Geoff LaFleur, who once opened for Dave Chappelle, kept theshow rolling with an opening joke about Facebook. Not to be fooled with countlesshacks who have material about airline food and nagging mother-in-laws, LeFleurkept it fresh and edgy. A large part of his popularity in the night came fromhis on the fly jokes about Sean, a beardy, metal kid in the audience. Althoughhe was a bit awkward at first, he found his groove mid-set. His best materialcame from his stories about giving a proper bro hug and having a mom fetish. Heeven made a few Milwaukee references that brought it all home.
By the time it came for the main act, the crowd was justjacked up enough for great comedy. Hannibal Buress, a writer for Saturday NightLive, has been getting noticed in the comedy community. With national comedyspecials and late night television appearances, the Chicago native is holding his own as aslightly awkward, observational comic. His tangents are epic. His love of applejuice is uncompromised. Buress is the future.
He connected with the audience right away when he commentedon the Humboldt bridge fiasco. Without a detour, he assumed you “ just had tofigure it out.” Buress also had to deal with hecklers in the crowd, but insteadof being local douche nozzles, it turned out to be his family from Chicago. Ona few occasions he had to yell at his uncle for ordering his drinks too loud ormessing up his set.
If that wasn’t hilarious enough, Buress filled everyone inon his uncomfortable encounter with a girl who loved puppets, David Bowie andone-track bikes…and he still tried to get laid. And of course he had to commentabout his name. Being a name commonly associated with Hannibal Lecter, hereceived a giant laugh when he casually questioned why people don’t think ofHannibal from the A-Team.