It’s the third day of the WIL WHEATON VS PAUL AND STORM MEGA ULTRA SUPER TOUR 2014, and we are in New York City tonight.
Last night in Philadelphia, we played one of the best shows we’ve ever played. I haven’t put together precisely why, but something just felt solid and locked together on the stage in a way that it hasn’t in the past. We always have fun, and we always feel good about our performances, but last night we all just felt connected in a way that we haven’t before, like we were sharing a brain.
The audience was great, and even demanded an actual for realsies encore from us!
Here’s a couple of shots from the theatre:
We stayed up very late, and didn’t get into bed until almost 3am. BUT! Before we left the theatre, we made another tribute to a classic American film:
Then, today, while we were on the road, we made two more featuring a pair of classic commercial jingles:
We keep joking about being “on the road, man”, knowing full well that driving for a couple hours at a time doesn’t really count, but it’s been really fun to hang out together as we drive from city to city. I’m getting to see a lot of, uh, refineries, and trees and also trees, and even some trees. We’re driving over lots of beautiful rivers and past houses that are older than the city I live in. I’m getting a real perspective on just how much of a dystopian urban sprawl I live in back in Los Angeles, and taking some small comfort in knowing that drivers near Washington, DC, are even worse than the ones we have at home.
Last night, the manager at the Live Café in Philadelphia told us that he loves it when nerd crowds come to shows, because they’re always awesome and polite and really fun to be around. I told him, “We have a wonderful audience, and I love to perform for them, because we all love the same things, and we’re basically here to celebrate those things together. And, as a general rule, nerds tend to be more awesome than dudebros.”
It sounded better in my head, and the post-show bourbon probably didn’t help with the translation, but my point was that we are very lucky to perform for the audiences who come to see us, and I’m grateful that I get to do what I do.
In a few hours, we’ll be on stage in New York, and tomorrow, we’ll be back on the road to Boston.
because I’m talking about the rooooaaaaddddd….
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Contrasting nerds to dudebros? But aren’t you doing shows in Texas where the nerds ARE dudebros? (I kid, I kid because I love you and hate Texas)
My kid lost her iPhone in the bathroom at the cafe last night. Someone found it and turned it in. I remember telling the staff it was a great crowd to lose something like that in, surrounded by good people..
(To whoever found the phone and turned it in, THANK YOU!!)
Aaaaaah. And of course I am officially too pregnant to travel. When all sorts of awesome things are coming up. My work won a free trip to PERU, and I’ll be busy birthing babies instead of visiting South America. *SIGH* It’s ok. I’m a travel agent. Other things will come. I’m 5 weeks and 3 days away from meeting baby a and baby b (thanks for being breech, guys!).
In the meantime, my little brother is a freelance master electrician in NYC and I’ve told him to go to the theater and pretend he’s working your show so he can get backstage and enjoy the shenanigans. I’m pretty sure that’s not actually going to happen, but you know… these days he gets to do cool stuff like attend the roast of James Franco, and I don’t currently own a pair of pants that fit.
I hope every show goes better than you hope, and you’re able to do more. That would be pretty fancy.
It was a wonderful show. Though I went by myself, I had a great time chatting with other audience members before the show. We didn’t know each other, but still had so much to talk about with all of our shared interests. I love being a nerd.
I’m going tomorrow night! I’m on my own as well, and I’m almost looking forward to it (going alone, I mean) because it may force my shy self to meet new nerds.
As a guy who’s done the live the-a-tah for 30+ years, let me tell you- it does almost NO good to try to figure out why one show was so great, so perfect. Just love it. And remember it when the shitty show happens, because it inevitably does- and you can find plenty of reasons why it was shitty, but none of them will really explain it- it’s just the way of the world.
And honestly, if you think you’ve figured out why the perfect show worked, you’ll try to recreate it- and that, mon ami, is pretty much a sure-fire way to guarantee a shitty show.
Oh, and DC drivers? Yeah, they’re shitty. Just be grateful it wasn’t raining while you were driving through- apparently, they all think wet pavement is infested with graboids, and drive very slowly as not to attract them.
The road is fuckin’ hard. Also? Really fuckin’ tough.
Glad to hear you’re having a good tour and good audiences – it’s amazing how much energy a good audience can bring. I love doing science-based comedy shows, as the audiences are always lovely. In one show (celebrating Richard Feynman) my mind went blank during the middle of my set, and the audience could easily have turned. But having spoken to my friends in the audience, it sounds like what actually happened was that all of the audience were interested and were willing me on. I took a deep breath and luckily the rest of my set came back to me, I got back into it and apparently seemed really confident and in control, getting a few good laughs.
I love that feeling of connection too – I’ve been performing in improv shows for about 8 years now and there have been just a few moments where it’s seemed almost truly like we could read each other’s minds. It makes all the practicing and all of the accompanying work that goes into running a show well worth it.
And enjoy being on the road! It sounds like a fun experience. But judging from your writing, particularly in Just a Geek, making the most of experiences is a lesson you learned long ago.
Why is there a war on drugs yet adverts for drugs 😛
Sorry forgot what I was going to write as the spam tool did this to me:
ERROR: Banned IP address.
ERROR: Banned IP address.
ERROR: Registration stopped by Sabre.
But it likes third party logins – that makes me a sad panda…
Sounds like fun! And now I’ve got “We Are The Road Crew” running through my head 🙂