Eddie Izzard at the Paramount, Friday 7/11/08

[annathepiper]

A bit belated, this--but as requested, here's my report on the Eddie Izzard show this past Friday, the 11th! In attendance: spazzkat, solarbird, mamishka, and me. We also bumped into tiggymalvern and spoomeister while we were there, too--and in the case of the latter, this was the first time we'd actually met in person, so yay!

Eddie had a fairly casual and butch look going by his standards, but he still looked pretty fabulous with some eyeliner and a very dashing tailed black jacket on over a red striped shirt. And in casual contrast to that, jeans. It was amusing too that he got a standing ovation just by walking out onto the stage (Seattle being pretty easy that way, hee), which took him distinctly aback and prompted him to make a crack about whether he should actually be there.

More importantly, he most definitely brought the Funny. And he was very aware of the nature of the audience he was playing to here in Seattle. There are I suspect few other places in the country where he could have opened the act with ten minutes of looking up Chief Sealth on his iPhone on Wikipedia, and making it work. Complete with side cracks about the iPhone (and asking if anyone in the audience had one of the new ones), being text-messaged by audience members, and the history of Wikipedia ("Founded by Mr. and Mrs. Wikipedia...").

Once he got into the main act, though, it was all about some territory he's covered before in previous shows: the history of Everything, pretty much. He made lots of commentary about the rise of civilization, about religion, and the development of language, all stuff he's milked for fodder before, though for me it was no less funny this time around.

My favorite bits:

Miming his way through a bunch of Neolithic hunters boxing bison, until one of them finally says 'fuck it', picks up a stone, and hits his prey with it.

Vehement insistence that the Romans could not possibly have conquered the known world as successfully as they did with a language like Latin. Included a comparison between the Latin version of a conversation between a messenger and a centurion about the imminent attack of Hannibal (complete with ad-libbed pseudo-German, pseudo-French, and pseudo-Latin), and the much shorter English version.

The entire sequence involving the noises that animals make, and hypothesizing how this must affect how giraffes warn other giraffes about imminent attack: "*coughcough* tiger *cough*". And, how they manage to hide on the plains of Africa: behind other giraffes. Insert obligatory mental image of Eddie miming a hundred giraffes in a line here. ;)

Announcing himself as part of the "Cult of Mac", then proceeding to lament how he has to agree to the License Agreement every time he re-installs iTunes. And how nobody reads these things anyway: "We'll set your grandmother on fire!" "I AGREE! I AGREE!"

Jokes about Galadriel being the mother of Jesus, and how she'd buggered off to the Grey Havens before Jesus went down to Earth. Also, how he noticed that only a few of us in the audience actually got that joke, including Dara and me, over there in our side-section seats laughing hysterically.

Getting in one shameless plug for The Riches, complete with noting that it's streaming on hulu.com. (And yeah, heh, this is me perpetuating the plug.)

ETA 10:07pm: OH YEAH forgot this bit: the bit where Eddie is extremely dubious about frogs as one of the Plagues of Egypt. Locusts, he could buy. Flies, oh yes. But frogs? Not so much. "AAAH! We have MORE FROGS THAN USUAL!"

So, yeah. Mostly familiar stuff to any Eddie fan who's seen his previous performances, particularly Glorious and Dress to Kill. But still highly, highly enjoyable. Worth the ticket price as well as the T-shirt from the swag table!

Comments

[lyricae.livejournal.com]

Joe and I went to the show on Saturday night and enjoyed it very much. I am now sporting my "Cake or Death" T-shirt proudly.

[annathepiper]

That's the one Mimi got, too! Yay!

I got the black and white and gold one with the small picture of him on the side and the tour dates on the back. :)

[ceallaighgirl.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, I wondered if he might have come through town recently, because I saw a fellow near the Victoria Clipper yesterday wandering around with an Eddie Izzard t-shirt.

Yeah, Seattle audiences are the easiest to please EVER. I think it's because we're so excited that the band/singer/musical/comedian actually came out this far. :-)

Hahaha, this is great, your review of him actually made me laugh out loud because I can just hear him saying it aloud inside my head. Awesome.

[annathepiper]

*beam* Glad to be of service. And yeah, he played on Friday and Saturday at the Paramount. I'd booked the tickets quite some time ago and we were all quite happy to have a shot at seeing him again--especially Dara and me, since this was only the second time we'd seen him perform live. The first time, Dara had been sick!

