I recently played at a bar show, my first bar show to date. I rambled in a coffee house for about 7-8 minutes, but a couple huffy old people who want to see their grandkid suck at guitar is nothing compared to about 20 sweaty drunks with no attention spans.
I followed a guy who couldn't tell a funny joke to save his life, and how he ever got started is beyond me. When he first stood up he started with: "ahem, I am also a sculptor and musician in addition to my comedy." If the rest of the audience was anything like me, they were confused the entire time. Listening to that guy was a time-sink. It was like being roofie-raped. I have never been roofie-raped, but I imagine it is something like this: staring, befuddled at some really tan douche-bag, wondering how he got this close to you.
The room was dead. They did not like this guy one bit. I don't blame them; I didn't like him, either. He went over his five minute time-limit by six minutes. Which is ballsy, but completely terrible unless you're gut-bustingly funny. And even then the other comics would be a bit put-off by it, probably.
Dave Shofer leaned over and told me "start hot." I was tremendously nervous as it was, without having to worry about picking up some chump's slack in a bar room. On the one hand this was terrible, because I was knotted over whether or not my material was actually going to work in this sort of environment. On the other, being this nervous made it really easy for me to stay in-character on stage with my semi-nervous nerdy persona. Which is really the most natural delivery I could think of.
As an aside: I may end up modifying that voice in the future when I become more comfortable on stage, but at the moment it allows me to keep my pacing in check with little effort. Simply because I can't speak fast with that voice.
I did extremely well. The room was laughing the entire time, jokes got laughs where expected, and the show room owner invited me back. So I didn't have to face the bomb, yet, but I know that I will, at some point.
What I learned from this experience was how completely crucial it is to engage the audience at a venue of this size. It's one thing to say "how is everyone doing tonight," but it's quite another to follow that up, run with it, and make unique jokes about the room, the audience as a whole, or the immediate area. I improv'd about a minute and a half of observations about the room, myself, and my relation to the audience. And aside from one other open micer and the headliner, no other acts went over quite that well.
I concluded based on the material ran, that it was because of how we engaged the audience. The headliner's actual bit went over far less well than him making fun of random drunks or hitting on girls half his age. One of the comedians I had been dreading competing against at Magooby's, Ben Rosen, was there. His bit was well received, as it should be since it's a really solid set, but I noticed a difference in audience reaction to his jokes here vs. a comedy club. It was drastic. My random bullshitting before I launched into my routine went over better than the rest of my routine, sans the Luke Skywalker of makin' out bit.
I'm digressing, though: what I thought about following a show like that was how intimate it is versus a comedy club, and how the audience has to be given a reason to give a shit about you. When people go to a big event for someone famous, they are going because they know they like that comedian and they're just hoping for a different sort of experience or to see new material. A lot of people have no idea why they even show up to these bar shows. At any given time I'd say a quarter of the audience were just nomadic drunks aimlessly wandering around.
Then I got to thinking about what would happen if I walked up to a customer in my store, just hypothetically, and started telling that person jokes that worked in my bit. The person would be confused. He/she would look at me like I was some sort of stupid jackass, and that assumption would not be inaccurate. What reason does that person have to care about my dumb jokes? Does that person have another agenda for being at the store? Yeah, definitely.
I know a bunch of guys (like, two) that just go to bars to find some chick with low self esteem that they can poon. I have to give those faggots some sort of reason to pay attention to me rather than some slut's soggy rotting vagina. If/when I ever hit it big, I can just ask: "how is everyone tonight" and then not care. Until that time, I need to make my routine for bar shows more conversational, and get audience input at any juncture where it makes sense.
My best joke at Magooby's was definitely my "I wouldn't have a dad" punchline. It went over about as well as a couple half-hearted improv jokes at the beginning, and it didn't do anything to get the audience on my side, other than make them laugh. Which yeah, is the point, but the audience was laughing at the moron that went over his time eventually, too.
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