Bummer.
The Comedy Festival just announced Dave Chappelle has canceled his Thu. Nov. 16 festival performance. No reason cited and no reschedule planned. Refund info below.
Not that you asked for it, but seeing as how this is as close as you're going to get to a Chappelle performance this week, here's a recap of one of the best performances you've never heard about.
I saw Chappelle during a homecoming performance at the DC Improv a couple of years ago during a special, third midnight show on a school night. The DC Improv is underground with low ceilings, the famed brick wall and like most comedy clubs, crammed with as many tables that will fit -- a very cool intimate setting to see some top comics like Dane Cook, Jim Gaffigan, Mitch Hedberg (RIP) and Kathleen Madigan. The Chappelle Show was blowing up on Comedy Central and he grew up in the area so there was an additional spark.
The show started with a routine-in-progress -- preparing for a tour. He went from from topic to topic to topic in a relaxed style touching on race, snipers, war and given the location, politics. At some point he went off-script and just talked about being. It was hard to tell when one joke ended and the other began, because there were no jokes, just a funny conversation between Dave and the crowd. You like how I call him Dave as if we're old friends? We're not, but that night, it seemed like it.
Three hours later, long after the drinks had been picked up, he started to end the set and that was probably only because a lady fell out of her chair in some heightened state of laugh exhaustion and cocktails. He said, "When a white lady falls out of her chair, you know the show has been going on for too long. It's time to wrap it up." And then he went on for another 15 minutes.
I've never heard anyone talk about the show, and I don't think video exists of it, but for me, it was the comic equivalent of what I would imagine it was like for people watching Jimi Hendrix rock the "Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock or even Berkeley.
You've read the $50-million headlines since then about his show and personal life and I'm not here to speculate or pass judgment. The dude is funny and has, to date anyway, left this world a little better than when he got here. He's popped the culture. When I'm 84, I'll yell "I'm Rick James, bitch" at the delivery driver dropping off my adult diapers.
With his absence at the festival, I guess I can stop learning his theme song now on the ukulele, it was going to be a special surprise. Hopefully we'll see him on a Vegas stage soon enough.
Festival Notes:
- Tickets purchased with credit card will automatically be refunded. No ticket exchange necessary. Tickets purchased with cash at the Colosseum Box Office will only be refunded with surrender of tickets in person.
- Due to the cancellation, Bill Maher is starting his show one hour earlier on Thursday, Nov. 16 at 9:30PM. If Bill cancels, I'll have to share a story about a night in Dallas when Bill paid a visit to a lounge where I was DJing.
