seems capable of anything, and not just because he once walked away from his hit Comedy Central show, or because he left the stage after being heckled during a headlining set at .
He’s a pop-culture alchemist, combining comedy with hip-hop in his “Block Party” film, or popping up in random places to do marathon sets and prove he’s still a stand-up force. So when he announced a birthday show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre with surprise guests, the speculation was intense. Would he show up with hip-hop luminaries? Actor-friends? Other national comics? Just himself?
The Dave Chappelle who arrived at Red Rocks on Sunday, Aug. 24 to celebrate his 41st birthday with a crowd of 9,450 didn’t have many big tricks up his sleeve. But that’s OK. Chappelle has an agreeable stage presence and a capacity for turning from tested material to nimble crowd work, and on Sunday night he at least provided a few worthy jolts to the audience.
The show run-up included a set by Atlanta’s , who tried to energize the slow-to-filter-in crowd before Colorado comics Chris Fonseca and Josh Blue (the latter of which had just in Denver) showed up for short performances.
Fonseca, who is wheelchair-bound with cerebral palsy, immediately mocked his speech impediment and stage presence. “Is there anyone here from Commerce City?” he asked. “Well, I’m sorry, because I can’t talk any slower.” He also took swings at disability culture in general, as when he invoked the idea of a “disability pride parade” with the thought: “There’s no parking. And it takes f***ing forever.”
Blue followed, joking that Fonseca was “my dad” and acknowledging that two consecutive comics with cerebral palsy would seem like a lot for the average stand-up show. “I’ll leave when this Make-A-Wish is over!” Blue said before delving into topics ranging from bizarre Japanese culture to marriage and ketchup bottles at the airport security line.
Chappelle buddy Donnell Rawlings, who has appeared on MTV, “Chappelle’s Show” and others, delivered a repetitive set that coasted on his high energy and stage-prowling antics. The first 10 to 15 times he yelled “I’m RIPPED!” while mocking “GNC fitness dudes” at malls was amusing enough in context. By the 25th or 30th time, it had completely lost any bite and just felt lazy, especially in light of material that continually made women and Asian people the butt of his jokes.
An unnecessary, unannounced intermission less than an hour into the concert brought up the house lights and dragged on for nearly 30 minutes while staffers fumbled with a white curtain at the front of the stage. Could this not have been accomplished before the sold-out crowd arrived? The momentum didn’t seem to suffer too much, however, given the happy, stoned vibe in the audience, which found them singing along (at DJ Trauma’s impassioned requests) to ’90s R&B and hip-hop hits while a cheeky security guard danced in the front row.
Chappelle finally took the stage, looking ripped (as Rawlings might say) in a black, short-sleeved shirt, one of the first of many cigarettes protruding from his pursed lips. He immediately situated himself in Colorado culture, pointing out that this show was the third he’d performed in the state this year (soon to be four, counting his last-minute set ). He also riffed on buying marijuana on the street and being the only black man jogging at Wash Park, which led into a treatise on race relations that casually threaded itself throughout the night.
“Racism will be over when they open a Whole Foods in the ghetto,” he said, his leg perched on a monitor. He also spent a good deal of time talking about the cultural cachet of the word “pussy” — an inspired joke that imagined Lil Wayne as a “CSI” investigator at one point — and explaining a San Francisco incident in which he was criticized for being homophobic, though the adoring crowd didn’t seem to have begrudged him anything because of it. Skewering political correctness to friendly ears is a treasured comedy pastime, and while Chappelle makes it seem more natural than most, his awkward discussion of LGBT politics could have easily been shelved.
The “weed heckles,” as Chappelle dubbed them, began trickling in throughout the latter half, with fans screaming “Go Broncos!” “We love you, Dave!” “Happy birthday!” and other drunken idiocy that threatened to stop the show. “This isn’t TV,” he said during one of his only visibly tense moments of the night. “You’re in the front row. I can see your face!” Still, he rolled with the punches from these inebriated amateurs, turning the subject back to race relations after dissecting the heckle “Atta boy, Dave!” “A black man does not like to be called a ‘boy,'” he said, before performing solid bit about the Donald Sterling controversy and noting the tension created by the Ferguson, Mo., protests.
Really, Chappelle seemed game for anything. Some bellowing mic feedback got hearty laughs after Chappelle quipped, “Is my boat here? That’s how hard I’m balling.” More heckles turned him thoughtful about the nature of race, celebrity, and his disappearance from the spotlight: “Being a missing celebrity is the loneliest place in the world,” he observed after revealing he’s planning to move out of the country for a time.
Despite the loose, stop-start nature of the event, Chappelle kept an overall handle on the crowd and himself. I needed to leave a few minutes before the end of the show, but the surprises apparently continued with an after-party set and light show from hip-hop legend Biz Markie (see below). This public birthday party certainly wasn’t the smoothest introduction for newbies, but Chappelle succeeded in making fans feel as if they were hanging out with him at an actual party — spilled drinks, booming music and meandering speeches included.
Dave Chappelle's birthday afterparty at Red Rocks, hosted by Biz Markie
— Alex Burness (@alex_burness)
//instagram.com/p/sHGhD2P5G-
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John Wenzel is an A&E reporter and critic for . Follow him .
