Spoiler alert. Beware of punchlines.
17 February 2016 was the day I first watched a stand-up comedy show by a foreign comic, and I’m glad it was Russell Peters. Although I watch quite a lot of comedy shows in these past two years (all locals), Russell’s show gave me a whole new experience of a stand-up comedy show. Actually, local shows (and probably anywhere else in this world) use the same format, except Russell does it more professionally, bigger and better. And that’s what makes it so memorable.
Let me go through it one by one.
First of all, the venue. The venue was amazing. The audio, light, seating, location were great. (FYI, on Sundays, it is the venue for one of the most “prestigious” church in Jakarta. Imagining praising and worshiping Jesus with those equipment give me goosebumps). The stage is huge with two enormous screens on both sides and there’s a live camera, shooting people’s face when Russell did his infamous riffing. This is great because their we could see the expression and reaction from the victim.
Next, the audience. The cheapest price for Russell’s show is 10-20 times more expensive than a local comedy show. Local organizers sometimes complain they find it hard to sell tickets that cost 50-100k. I wondered, who would want to pay 1-3 million to watch a comedy show? I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have watched it if someone had not given the ticket for free. I thought, must be expats and diplomats. Somehow it never occurred to me that the main portion of audience was from the Indian community in Jakarta. I think it’s very interesting.
Now let’s talk about the show. The opener, Chris (I don’t know his full name, I even forgot his twitter account that’s displayed throughout his performance). I love him! He walked to the stage with a guitar, his performance was very interactive with the audience. He taught us to sing “I don’t fucking care, no one fucking cares” and he said we’re going to sing it in our hearts forever every time someone tells something boring about their kids, pets, or whatever. He’s right. He also pointed to one audience several times and asked him/her to choose what kind of jokes he preferred: smart, dirty, inappropriate, etc and told the jokes according to what the audience chose. I also love it how he asked us to sing along to Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time. If I’m not mistaken, his set was around 30 minutes. After he finished, he asked those who sat at the back to move to the front, that means: sucks if you paid so much since those who bought the cheapest tickets could sit next to, or even in front of you. Ha.
The moment I saw Russell Peters, I could immediately feel that he was a superstar. He looked confident and professional. We could tell that he had done this hundreds of time. Half of his performance was riffing his audience. It’s funny to see him riff Soleh Solihun, Indonesian comic who’s best at riffing. I guess karma really does exist! Haha! But he got riffed the least, compared to other audiences who sat at the front (the ones who paid the most and invitations). Russell always asked the name of the target, and when Soleh answered with his name, Russell said, “Indonesian names are funny, at the hotel I was greeted by a girl named Kanti, our driver is Budi, and the waiter at the restaurant is Dicky. Maybe next you’re gonna have Titty.” Bam, bam, bam. Then he asked a famous Indonesian musician, Pongki Barata, and he misheard his name as “Bongkey”. He could make a joke out of it right away. Brilliant.
I guess the venue that hosts a church service never heard so much profanity before.
His knowledge about Indonesia is impressive. The more relevant it is, the funnier it gets. He simply said “hati-hati busway” and the ballroom exploded with laughter. He also mentioned “Dolly” and made fun of Jakarta’s traffic.
The way he bridged his jokes with riffing was brilliant. It’s as though all of it was spontaneous. He started with asking the audience whether they have kids or not, and then talking about his daughter and her love for Frozen.
As usual, his jokes were offensive and inappropriate, but still funny as hell. He spotted an 11 year old boy sitting between his parents and he asked him to call his father a “motherfucker”, not in an angry tone but casually, like at a dinner, “Hey motherfucker, could you pass me the salt?” The camera zoomed in the father and the son for quite long time and we could see both of them so uncomfortable on the screen and we couldn’t stop laughing. That’s what you got when you take an underage child to a stand-up comedy show: public humiliation.
Russell didn’t apologize for that, or any other offense he made except for this one.
“Hey there big guy” (camera shot to a big guy, a 20-something Indonesian Chinese)
“What do you do for a living?”
*inaudible*
“What? Training? What are you training for? Definitely not marathon. Haha!”
*room burst into laughter*
“I’m sorry, what an asshole thing to say, I apologize”.
He didn’t apologize making fun of someone’s race, outfit, or name, but he apologized for making rude comments about someone’s weight. And by the way, that guy was actually saying “trading”, not training.
The laughter was so tense at the beginning (or people say “LPM”), and it gradually loosen as he did more story telling with long setups. And just when I felt more comfortable with the pace, he closed with “Thank you, Jakarta”, and finished the show at around 10.20 PM.
Overall, it was a great experience. Normally when I write reviews, I mention things that need to be improved. But I couldn’t find any flaws except that the ticket was too expensive. Apart from that, it was very enjoyable. Thank you, Russell Peters!
Cindy Kusuma
Jakarta, 19 February 2016
17 February 2016 was the day I first watched a stand-up comedy show by a foreign comic, and I’m glad it was Russell Peters. Although I watch quite a lot of comedy shows in these past two years (all locals), Russell’s show gave me a whole new experience of a stand-up comedy show. Actually, local shows (and probably anywhere else in this world) use the same format, except Russell does it more professionally, bigger and better. And that’s what makes it so memorable.
Let me go through it one by one.
First of all, the venue. The venue was amazing. The audio, light, seating, location were great. (FYI, on Sundays, it is the venue for one of the most “prestigious” church in Jakarta. Imagining praising and worshiping Jesus with those equipment give me goosebumps). The stage is huge with two enormous screens on both sides and there’s a live camera, shooting people’s face when Russell did his infamous riffing. This is great because their we could see the expression and reaction from the victim.
