[ATTENDED: September 1, 2022] Dean Hebscher
My daughter (and apparently my son, too) loves Kurtis Conner. They kept saying his name as if I had heard of him. I had no idea who he was at all. Turns out he is a YouTuber with a billion fans.
When he announced a tour, my daughter begged to go. But most of the venues were far away. Then he announced Philly and how could I say no?
We had seats in the high balcony–it didn’t seem like the kind of show you’d need to be super close for. A short time before the show, my daughter’s friend was able to get a seat in the same row. So I drove them both and then they sat together and I sat next to a group of twenty-something girls–not awkward at all.
After the Jacob Sharpe set, we didn’t have to wait long for Dean Hebscher to come out. That’s one thing that comedians have over bands–no need for set up time.
So it turns out that my daughter tells me that Jacob Sharpe is cool but Dean Hebscher is not. She wished we had missed Hebscher’s set. (According to Conner, Sharpe and Hebscher are his best friends).
Hebscher’s set was a little different. He talked about growing up in rural Canada. He talked about how his school had a “kick the ginger day” (there was one red-haired kid in school). He pointed out that it wasn’t school sanctioned (that’s pretty funny) but everyone knew about it through facebook. I did rather enjoy when the poor ginger kid got his revenge (also through facebook).
I think I enjoyed the set up of his jokes more than the actual jokes themselves. I enjoyed when he talked about being a camp councellor when he was like 16–barely a few years older than the kids he was supposed to watch. But he got bogged down with when the kids found the jets in the pool stimulating. In act I felt lik e alot of his jokes got bogged down in a kind of sexual trajectory that he mined for too long.
I did rather enjoy an absurd story about when he was young and waiting to get into a club. He was on a long line and farted essentially on the girl behind him. The line was really close and she was knocked back by the horrible smell. She spent the whole time that they were waiting to get into the club announcing that this guy in front of her had farted on her. There was a nice payoff later too.
These jokes were clearly polished but they felt very anecdotal, like he was thinking of details as he went along. For better or worse.
I liked his set but not nearly as much as the other two.
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I saw Emo Philips open for Al four years ago. I rather enjoyed his set. As I said:
I Just Read About That... 