You know how you sometimes go cold turkey on soft drinks or cigarettes or exercise and eventually you forget why you loved it in the first place? Then you finally give in, indulge and ... meh.
That's what it was like seeing Dave Chappelle in concert Sunday night at
Gexa Energy Pavilion Starplex. The memory of Chappelle's former TV show is much funnier than the reality of Chappelle's current stand-up act.
After walking away from $50 million on
Chappelle's Show, getting psychiatric care in South Africa and vanishing for six years, the comedian is re-surfacing as part of the
Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival. It wasn't exactly Emmitt Smith meandering for a couple yards as an Arizona Cardinal, but neither was it the vintage Chappelle you remember.
Despite the ho-hum finale, the show - which drew 15,000 to Fair Park - was a hoot.
(continued from page 1)
Demetri Martin posed the poignant question, "When you see a sign that says 'Live Nude Girls', do you really need 'Live'?"
Hannibal Buress created a jibberish rap song that had us all confused, yet boppin' our heads to the beat.
Kristin Schaal re-visited
Flashdance, complete with leg warmers and buckets of water.
And
Flight of the Conchords' Bret and Jemaine gave us deft guitar playing and clever lyrics on memorable tunes like "Business Time."
Don't get me wrong, Chappelle had some hilarious bits. He went on about Lil' Wayne and "Pussy Juice" and his masturbation images were disturbingly spot-on. And upon seeing several camera phones in the crowd despite the warnings, Chappelle commented,
"Y'all just don't give a shit, do you? Apparently I'll have a YouTube special coming out. Later tonight."
But, honestly, the 40-year-old who who we serenaded with "Happy Birthday" made more cracks about the weather than he did funnies. I know it was a typical Texas summer, sultry night, but where Sybil and I sat - Section 203, thanks to Morgan Denton at
LiveNation.com - it was relatively pleasant.
Yet Chappelle - chain-smoking and wearing two shirts, one of them long-sleeved - continued bitching.
"What if I just fainted and died?" he quipped between dabbing his forehead with a rag. "Right here on this hot stage?"
In that case, Chappelle's next comeback would be even more difficult than this one.
