On Saturday evening I the 9:30pm Jerry Seinfeld show at the Orpheum in downtown Vancouver. This was my second time seeing Jerry live as he had visited Vancouver just over two years ago in 2010. As many of you know, Seinfeld is a great comedian and a great stand-up artist as well.
There were many, many similarities on Saturday to his last how in Vancouver. For starters, his opening act was performed by Mario Joyner, was also his opening act last time. Joyner is a funny guy but some of his bits I remembered from last time. His piece on the Home Depot was repeated but I can see why as it’s one of his more entertaining ones. As with last time, he used a bit about the lack of black people in Vancouver. He mentioned that he had enough time to meet the “nine black people who live in Vancouver”. That’s still a funny line to me. I forget if this was used last time but he actually made a Surrey joke. Some people were late getting to their seats and he asked, “where were you coming from? Surrey?” That got a laugh out of me because I believe Surrey has a lot of many undesirable residents.
Jerry himself was on top of his game. He provided a very energetic set and he never wavered in his enthusiasm. Like Joyner though, he repeated many bits. I was expecting his last half of his act to be about his family, namely bits about being a husband and a father. He indeed did spend a good amount of time doing those bits. There were a few new pieces but it seemed like I was watching a re-run, albeit a very good and funny one.
Overall though, I’m not sorry I bought a ticket to the show. I get that comedians re-use their most popular material. It probably was all-new to a lot of people in the audience. It’s also difficult to think that they’ll come up with completely new material in less than two years.
If Jerry comes back in 2014 or before I’m not sure if I’d go again but I definitely would think about it.
Jerry came to Winnipeg about this time last year, and it sounds like much of the show was similar to what you saw. There was some local flavour as well. Being that it was about 10 days before the first Winnipeg Jets preseason game he talked about being on his couch at home watching TV and hearing that the Atlanta Thrashers were leaving. Then, in typical Jerry style he says he was like “Wait, who’s leaving? Why are they leaving? When are they leaving? Where are they going? Winnipeg? Well…then I decided…I’M GOING WITH THEM! (Crowd goes crazy).
I would love to see a compilation of all the local material that he interjects into his act. It would be quite interesting to hear how a comedian comes up with different stuff depending on the city.