Next, the audience. The cheapest price for Russell’s show is 10-20 times more expensive than a local comedy show. Local organizers sometimes complain they find it hard to sell tickets that cost 50-100k. I wondered, who would want to pay 1-3 million to watch a comedy show? I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have watched it if someone had not given the ticket for free. I thought, must be expats and diplomats. Somehow it never occurred to me that the main portion of audience was from the Indian community in Jakarta. I think it’s very interesting.
Now let’s talk about the show. The opener, Chris (I don’t know his full name, I even forgot his twitter account that’s displayed throughout his performance). I love him! He walked to the stage with a guitar, his performance was very interactive with the audience. He taught us to sing “I don’t fucking care, no one fucking cares” and he said we’re going to sing it in our hearts forever every time someone tells something boring about their kids, pets, or whatever. He’s right. He also pointed to one audience several times and asked him/her to choose what kind of jokes he preferred: smart, dirty, inappropriate, etc and told the jokes according to what the audience chose. I also love it how he asked us to sing along to Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time. If I’m not mistaken, his set was around 30 minutes. After he finished, he asked those who sat at the back to move to the front, that means: sucks if you paid so much since those who bought the cheapest tickets could sit next to, or even in front of you. Ha.
The moment I saw Russell Peters, I could immediately feel that he was a superstar. He looked confident and professional. We could tell that he had done this hundreds of time. Half of his performance was riffing his audience. It’s funny to see him riff Soleh Solihun, Indonesian comic who’s best at riffing. I guess karma really does exist! Haha! But he got riffed the least, compared to other audiences who sat at the front (the ones who paid the most and invitations). Russell always asked the name of the target, and when Soleh answered with his name, Russell said, “Indonesian names are funny, at the hotel I was greeted by a girl named Kanti, our driver is Budi, and the waiter at the restaurant is Dicky. Maybe next you’re gonna have Titty.” Bam, bam, bam. Then he asked a famous Indonesian musician, Pongki Barata, and he misheard his name as “Bongkey”. He could make a joke out of it right away. Brilliant.
I guess the venue that hosts a church service never heard so much profanity before.
His knowledge about Indonesia is impressive. The more relevant it is, the funnier it gets. He simply said “hati-hati busway” and the ballroom exploded with laughter. He also mentioned “Dolly” and made fun of Jakarta’s traffic.
The way he bridged his jokes with riffing was brilliant. It’s as though all of it was spontaneous. He started with asking the audience whether they have kids or not, and then talking about his daughter and her love for Frozen.
As usual, his jokes were offensive and inappropriate, but still funny as hell. He spotted an 11 year old boy sitting between his parents and he asked him to call his father a “motherfucker”, not in an angry tone but casually, like at a dinner, “Hey motherfucker, could you pass me the salt?” The camera zoomed in the father and the son for quite long time and we could see both of them so uncomfortable on the screen and we couldn’t stop laughing. That’s what you got when you take an underage child to a stand-up comedy show: public humiliation.
Russell didn’t apologize for that, or any other offense he made except for this one.
“Hey there big guy” (camera shot to a big guy, a 20-something Indonesian Chinese)
“What do you do for a living?”
*inaudible*
“What? Training? What are you training for? Definitely not marathon. Haha!”
*room burst into laughter*
“I’m sorry, what an asshole thing to say, I apologize”.
He didn’t apologize making fun of someone’s race, outfit, or name, but he apologized for making rude comments about someone’s weight. And by the way, that guy was actually saying “trading”, not training.
The laughter was so tense at the beginning (or people say “LPM”), and it gradually loosen as he did more story telling with long setups. And just when I felt more comfortable with the pace, he closed with “Thank you, Jakarta”, and finished the show at around 10.20 PM.
Overall, it was a great experience. Normally when I write reviews, I mention things that need to be improved. But I couldn’t find any flaws except that the ticket was too expensive. Apart from that, it was very enjoyable. Thank you, Russell Peters!
Cindy Kusuma
Jakarta, 19 February 2016
1 comments:
Mohon maaf jika postingan ini menyinggung perasaan anda semua tapi saya hanya mau menceritakan pengalaman pribadi saya yang mengubah kehidupan saya menjadi sukses. Perkenalkan terlebih dahulu saya Sri Wahyuni biasa di panggil Mba Sri, TKI tinggal di kota Pontian johor Malaysia,Saya berprofesi sebagai pembantu rumah tangga, tapi saya tidak menyerah dengan keadaan saya, tetap ikhtiar.
pengen pulang ke indonesia tapi gak ada ongkos pulang. sempat saya putus asa,gaji pun selalu di kirim ke indonesia untuk biaya anak sekolah,sedangkan hutang banyak, kebetulan teman saya buka-buka internet mendapatkan nomor hp Mbah Suro (+6282354640471) katanya bisa bantu orang melunasi hutang melalui jalan togel dengan keadaan susah jadi saya coba beranikan diri hubungi dan berkenalan dengan beliau Mbah Suro, Dan saya menceritakan keadaan saya.Beliau menyarankan untuk mengatasi masalah perekonomian saya,baiknya melalui jalan togel saja.Dan angka yang di berikan beneran tembus ,4607 dan saya dapat 275 juta alhamdulillah terima kasih banyak ya allah atas semua rerjekimu ini. walaupun ini melalui togel
Post a Comment