talked about how great festivals are for reconnecting with comedians you don’t see on a daily basis.  They mostly talked about it from a social angle, but the cool part is that they’re all watching each other’s sets as well.

Kyle Kinane delayed an early bedtime to catch Myq and when I told Kurt Metzger my plan was to try to hit shows in a way that would let me see as many different comedians as possible, he took a look at my schedule calculus and said, “That’s a good strategy.  That’s what I want to do, too.”

My last stop for the night was The Bro Show at New York, New York, where I saw another almost-tragedy turn into comedy gold.  The show started at 10:45 p.m., and while the VIP section was still pretty jazzed and engaged, the folks in general seating seemed sort of wiped and sluggish.  That is, until about three minutes into Ian Edwards’ set.  He was doing a bit about how lying to women shows you care, and noticed that a young woman seated in the front row with her boyfriend was not enjoying it at all.  When Ian worked the couple into the bit, the young woman stood up and walked off in a huff.

Ian turned to the boyfriend, who was putting on his coat, and asked, “Are you going after her? Is she going to make you?  She probably can’t leave because you drove. She’ll just be sitting in the car getting real angry.”  The guy paused and yelled, “Did you run out of material already?” as his parting shot. Ian made a few other comments and the now-awake audience united behind him and had a great time with the rest of his set… and the rest of the show, including Helen Hong and Chris Hardwick.

So all in all, it was an eventful evening and I’m looking forward to more of the same tonight with Comic Boom featuring Carmen Lynch, Kurt Metzger and Joe DeRosa, then Four Eyes with Marc Maron, Judah Friedlander and Andy Kindler.

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