Dark Comedy Festival Day #3: EDDIE PEPITONE – Saturday, June 8th @ The Comedy Nest

Photo Credit: Nathalie Farrat

This Saturday night was the last night of the Dark Comedy Festival at the Comedy Nest. I have to admit I was pretty intimidated to write this blog, because how could I ever put into words how funny this show was. My abs were seriously hurting from laughing so much. At one point, during Eddie’s set, I was laughing so hard that I literally choked on my drink and my life flashed before my eyes. I thought “No! I can’t die now! The show’s not over yet!.” Then again, it might have added to the ambiance of dark comedy.

Photo Credit: Nathalie Farrat

Tyler Morrison, who headlined Fridays show, hosted on Saturday night. Tyler, who has been on BITE TV on more than one occasion, is from Muskoka Ontario. Muskoka, a town somewhere north of Barrie, possibly in the woods, is a land I had never heard of before Saturday night. It explains how his jokes, including a story about his awkwardly comfortable relationship with his grandmother, were so heavily influenced by small town life.

Photo Credit: Nathalie Farrat

Opening first was Evan Desmarais, who has been featured on MTV, a music channel that no longer plays music. Evan was probably the dirtiest comic of the night with his jokes about creative blow jobs, and… ahem… tossing salad. For those of you who don’t know what that means, there’s google.

Photo Credit: Nathalie Farrat

Montrealer, Peter Radomski was next up. This was my first time seeing Peter, and I was very impressed not only by his jokes, but by his snazzy outfit. Peter had some jokes about rape, not to be confused with rape jokes, which had a message we can learn from.

Photo Credit: Nathalie Farrat

Rob Mailloux, who produced The Dark Comedy Festival, and hosted a good part of it, was the last opening act on Saturday. His tasteful abortion jokes, and other insightful perspectives demonstrated that he too delivered and intelligent humour, my favourite kind.

With a thunderous presence, headliner Eddie Pepitone enters the scene speaking at a decibel level that could reach the homeless people on the street. You know he’s a generous guy when he makes sure that even people who can’t afford to get into the venue can hear the show. Eddie mentioned that he lives in L.A. but it’s pretty clear that this guy is east coast all the way. You know us east coasters, we’re a bit rough around the edges. He later mentioned that he’s originally from New York and it all made sense.

Eddie doesn’t just tell jokes, he plays a character, which is most likely an exaggerated version of himself. Dressed all in black with a cute french baret like a cliche near-mute brooding artist, he shows us his love of irony as he yells out his frustrations like the crazy guy in the metro at one in the morning. Halfway through his long angry rant he abruptly, like changing the channel on a TV, breaks into a calm and quiet public service announcement about the health benefits of juicing. It’s as if he was externalizing the inner conflict between his L.A. life, and his New Your upbringing. I think Eddie is more of an artist than we, or maybe even he, realizes.

Photo Credit: Nathalie Farrat

If you want to really laugh, and Eddie Pepitone is in town, he’s definitely worth the cover charge.

If you want to follow any of these acts you can find them here:

Eddie Pepitone: eddiepepitone.com
Rob Mailloux on Twitter @roblovesarguing
Evan Desmarais on Twitter: @evancomedy
Tyler Morrison website tylermorrison.ca

Check out more shows @ The Comedy Nest