Last night, I headed up to Boulder to watch Bill Maher perform. As you'd probably expect, his act is equal parts comedy and political commentary. As such, it wasn't the sort of experience where you say, "I laughed harder than I ever have at a stand-up comedian." He was funny, and I did laugh a lot, but a good portion of the experience was almost a form of political rally -- being in a big room full of like-minded individuals and just sort of "communing."
Not that everyone in the audience was 100% on board with Bill Maher 100% of the time. That actually was an interesting part of the experience too. A great deal of Bill Maher's act isn't just about politics, it's about religion. And if you're at all familiar with the man, or have seen his film Religulous, then you know he takes a dim view on the subject.
So it turned out that some of the fun in the evening was in "crowd watching." There was the couple laughing their heads off at the Mormons that suddenly clammed up when Maher turned to Christianity. There was the guy in front of us, deathly silent through all the religious section, that finally opened up at a short run of scatological humor.
But back to Bill Maher himself. He played over an hour an a half, without warmup, and it was mostly good, new material. He peppered in just a few of his best bits from monologues I've seen on his show Real Time, but it was still fun to see those bits live. Laughs, applause... just plain fun all around.
Assuming you like the man at all, I'd say he's a good ticket to look into if he comes to your city.
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