This past Saturday, I saw Nick Swardson performing stand-up at the Orlando Improv. Overall the show was very good.
We started out with a couple of opening comics to get the crowd going. The first guy, Owen (I didn’t catch the last name), had the room busting up laughing, but I thought his material was kind of weak. He focused mostly on Myspace and IMs which have been discussed way too often already. Yes, we get it, when someone types LOL, they most likely aren’t. Next, Owen discussed Nickelback and Creed which A) have been done to death and B) mean nothing to me because I’ve never heard any of their music. So, that bit flopped for me but the other audience members were cracking up. For me, Owen’s performance picked up a little when he went blue. His slogan for an abortion clinic was probably the highlight for his part.
Following up Owen, was another opening act. I didn’t catch any part of his name so I’ll just refer to him as Tom because he reminded me of a guy I knew in college named Tom. Tom starts doing his bit and he is the complete opposite of Owen. Tom’s jokes seemed to be very subtle. Thus the people who were laughing out loud for the obvious humor presented by Owen were just sitting around quiet. I felt like Tom was going to go with a really smart stand-up act but got derailed by an unresponsive audience. I still liked Tom more than Owen.
Now that the opening acts were through, it was time for Nick to take over. He came down and started off a little slow because he seemed to be pitching his movies (i.e. hyping up the Reno 911 movie even though the TV show wasn’t/isn’t watchable). He did get me a little excited when he mentioned that he is dropping a CD this fall that will include his Comedy Central appearances on DVD. So, keep an eye out for that. After the pitches, things were slowed down by a couple of groupies shouting out random movie/tv show phrases at Nick. It was pretty annoying. Eventually, Nick got into the jokes. He did a set of a mixture of classic bits from the Comedy Central presents and new jokes. Not everything was a hit, but a little ways into the who he had a joke which made me laugh to the point I was no longer laughing. I was just convulsing with out any sound and my cheeks were pushed up so far they covered my eyes a bit. It was that funny (I’m not going to spoil the joke for those who may be going to see Nick live. But if you’re wondering, the joke is the “Suicide/Random Saying” Joke). That was the highlight of the evening and led to some quoting afterward.
If you are pondering whether going to see Nick live or not, I’d recommend going. The experience was definitely worth the price of admission.
Posted by Mikey 
