With 65-plus premier alt-comics from around the nation swarming around South Broadway over the weekend for the second running of the , the attendant perks for all were vividly apparent.
The festival, co-founded in 2013 by local comics and , has the vibe and mounting recognition of an event primed to give Denver the last big push it needs to establish itself as a major-league destination for comedy.
For fans and performers, weed and craft beer were as varied and plentiful as one would expect from our modern-day Mile High (weed was not smoked openly inside the venues, for the record). And for however stoned and drunk festivalgoers got in the dank crypt of the Hi-Dive, or the sterile minimalism of the McNichols Building at Civic Center park, many in the ensemble they came to see were unabashedly going tit-for-tat. (Comedians, after all, unless in treatment or rehabilitated from years of substance abuse, tend to have the consumptive appetites of rock stars and emotionally withdrawn blue-collar fathers.)
In a sea of tremendous sets across roughly 48 whirlwind hours Aug. 21-23, comics Pete Holmes, Carmen Esposito, Ben Roy, Kumail Nanjiani, and a current lesser-known names like Mike O’Connell stood out.
Holmes, of the recently axed TBS late-night vehicle “The Pete Holmes Show,” kept the rather awe-inspiring Civic Center crowd in hysterics on Saturday night despite having introduced a previously foreign element into his system before show time. But nothing, it seems — not even high-grade 303 that would reduce most of us to bed wetters — can make a Holmes set lag.
Roy, a member of Denver’s alt-comedy three-piece the Grawlix, deserves a special shout-out as well for again rocking the mic like a man possessed. Sharing (among other bucket-list action-items) his wish to “take a clown pounding” — shorthand for having sex with a clown, and one “in full clown makeup,” no less.
All told, the High Plains experience was a memorable one due, naturally, to the caliber of talent on hand. But also in no small part to the intimacy, affordability and accessibility of the select host venues, which also included 3 Kings Tavern, Mutiny Information Café, TRVE Brewing Co. and a popular open-mic at Brendan’s Pub.
Locals are advised to lock-on to our little-festival-that-could ASAP in the event that the aforementioned virtues start to wane in concert with High Plains’ inevitable growth. For now, however, this sweet child of ours is about as painless and rewarding as the festival experience gets.
–Russ EspinozaMy second experience with the High Plains Comedy Festival was not too dissimilar : smooth, reminiscent of other well-run comedy fests I’ve been to, and so much of an onslaught of twisted thoughts that I left feeling both inspired and exhausted.
Without repeating too much of Mr. Espinoza noted above, the event took place for a couple days (Aug. 21-22) along the hip South Broadway corridor with showcases, podcast recordings and open-mic spots, followed on Saturday (Aug. 23) night by some marquee showcases at the renovated McNichols Building in Civic Center, which was surrounded by security gates and tents in anticipation of Sunday’s USA Pro Challenge Cycling Race.
Any event with a dozen discrete showcases, a half-dozen stacked-lineup podcasts and numerous side events, after-parties and open-mic sets is bound to feel sprawling. But as popular as the event has become — this year saw more capacity shows and impressive lines — its curation and organization betrayed a deep experience with the comedy festival scene.
That’s not surprising, given that co-founder Adam Cayton-Holland has been to Bridgetown Comedy Festival (in Portland, Ore., probably the closest corollary to High Plains, albeit much bigger), Just for Laughs in Montreal and many others. But it’s also not an inevitability, and it was clear that the people running the event were trying mightily to keep things humming.
Thursday night’s show, which were added late, were as solid as anything throughout the fest, including Bryan Cook’s hilariously gut-churning “Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction” and Mike O’Connell’s “Drunken Tales of Glory and Shame Showcases,” which gave an even mix of local and national stand-ups a chance to embarrass themselves to the audience’s delight. Friday’s sets were the meat of the festival, with showcases at the Hi-Dive and 3 Kings Tavern drawing lines and packed houses to see Nick Thune, Ben Kronberg, Pete Holmes, Kate Berlant, T.J. Miller, Beth Stelling and others.
Kumail Nanjiani appeared prominently on fest posters thanks to his rising rep from “Portlandia,” HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” and his new Comedy Central show “The Meltdown” (with producer/wife Emily Gordon, who was also there), and his fans were clearly out in droves, giving him a hero’s welcome each time he took the stage. Among other subjects, his bit about passing out while masturbating nearly destroyed the late show at 3 Kings on Friday.
If so much of stand-up is about exploring what people do in their everyday lives, comedy festivals are an ideal way to stack and compare those subjects, not only in who had the better take on a subject but in clocking their frequency across sets and crowds. And while masturbation, sex, and relationships were common topics, so was marijuana and its varied consumption (no shock there).
Saturday night’s McNichols shows began with Holmes’ “You Made It Weird Podcast” recording, which exhibited his ability to veer from profane, squishy topics to serious, spiritual ones at the drop of a hat. The short stages on the second and third floors, backed only by black curtains, were more than enough stage-setting for the comics.
The Grawlix showcase rolled along agreeably as a hometown beacon, co-founder Andrew Orvedahl getting in some of the best lines of the night while talking about “stress marinade” (during a failed nap) and hipster fetuses. His cohort Adam Cayton-Holland delivered a typically commanding set that played to the crowd with bits about the aging tourist pit that is the 16th Street Mall.
After a deafeningly-approved set by Nanjiani, Kristin Rand hosted the finale, which was supposed to feature Pete Holmes at the end. Instead, Holmes surprised Rand (and many other comics who grumbled privately about it to me) by going on first for a shorter set, given that he had apparently consumed some weed soda and couldn’t handle his buzz (having never performed stoned before, as he said from the stage). Still, it was a solid set and one that heralded arguably the strongest show of the entire festival.
Nate Bargatze’s low-key Nashville style perfectly complemented his tightly edited jokes. However Kremer’s impromptu experiment in smoothie-making was dumb but funny. Beth Stelling’s practiced sheen expertly sold her faux-bitchy observations about her family and friends, owning the stage with an intoxicating confidence. Ian Karmel’s bit about waiting too long in a Taco Bell drive-thru — and what a horrible person that made him — was both laugh-out-loud funny and something that has stuck with me consistently since.
When Denver’s Josh Blue took the stage to finish, he declared himself “A headliner who can handle their weed!” to which the crowd (more than 600 strong at that point) roared with knowing approval. Last year’s High Plains ended with a bit of fizzle as Reggie Watts was too high to deliver an engaging set at the Gothic Theatre. This year ended with a bang in the form of Blue’s irrepressible energy, paralleling the tweaks made to the fest. Not everyone should luxuriate in Colorado’s legal cannabis during High Plains, especially performers. But for the ones who did, it had far less detrimental of an effect on audience enjoyment than, say, alcohol, since weed and comedy increasingly go hand-in-hand for many Denver comics and stand-up fans.
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John Wenzel is an A&E reporter and critic for . Follow him .
Russ Espinoza is an Austin, Texas-based journalist and recent contributor to Reverb. Check him out on .
Evan Semón is a Denver freelance writer and photographer and regular contributor to Reverb. See .
