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Archive for the ‘Comedians’ Category

Chris Gethard (Flounder Brewing Co., Hillsborough, NJ, January 16, 2026)

Posted in Chris Gethard, David Dondero, Flounder Brewing Co, Hillsborough NJ, Weird New Jersey on January 17, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: January 16, 2026] Chris Gethard

When I first saw a poster for a Chris Gethard show (I’m guessing at House of Independents), I thought his name was a joke–Get Hard, ha ha.  I’m sure he took a lot of abuse for that in school.

But I looked him up and discovered that he was part of an amazing podcast called New Jersey is the World (it ended about a year ago).  Gethard (pronounced Getherd) grew up in New Jersey and spent many years writing for Weird NJ.  And he knows this state better than just about anyone.

He does comedy nationally, but he seems to really relish doing shows in NJ.  Last year he did a show in every county (in pizza places, in basements, in a used furniture store (!) and now for the second time in Flounder Brewing.  (I’m bummed I missed the last one).

He has regular routines, but he also loves to tell stories about New Jersey, especially weird New Jersey. (more…)

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David Dondero (Flounder Brewing Co., Hillsborough, NJ, January 16, 2026) [CHRIS GETHARD]

Posted in Chris Gethard, David Dondero, Flounder Brewing Co, Hillsborough NJ, Kevin Devine on January 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: January 16, 2026] David Dondero

It’s interesting to me that my last show of 2025 was at the same venue as the first show of 2026–a venue I hadn’t been to before that previous show.  It helps that it’s 15 minutes from my house.

I have known about Chris Gethard for a little while.  I missed him the last time he came around here, but I soon as this show was announced I grabbed a ticket.  I saw that David Dondero was going to open for him.  I thought I didn’t know who he was, but it turns out I had seen a Tiny Desk of his back in 2014.  The folks at NPR Music love(d) him, but I was okay on him

his music is good but not especially memorable, but it’s his lyrics that Dondero is known for.  His songs are thoughtful and interesting and look at a variety of subjects.

Chris Gethard introduced him and said that he had known about David for decades and was a huge fan.  He was in Florida and David was playing a show and said he was moving back to New Jersey.  He and Chris connected and this tour was born.  (more…)

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John Oliver (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, December 30 & 31, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in John Oliver, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on December 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: December 30 & 31, 2025] John Oliver

I love John Oliver.  He is always funny and was a highlight of The Daily Show.   I understand his new (not new) show is very funny and very insightful as well, but I haven’t seen it.

His stand up has got to be fantastic.

But even without the surgery, I had no intention of going out to Philly on Dec 30th and especially not on the 31st.

It would have been a fun way to ring i the new year, I suppose, although we’d probably have been driving home at midnight.

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Aaron Chen (NJPAC–Victoria Theater, Newark, NJ, November 14, 2025)

Posted in Aaron Chen, Blake Freeman, Fisk, Newark, NJ, Set in New Jersey!, Taskmaster, Taskmaster Australia on November 15, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 14, 2025] Aaron Chen

I have made a list of all of comedians from Taskmaster who I would like to see live.  It’s not everyone of course (some of them don’t do stand up and some I don’t think I would enjoy).  And then we started watching Taskmaster Australia and Taskmaster New Zealand, and I’ve added a dozen or so more to that list.

So I was pretty delighted that Aaron Chen announced a show at NJPAC–only ten days after Romesh Ranganathan.

I didn’t know if anyone here knew about him, but friends of ours knew him from the show Fisk (which is very funny). So good for him.  Aaron is currently living in the U.S.  And he made a big deal of coming all the way to Newark (from New York City).

He started right off by saying that he is from Australia and how he doesn’t look how he sounds–we don’t have that combination here. (more…)

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Blake Freeman (NJPAC–Victoria Theater, Newark, NJ, November 14, 2025) [AARON CHEN]

Posted in Aaron Chen, Blake Freeman, Newark, NJ, NJPAC-Victoria Theater, Set in New Jersey! on November 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 14, 2025] Blake Freeman

I have made a list of all of comedians from Taskmaster who I would like to see live.  It’s not everyone of course (some of them don’t do stand up and some I don’t think I would enjoy).  And then we started watching Taskmaster Australia and Taskmaster New Zealand, and I’ve added a dozen or so more to that list.

So I was pretty delighted that Aaron Chen announced a show at NJPAC–only ten days after Romesh Ranganathan.

Romesh didn’t have an opening act, so I didn’t know if Aaron would.  But out came an Australian comedian named Blake Freeman.  Blake has been living in the U.S. for about a year (with his partner).

He was very funny.  His delivery was calm but witty.  Talking about living in the U.S., he said the hardest part wasn’t having absolutely no professional or personal support network, it’s that we use Fahrenheit.

There was a very funny bit about him not being able to fight.  He said that he and his mates are open emotionally, and so they only fight when people can’t admit their feelings.  He had to break up a fight between his friends because one felt the other wasn’t opening up about his breakup, “You think you’re tough, well, connect with me like a man.”  After, he apologized saying his love language was touch. (more…)

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Kurtis Conner (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, November 9, 2025)

Posted in Danny Gonzalez, Dean Hebscher, Drew Gooden, Jacob Sharpe, Kiss, Kurtis Conner, Neil Diamond, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia, The Rolling Stones on November 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 9, 2025] Kurtis Conner

My daughter and I saw Kurtis Conner three years ago.  I didn’t know him at al, but I knew my kids really liked him.  I came away from the show laughing really hard and having a really strong respect for him as a comedian.

