Words and Photos by Dany Recio
Moontower day one in the books! Technically it was day two since there were shows Wednesday but there were maybe two and I went to neither so we’ll call today, “Moontower Day 1½.” If you’ve never been, the festival itself has a very SXSW-y vibe if you just took away 90% of the people, which we can all agree sounds pretty good. I did start my night off by waiting in a line but at least I was 99.9% sure I was getting in.
I met some friends in line and we were trying to convince the woman behind us not to heckle the show because apparently that’s what she did at the last show and seemed pretty adamant about it. I think she went to the festival just to heckle which, hey if that’s your thing, go for it. You know what, actually no. Don’t do that. Don’t make that your thing.
We started the night with the New York’s Finest showcase which was just, “hey, here’s a bunch of comedians that live in New York at least some of the time.” Real quick, shout out to Showtime for putting together the showcase. I had to watch a Showtime commercial before the show started so they’re who I’m supposed to thank for the show.
Janelle James, who we believe is an actual New York comic, thanks Showtime
There was a lot of people on the show, so nobody really performed for more than maybe seven minutes. It was like someone put comedy on shuffle but kept skipping to the next song after the first ten seconds. It worked well though because I saw like four times as many people than I otherwise would have and I’m not even gonna do the rest of the festival because I feel like I got most of it in that show. Alright, fine. I’ll watch a few more shows but only because I’m such a fan of the craft.
After New York’s finest I made the trek over to The Velveeta Room to watch Kurt Metzger. He headlined the last show of the night there. Small club, late show; that’s the best way to watch comedy. Also, this show was commercial free. The sixth street crowd was on its best behavior and he did way more than seven minutes, which was refreshing. After watching comic after comic at the last show I felt like they’d leave right as I was starting to like them, so by the end of Kurt’s set we had really gotten to know each other. Or at least I had gotten to know more about his problematic views, and they were hilarious [ed. note: except for the whole thing about him victim blaming sexual assault victims in real life and harassing women critics online].
Austin comic Zac Brooks, refusing to thank Showtime until they bring back Web Therapy with Lisa Kudrow
The sad thing is, I can’t recap the whole day. There was so much I missed. Maria Bamford was a “surprise headliner” at Stateside. People knew there was going to be a show, they just didn’t say who it was until they brought them on stage. That’s fun, I guess. So take my recaps with a grain of salt cause the scope of this short fest isn’t enough for one man to handle. We’d really need more of a team but they only sent one guy. Tonight I’ll be sure catch more than just two shows, I’ll be sure to watch three.