And hee, yeah, very much a crowd that was all "OH THANK GOD YOU'RE HERE now say something funny plz". Hell, we were psyched up enough that once they upped the volume on the music they were piping through the speakers by the stage, several of us in the audience started cheering and applauding. Too early. I think we kept hearing cues for "The Person With the Funny Is Coming Out On Stage Now" at dramatic junctures in the overture that weren't actually any such thing. *^_^*;;

[ceallaighgirl.livejournal.com]

Hahahahahaa, nice.

[mari-mac1109.livejournal.com]

The entire sequence involving the noises that animals make, and hypothesizing how this must affect how giraffes warn other giraffes about imminent attack: "*coughcough* tiger *cough*". And, how they manage to hide on the plains of Africa: behind other giraffes.

My mother and I are still joking about this. Whenever we're together and certainly not supposed to be laughing, one of us will go *cough* tiger *cough* in AFRICA!*cough* and then giggle for hours.

In Chicago he did a bit about coveting your neighbor's ox and talked about how it was being covered with his duvet. So he posed the question, "Is that my duvet?" "Is that my ox?" and we joke about that too.

[annathepiper]

OH YEAH right, he did that bit for us, too. Only he covered the ox with a quilt in this version. ^_^

[mari-mac1109.livejournal.com]

Just the way he said "duvet" was so great.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, just hearing him say certain words is hysterical all by itself. ^_^

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I was deeply fond of 'more frogs than usual' myself XD

Great show!

[zeekar.livejournal.com]

We caught him in Atlanta last month. ("So named because you are right on the Atlantic ocean!" ...bewildered look... "Well, I suppose if you climbed a VERY tall tree you could perhaps SEE the Atlantic ocean from here...?")

Did love the iTunes bit. "I've already agreed! Every time there's an update I agree! Can't they just assume I'll keep agreeing?" And the story of Mr. and Mrs. Wikipedia. But the giraffes playing charades to warn of the incoming tigers ("What, in Africa?") is definitely one of the big highlights.

Thanks for the post. Reminded me of all the Funny, which I sadly don't retain very well after the fact.

Re: Great show!

[zeekar.livejournal.com]

...And I reply to another comment, wholly unrelated to my comment, instead of to the actual post. I fail Livejournal.

Re: Great show!

[annathepiper]

Hee, no worries! I've done that more than once myself.

Re: Great show!

[annathepiper]

HEE! Great bit about the tree. :)

And you're quite, quite welcome. I didn't even get everything I can remember, having posted this. I completely left out the bit about God pushing the "Earthquake" button over and over, and then occasional "Volcano". Or how you can't possibly make a sexy film about farming. ;)

[annathepiper]

And the whole bit with Moses bringing down the first two drafts of the Ten Commandments. ^_^

And the survey of animals going onto the Ark! "So what do we have so far?" "Um... two tigers."

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I was very happy with Moses, mainly because I've never got the part about coveting myself. WHAT?!

[annathepiper]

I suppose it's a distinction between "dude, that iPhone of yours is bitchin' cool, I want one just like it" and "I must have YOUR iPhone"--'cause the latter would lead to temptation to steal it or something, I guess, as opposed to saving up your money to buy your own goddamn iPhone.

That, however, is way too much analysis for an Eddie Izzard skit. Possibly also the Ten Commandments. ;)

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

But ain't that better covered under, 'Thou shalt not steal' rather than 'Thou shalt not want something badly enough that thou thinketh about stealing it'???

But I suppose that's too much analysis for a bunch of dead guys who ate a lot of funny mushrooms XD

[annathepiper]

Hee, yeah. And you'd think that coveting your neighbor's wife leading to adultery would be covered by the commandment against adultery, and such.

But yeah, like they say in good ol' MST3K, we should really just relax. ;)

[starfallz.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I'd love to see him in person some time. I've got a bunch of DVDs queued up at Netflix so I can see something beyond Dress to Kill.

[annathepiper]

Of the DVDs I own, there are bits I like on all of them--but Glorious, Unrepeatable, and Definite Article are all contenders for second favorite after Dress to Kill. Circle I'm not as fond of. I haven't seen Sexie yet!

Re: quod the fuck?

[annathepiper]

Hopefully at some point we'll be able to meet in earnest. :)

Hee, yeah, I expect that the Mac updates section resonated with every computer professional and/or Mac user in the audience!

[ssha.livejournal.com]

Man, I wish I could have been there! I was in Damascus/Gresham/Troutdale instead, visiting my sister's new house, and washing dishes constantly. I even got to see my father for a few minutes.

[annathepiper]

I suspect Eddie would have been more fun, yeah. :)