I still have not really watched any of his YouTube stuff (what I’ve seen I like, but it’s off my radar).  But what really impressed me (and impressed me more this time) was how a YouTuber who effectively uses editing can do standup so well.  He is (mostly) comfortable in front of the audience (in fairness, everyone there loves him and there is nary a heckler in sight), and he clearly feeds off of the laughter.

Although he is (quite a bit) younger than me, I found it really interesting that his childhood sounded kind of similar to mine–defects and all.  Kurtis is a feminist and an ally, and proudly on both counts (which I found wonderful since my kids liked him so much).  But he’s also able to look back on his younger self with dismay at the way he (and kids in general) behaved.  It does make for good comedy too.  Like he regretted that when he was ten, he and his friends used to use “gay” as an insult.  Like he would be drawing and his friend would come up and he’d tell the guy to get away and stop being gay–and then go back to drawing the most detailed penis you’ve ever seen.

The show was called The Goodfellow Tour and it is named after where he grew up–on Goodfellow Street.  A road that had a ton of kids in it.  They used to play together all the time.  He had a lengthy but very funny bit about a kid in their group whom they all convinced had super fast speed.  They would do races all the time and the kid with super fast speed (who was in reality the slowest person in the world) would win. It went on all summer until the kid’s father found out.

This was all in aid of a running joke that he is a compulsive liar trying to fix that about himself.  But somehow, he keeps lying–throughout the show, even, making the jokes even funnier. (more…)

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Danny Gonzalez (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, November 9, 2025) [KURTIS CONNER]

Posted in Danny Gonzalez, Kurtis Conner, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on November 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 9, 2025] Danny Gonzalez

My daughter and I saw Kurtis Conner three years ago.  I didn’t know his stuff at all but I thought he was really funny.  So when he announced another show in the same venue I grabbed us tickets.  My son is also a fan and he wanted to go to this show too, so it was a fun night out with the kids.

We had seats in the balcony but they allowed us to sit in the ADA section.  It didn’t seem like it sold very well, which I was surprised by since last time I think it was sold out.  But we enjoyed the spaciousness of the ADA section to be sure.

Before the show started, we didn’t know if there would be an opening act.  And then Kurtis announced that his special guest would be Danny Gonzales.  The crowd went crazy, although I had no idea who he was. I see that for the last show I wrote that my daughter told me

the Holy Trinity is Kurtis Conner, Danny Gonzalez and Drew Gooden.

So, it was cool to see one third of the trinity.

Danny was very funny.  He seemed a little nervous to be doing stand up, and suggested that it was either his first time or his first time in a long while.  But he was very warmly received–that’s an understatement.  My daughter says it was very exciting to see him live.  And the one vide I can find of his introduction practically blew out the speakers of my phone (more…)

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Romesh Ranganathan: Hustle (NJPAC–Victoria Theater, Newark, NJ, November 4, 2025)

Posted in Newark, NJ, NJPAC-Victoria Theater, Romesh Ranganathan, Set in New Jersey!, Taskmaster on November 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 4, 2025] Romesh Ranganathan

I have made a list of all of comedians from Taskmaster who I would like to see live.  It’s not everyone of course (some of them don’t do stand up and some I don’t think I would enjoy).  I never really imagined that I would see everyone on the list as many British comedians do not tour the U.S.

I was pretty excited when Romesh Ranganathan announced a show near us.  Romesh is HUGE in England–he’s got TV shows and radio shows and everything else.  But in the US, he filled the 500 seat theater (I wonder how weird it is for massive comedians to play smaller venues like this).

The biggest surprise was when we walked in there was a DJ spinning tunes on stage.  His name is Martin 2 Smooth and he played a whole bunch of classic hip hop, which Romesh loves.

Then Romesh came out and started his act.  I enjoyed that when a person walked in late, he quipped “I just flew in from London and I was on time.” (This was the first night of his US tour).

He was very angry on Taskmaster and I assumed he would be angry in standup.  But he wasn’t.  Well, he was angry, but that wasn’t his whole thing.  He was very funny, making jokes about his family (his oldest son who is now bigger than him and who he believes looks like a terrorist with his hoodie up all the time). (more…)

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Jamali Maddix (Helium Comedy Club, Philadelphia, PA, September 24, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Helium Comedy Club, Jamali Maddix, Philadelphia, PA, Taskmaster on September 24, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: September 24, 2025] Jamali Maddix

I  decided I would like to see my favorite Taskmaster contestants if they came to the United States.  We saw Sarah Millican in June.  I had Jamali Maddix on my list of Taskmaster comedians I’d like to see, but I didn’t find out about this show until just before it happened.

I didn’t know anything about comedy clubs at the time.  And I didn’t know where this one was.  So I passed.  But it seems like many Taskmaster comedians come to the U.S., so I’ll just have to hope he comes back.

I also didn’t realize his whole tour was only four dates and Philly was one of the lucky cities.

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John Mulaney: Mister Whatever (The Met Phialdelphia, Philadelphia, PA, September 18-21, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in John Mulaney, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on September 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: September 18-21, 2025] John Mulaney

My wife and son went to see John Mulaney and he was hilarious.  When he announced this tour, I felt like we had just seen him, but I’m shocked to see that it was four years ago!

I felt that these tickets were really expensive and since we had just (really, four years?) seen him, it didn’t see worth going.  Even though they kept adding more and more dates.

Well, maybe next time we’ll go and see him again.

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