Bill Burr explains the backstory to his legendary roast of Philadelphia set
"In that moment, I decided I wasn’t going to leave. The countdown was, for me, like doing cardio."
Legend! The crowd starts off booing, eventually turns, and gives him a standing ovation at the end…
On the Tim Ferriss podcast, Bill Burr gave the backstory to this legendary set.
The first guy got booed and the lineup was killer and we were just playing these outdoor amphitheaters. So it was made for music, and we got down to Philly and I don’t know, they were all wearing Eagle jerseys and tailgating and throwing the football and it just seemed like they were ready for a playoff game. And it was still light out. And there’s something about jokes. They don’t work when there’s lights on. It has to be seedy and that. So not only it was like daylight, it was sunlight and half the people were still out in the parking lot. And there was maybe like 2,000 people just milling around, walking around. So he basically got thrown to the dogs, but what happened is they booed him off stage and it set the tone.
But then everybody was doing their thing. I mean, it was crazy. I was like Patrice O’Neal, Tracy Morgan, Ralphie May, Bob Saget, I mean, Bobby Kelly, Jim Norton, Dom Irrera. I mean, it was just murderers’ row. But you could just feel like there was something, people were surviving. And I saw a few people who always went long, went short that night. I’m not going to say who, but one who always burned the light and it wasn’t Patrice. It was somebody else. I remember he was literally mid joke and just stopped and said, he goes, “You guys were great. Good night, God bless.” And walked up and that’s when I started thinking like, uh-oh. I was like, “If that dude always goes long, just pulled up…” He was supposed to do 20 minutes. I don’t think he did 14. And at that point I didn’t want to do the show.
And I wasn’t nervous at all. I just kept thinking like, I could’ve just been in a Funny Bone in front of 40 people who gave a shit and wanted to come to the show. And so then I wasn’t nervous at all. And then I knew probably looking back I probably knew I was in trouble because I wasn’t nervous. And then I went out there and I was like, “Oh, shit.” And I did my first joke, which I didn’t realize they were playing in the advertising on the radio. So everyone already heard it and nobody laughed. And literally I was like already neck deep and it was so long ago. And then I just remember, I went to another joke and I just bailed halfway through and was like, “You guys aren’t going to laugh at that?”…
So I don’t know why I did that. I started doing it and that they had the clock was there and then I was just looking at it and I don’t know. I think in that moment I decided I wasn’t going to leave. So I think the countdown was for me, like you’re doing cardio, you know that?…
So here’s a funny thing. So we still had one more date on that tour. Something was telling me, “Don’t do the last one.” And then I went to Cleveland and it was like, as I walked out on stage, everybody booed because they wanted me to trash their city. So then it became this thing, it was like I can’t do this again or then this is my act. This is like Gallagher smashing the watermelons. I’ve got to come out and read about all your sports teams and shit. So that was the one I freaked out about because I thought my career was over. I was like, everywhere I go, I’m going to get booed and blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m glad that people enjoyed it because I was embarrassed that the whole thing happened.
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Louis CK explained what this Burr set and Bernie Mac’s “I ain’t scared of you” set have in common:
[They’re both] not comfortable. Feeling attacked. Not happy to be there. But in control of it. And weapons: Great, great jokes. That's lightning in a bottle.
We refer to non-comedians as “civilians” because, in a way, every comic is a soldier. And jokes are your artillery.
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