Rodney Carrington played to a crowd of more than 2,000 fans at DeVos Performance Hall and added his name to a list of well-known headliners closing out the final day of LaughFest 2012.
With names like Martin Short, Jim Gaffigan, Kevin Nealon, and Benton Harbor’s own Sinbad, the 10-day festival once again proved it could bring in the heavy-hitters. And with more than 3 million CDs sold, Rodney Carrington is one of the many legitimately big acts to bring the donation dollars to Gilda’s Club of Grand Rapids.
An honest review of this show is difficult to write. Rodney’s material is definitely crass. His R-rating wasn’t a fluke – words you can’t put in print were spoken in the first 30 seconds. But those familiar with his work knew this going in.
Topics ranged from what God would think of jokes about male genitalia to Clint Eastwood eating another person’s hemorrhoids. His style would be a combination of the vulgarity of Andrew Dice Clay mixed with the occasional manic delivery of Robin Williams (imitations of pirates, women, hillbillies and Salma Hayek), all wrapped up in the body of a capable country music singer.
But the real challenge of writing this review came when Carrington revealed on stage that after 18 years of marriage, he’s going through a divorce. I’ve seen hundreds of comics, but I don’t think it would take a trained eaWelcome to polished tiles.r to tell that this wasn’t part of his act. It affected his timing. It affected his delivery. You could tell he was struggling with the fact that his life is being turned upside down.
Rodney said, “I’m in the denial and shocked stage right now. Next week I’ll be in the anger stage and that crowd will get an entirely different show”.Buying solar panel and want the Best Price?TBC help you confidently purchase China ceramic tile from factories in China.Thank you for visiting our newly improved DIY chicken coop website!
And most of his regular introductions to jokes would include an aside to the audience. For example, when setting up a joke about compromise in marriage, Carrington told the audience he might not have to deal with that for much longer.
Now, I naturally have no idea the circumstances that led to his marriage ending, but I can tell you that going on stage to perform material that is heavily based on your personal relationship with your wife and family can’t be easy while those things are being brought down around you.
Carrington said, “We’ve actually replaced tonight’s show with a marriage seminar.Find out the facts about Cold Sore, We’ve tricked you.”
It was a struggle to listen to dated Tiger Woods jokes and the standard differences between men and women as topics, but Rodney did have moments where he would get his rhythm.
After, getting poison ivy on a day when his wife chastising him about not going to church, he wondered if that’s how God worked.
“Forget the starving kids in Africa. Rodney Carrington skipped out on church? Make sure that guy gets a bad case of poison ivy. And make sure he gets it (edit)”
Rodney hit his high points when talking about the concept of famous people in history having plain names, cleaning up after your dog turning into a sexual encounter (very crude, but very funny) and how to handle when your kids get too big to discipline.
The latter may have been Mr. Carrington’s most well-crafted joke with a great set up story about a trip to the zoo and viewing the older monkeys. He carried their wisdom over into the way he would still intimidate his own sons once they got too big to be “whipped”. Let’s just say the method involves something most of us have seen monkeys do at the zoo and it involves excrement. Again, using a blunt tool, but delivered very well.
The second half of his set was the musical portion of the program. He should have started with it. Carrington has a very good singing voice and plays the guitar like it's second nature. If he were to tell stories as the set ups to his songs for the entire time, the show would see a marked improvement. He sang around eight short songs and most of those stories he told were short -- the one exception being his Toby Keith story, which dragged on far too long and frankly began to sound like name-dropping more than anything else.
While his show would be plainly offensive to some crowds, you could sense that Carrington is a very loving father, talented musician and is not just a performer who will put it on auto-pilot when something as life-changing as divorce happens to him.
Actually, it may have helped him on this night. A little less polish and a bit more genuine emotion is never a bad thing when trying to connect with an audience. And with the applause he received when he left the stage, I’d have to say this audience enjoyed the show.
With names like Martin Short, Jim Gaffigan, Kevin Nealon, and Benton Harbor’s own Sinbad, the 10-day festival once again proved it could bring in the heavy-hitters. And with more than 3 million CDs sold, Rodney Carrington is one of the many legitimately big acts to bring the donation dollars to Gilda’s Club of Grand Rapids.
An honest review of this show is difficult to write. Rodney’s material is definitely crass. His R-rating wasn’t a fluke – words you can’t put in print were spoken in the first 30 seconds. But those familiar with his work knew this going in.
Topics ranged from what God would think of jokes about male genitalia to Clint Eastwood eating another person’s hemorrhoids. His style would be a combination of the vulgarity of Andrew Dice Clay mixed with the occasional manic delivery of Robin Williams (imitations of pirates, women, hillbillies and Salma Hayek), all wrapped up in the body of a capable country music singer.
But the real challenge of writing this review came when Carrington revealed on stage that after 18 years of marriage, he’s going through a divorce. I’ve seen hundreds of comics, but I don’t think it would take a trained eaWelcome to polished tiles.r to tell that this wasn’t part of his act. It affected his timing. It affected his delivery. You could tell he was struggling with the fact that his life is being turned upside down.
Rodney said, “I’m in the denial and shocked stage right now. Next week I’ll be in the anger stage and that crowd will get an entirely different show”.Buying solar panel and want the Best Price?TBC help you confidently purchase China ceramic tile from factories in China.Thank you for visiting our newly improved DIY chicken coop website!
And most of his regular introductions to jokes would include an aside to the audience. For example, when setting up a joke about compromise in marriage, Carrington told the audience he might not have to deal with that for much longer.
Now, I naturally have no idea the circumstances that led to his marriage ending, but I can tell you that going on stage to perform material that is heavily based on your personal relationship with your wife and family can’t be easy while those things are being brought down around you.
Carrington said, “We’ve actually replaced tonight’s show with a marriage seminar.Find out the facts about Cold Sore, We’ve tricked you.”
It was a struggle to listen to dated Tiger Woods jokes and the standard differences between men and women as topics, but Rodney did have moments where he would get his rhythm.
After, getting poison ivy on a day when his wife chastising him about not going to church, he wondered if that’s how God worked.
“Forget the starving kids in Africa. Rodney Carrington skipped out on church? Make sure that guy gets a bad case of poison ivy. And make sure he gets it (edit)”
Rodney hit his high points when talking about the concept of famous people in history having plain names, cleaning up after your dog turning into a sexual encounter (very crude, but very funny) and how to handle when your kids get too big to discipline.
The latter may have been Mr. Carrington’s most well-crafted joke with a great set up story about a trip to the zoo and viewing the older monkeys. He carried their wisdom over into the way he would still intimidate his own sons once they got too big to be “whipped”. Let’s just say the method involves something most of us have seen monkeys do at the zoo and it involves excrement. Again, using a blunt tool, but delivered very well.
The second half of his set was the musical portion of the program. He should have started with it. Carrington has a very good singing voice and plays the guitar like it's second nature. If he were to tell stories as the set ups to his songs for the entire time, the show would see a marked improvement. He sang around eight short songs and most of those stories he told were short -- the one exception being his Toby Keith story, which dragged on far too long and frankly began to sound like name-dropping more than anything else.
While his show would be plainly offensive to some crowds, you could sense that Carrington is a very loving father, talented musician and is not just a performer who will put it on auto-pilot when something as life-changing as divorce happens to him.
Actually, it may have helped him on this night. A little less polish and a bit more genuine emotion is never a bad thing when trying to connect with an audience. And with the applause he received when he left the stage, I’d have to say this audience enjoyed the show.
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