In support of the first annual Madison Comedy Festival on his “Under No Influence” tour, comic Chris D’Elia performed in front of a packed crowd of college-aged fans who eagerly anticipated his material. D’Elia’s set pandered mainly to the Dane Cook repertoire of sex jokes, gender and race observations and wild movement.
D’Elia had a loose, carefree feel throughout his set, complimentary to his casual, conversational voice. This tone was evident every time he referred to the crowd as “dude” or “man.” Audience members leaned forward to intently listen when they weren’t uncontrollably laughing at D’Elia’s frank, honest opinion on dividing issues.
He started on his strongest joke of the night, a brief history on why he is so thankful to his fans that he no longer has to play dingy bars and open mics filled with little to no people and can finally perform in a full theater. The combined heartfelt and self-deprecating emotions behind the hilariously awkward anecdotes were missed from the rest of the set. D’Elia opted to have a more absurd, critical voice as if he was dared to go on stage and didn’t care how he came across.
Topics D’Elia covered included the underlying sexual motives men have in doing anything, communication between couples and why he doesn’t understand the point of professional sports. A heavy chunk of his set consisted of breaking down the theory that everything men do in life, they do to have sex with women. Drawing parallels such as buying cars, getting a job and going out on dates had the majority of the young, male audience in stitches.
D’Elia displaced himself from the Spike TV-esque brand when he made fun of professional sport culture by calling the ultimate point of controlling a ball and scoring points stupid and the fan-culture embarrassing. For example, he admitted that wearing jerseys makes no sense and deserves letting that athlete have sex with the person sporting the jersey.
Much of his set relied heavily on prepared material for his upcoming special and involved little to no crowd work. The only time D’Elia would improvise a bit would be when an audience member would yell out or make a strange sound. Many fans came to see his popular crowd work capabilities in action, but instead they received the same relaxed vibe matched with written jokes this time.
After performing a tight hour of material, D’Elia left after a standing ovation by his satisfied fan base. He performed using the similar male fan-geared presence seen in comics like Nick Swardson and Dane Cook, one that does and always will crush in a crowd of mostly young couples from the eighteen to thirty-five demographic.
