Last night was the Lowlands music festival, featuring us poor comedian saps from Boom Chicago. Now, the following gripes may be too sour for some to swallow; after all, it's a true privelage to get to perform at an all out rock-concert. However, regardless of how nice heaven may be, if Gabriel kept sticking pins in your ass, after a while you'd get annoyed too. Like last year, the festival was early-arrival, wait-around-all-day kind of fare. We headed out to the muddy stomping ground some 13 hours before our show, and for the 16 hours that I was a part of Lowlands, only once was it warm enough to unzip my winter jacket. Mind you, it's the middle of August. Anyhow, I ate lunch and stayed inside the artist's trailer all day. I finished a novel, played some Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and waited around some more. I was cold. I could see my breath. Finally, at midnight, it was time to do our show. Fans had lined up 2 hours before hand, and the theater seemed sold out. Unfortunately, Boom Chicago doesn't play well on a stage that large. Some of our sketches/improvs involve propping up as various audience members and creating a sitcom out of their lives. Great fun when you have the Boom Theatre and 7 cameras to catch the audience members on before the show begins. You introduce these poor schmoes to the rest of the audience, and then our improvised impressions of them are that much more interesting. Stand someone up in their seat at a 1,000 person theater and the effect is dulled. Didn't have time for an encore, didn't really feel like anything hit hard for the audience. And worst of all, everyone seemed to be overly protective after the show, showering us with "Good Job"s and "Great Show"s in the same manner that family members speak to you when you've just caught cancer. Took a long trip home to find out that the home shows had been a total cluster fuck that night, too, with Tarik jumping ahead 2 sketches in the middle of the show and forcing Matt to improvise a part he didn't know at all. I may not have been there, but damn was I proud of Jones when I heard that. And it put me in a great mood. To hell with Lowlands. I love the Leidseplein.
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