MAYBE I’M NOT DONE AFTER ALL

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

On Friday, I had my fourth comedy gig of this entire year, and had no idea what to expect. It was a small upstairs room at a club called All About Eve, a 50’s-themed venue in Camden, North London. I agonised over it in the days before, not sure if my Rock n Roll Comedy act had relevance or if I could muster any enthusiasm for it. Even before the Pandemic, comedy had been relegated to third priority on my interest list. I was doing quizzes and DJ-ing every week, and only doing comedy once a month at best. Still, I felt it was important to stay moderately in touch with that aspect of me, even if I had no interest in doing it full time as I had done my first ten years here.

With the continual threat of big rises in cost of living, and with my primary DJ gig having little chance of returning post-Pandemic, I decided that it probably would be good to not completely abandon the standup option. It was with that in mind that I hit up a local booker who I had worked for several times in the last decade. He was happy to book me, not knowing my relative inactivity. I knew his rooms were relatively small and intimate, so I felt there would be less pressure. However, I needed to make the gig interesting to myself, so I spent a fair amount of time in preparation, even working out some (god forbid) New Material! I also spent a couple hours on the day just playing the guitar, something I’ve done only sporadically the last couple years.

Then came the gig. I got there at 7:30 for a show that was scheduled to start at 8:00, but the only person in the room was the booker. He had said there were only seven bookings, but still planned to do the show and hope to get some walk-ups. There were a few, and there would be a total audience of 13 (the room had a capacity for at the most 50), but fortunately Maggie came with me, so she made the number a purportedly luckier 14.

The show began about 15 minutes late, and I was informed I would be closing the show. I was ok with that, except I had no idea how far into the future that closing set would be. The first act went up, a female who appears regularly on TV and had great stories of celebrity encounters. She did about 40 minutes of nonstop energy, and very funny throughout. The audience loved her. Following her was a short routine by a burlesque act, who did a rather old-school strip tease, but in this venue, it worked really well. Following her was a tall, eccentric, powerful act with a bit of cabaret thrown in. He did 45 minutes of incredibly high energy, and the audience totally loved him as well. By the end of his set, it was nearly 10:00 and finally the show had an interval. It was at that point, I felt like bailing on the whole thing, something I’ve rarely ever felt and maybe only actually done twice in my career.

I remembered a scenario from 2009 at King’s Head, still my favourite place to work in London, and only a 15-minute walk from where I live. This was maybe the only time I ever felt I bombed there, but I could have predicted it. Going up before me in an unannounced guest set was a 20-year-old rising star named Jack Whitehall, who’s now a household name in UK. The audience wanted to have his babies, and as he gained their love more and more throughout his half-hour on, I sat in the acts’ room saying to the other two comics present, “I’m SO gonna die up there!” None of them disagreed, and I was intimidated despite my history of going on after superstars all the time in LA. What really killed my chance of redemption when I did finally get up there was my guitar had already decided he wanted out of this one, and kept refusing to stay even close to being in tune. I died a rather large death. I was reminded of that scene Friday, and started anticipating the same result.

I confided to Maggie I didn’t think I wanted to do this one, and she was not in agreement, saying I should talk to the booker. I did that, and he assured me there would be plenty of energy left in the room for me and that I had nothing to worry about. I came back to Maggie with a slightly better attitude. Of course when the show started again, the stripper was brought back up, so more time for me to be nervous. Finally, at nearly 10:30, I was given a nice intro and the whole crowd of 14 sat back and paid attention. My first bit was an update of an old bit, where I play the intro to “Stairway To Heaven” but it leads into an obnoxious song of recent memory. This time the obnoxious song was “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” and the laughter was equal to that the other acts had been receiving. Huge sigh of relief!

I wound up doing over 30 minutes, and did three bits I’d never done before to mostly favourable response, while my Stump the Band segment was being consistently fed. It was a great feeling knowing I’m in my 70’s and people mostly in their 20’s found me amusing. What was also great was that the opener had stuck around to the end of the show and had kind words to say. I felt mostly glad that Maggie had come with me, for if she hadn’t been there, I might have fully convinced myself to bail on the gig, after which I’m sure I’d have been miserable.

So maybe there’s no concert tour in the immediate future, but there’s certainly impetus to pursue standup a little further. It may be like riding a bicycle, but I haven’t done that in about six years, and the last time before that was maybe ten years. Hopefully, I won’t wait that long for my next standup gig.

October 9th, 2022



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