Last night I was lucky enough to be able to go see Sarah Silverman and Friends at Hammerstein Ballroom as part of the New York Comedy Festival. The line for this thing spanned two blocks, but the energy of the line wasn't even one of annoyance, but pure excitement.
My seats were in section 1 so it was super exciting to see the show up close, even though the venue is a little bigger than what I'm used to. The host of the show was forgettable. His name could have been Mark maybe? He did impressions of random historical people singing rock and roll songs, and neither myself nor the rest of the audience thought it was that funny. His performance was worrisome, as he opened the show, and it was unclear as to who the rest of the 'and Friends' were going to be. But true to the title, the other acts truly are Sarah's friends, or at the very least, they play her friends on TV.
The first guy up was Steve Agee, who plays one of Sarah's gay best friends on 'The Sarah Silverman Program'. He showed the audience a video that he sent to Comedy Central to get cast on Sarah's show. The clip showed his love of both Halloween and masturbating. To show his versatility as an actor, he showed another clip that illustrated his love of, this time, Thanksgiving and masturbating. There's nothing more natural than an overweight man jerking it, dressed like an Indian (circa 1970), to the fondest moments of Thanksgiving: turkey, Indians, small pox, Miles Standish, etc. Overall he was pretty funny, although his set was very short.
The next of the 'and Friends' was none other than Brian Posehn, who plays Sarah's other gay best friend and Steve Agee's lover on 'The Sarah Silverman Program'. His self-deprecating brand of comedy really hit the spot. One of my favorite moments was Posehn describing knowing his place in the world and what he will never be able to do due to his massive size. His set was much longer than Agee's and the audience laughed most at his set, thus far.
While Agee and Posehn were both really funny, everyone was really there for one reason: Sarah Silverman. The crowd went wild when Sarah emerged from backstage and opened by
informing is that this was, "her first time doing stand-up with a black president!" Each word to come out of her mouth was funnier than the last. She also performed some of her musical stylings from her DVD "Jesus is Magic", as well as some from her show. Most of her material was new to me, but I obviously still enjoyed the bits I had already heard. Sarah's performance was obviously the longest, as she was the headliner, but the show was only about an hour and a half, which seemed was a little short. I would have liked to see more opening acts to intensify the build up for Sarah, but I guess she wanted to take her post-show monster bong hit earlier (I don't blame her at all because I bet she gets crazy awesome weed). All in all, the show was a great experience for me. I've looked up to Sarah Silverman for many years and to be able to finally see her live really was exciting for me! Look out for me at Sarah's next show in NYC.
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