Tonight I returned to Snickerz Comedy Bar in Ft Wayne for the second time to perform stand-up at their open mic. Surprisingly (at least to me) in the few hours before the show I was more nervous this time around than I was last month. I had originally planned on bringing back a couple of the jokes I used last time that went over really well and mix them in with some newer stuff I wanted to try out.
I only had a five minute block and as I ran through my set at home I was way over five minutes, so I decided to cut the bits that worked really well last time and fly with all-new never-before-tested material. Another thing that had me a little nervous was the material I went with tonight was all one long joke. As opposed to telling a series of unrelated jokes like set-up/punchline, set-up/punchline over and over tonight's material was one big bit and if it wasn't going well in the beginning, I'd have a nice uphill climb for the remainder of my time. Sure, I could always bail out and use the jokes from last time around that I had in reserve, but I wanted to test out the new material as a whole set and see how it flew.
It was another big crowd, about 400 people, and I was the first up. Again. The emcee had a bit of a time warming up the crowd, and when he decided to hand it off to me, things weren't exactly cooking. I ran up on stage determined to see what kind of damage I could do.
And it went as smoothly as if I'd done it a million times before. I don't know if I could have planned it any better. The crowd was with me the whole time, laughing at all of the right places, and my payoff joke rocked them like I'd hoped it would. It was such a great feeling to be up there with stuff I was pretty sure was funny when I wrote it and to feel the laughter coming back at me to confirm maybe I was onto something. I even finished a little early (or maybe they gave me a little extra time...all I know is they weren't flashing the You Only Have A Minute Left light at me) so I managed to dovetail the end of my new set into a joke from the last time that went over well and again tonight it went gangbusters.
The only complaint I have is how fast the time goes. It felt like I was barely up there and I was done. It's a nice tidal wave of a rush that you wish would last just a little bit longer and I guess that's what keeps me coming back for more.
So, combined with my set from the last time around, I now have a good solid 8 or 9 minutes of material that has gotten a pretty good response and I feel comfy with.
At the end of this month I'll be in touch with Snickerz again to see about booking for January and will keep you posted. Right now, I feel good and that's a nice place to be. Anyone wanna come over and cuddle?
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