Raleigh, NC- Comedy makes us smile, laugh and do some of the craziest things, and no one knows that better than the recent RBC Center audience who witnessed Comedian Mike Epps and friends deliver a rousing show that literally tore the rafters off the building. For sure it’s always a bad sign when your headliner is stuck in traffic 5 miles deep, and key promoters such as Adolph Shiver of LA Inc., is left waiting for tickets that seemed to never come, but to do the math, believe it or not, the audience waited an extra 30 minutes before an unknown announcer, took the liberty to start the show with yet another unknown person, an Atlanta based comedian whom I’m sure we’ll get to know better in coming years.
Yes it was reported that there was a major accident on Highway 40 enroute to the RBC Center, but from my own observation, all I saw was something like a tractor trailer truck that had the axle in one direction and the tires down a cliff in the woods back off the road in a opposite direction. For sure this was a mess for someone, but the North Carolina State Police were not laughing, as they were super busy rerouting traffic, and attempting to get the highways clear so that people could move freely, and just not a foot every 20 minutes.
Around 8:30pm, the show began, with the host making references to the accident, but quickly went to work on some lady in the front row about her shoes. His hilarious antics made all who attempted to walk close to the stage rethink their ideas because who wants to be the subject of a wild man, poking fun at the least remarkable things we wear? But, from experience, we all know people who act relentless and could care less if they are “attacked” because they cause distractions during a comedy show. Face it, people want to be in the public eye, so if they attempted to step close to the stage, the spot light was on them.
Around 8:37pm, the host brought out the first act. This gentleman was also from the ATL. He too went straight for the audience. “Ladies how many of you ever had a stalker?”, which sounded a little familiar, but a tid bit to real, as if he had experience. The audience loved him as he pranced around the stage and picked mini fights with the best of them. Some of his lines included Southern Fried Comedy comprised of Racial Slang, and meanderings that made the few Caucasians down front chuckle and cling to their neighbors. It was clear to see this comedian’s antics were straight from the hood as he went to work on the security crew. Dodging any bullets coming their way, security members began running for cover to the left of the stage. The comedian asked the light man to center the spot light directly on one gentleman, where all those around him were falling in the floor laughing. His other highlights included a hilarious talk about Eartha Kitt and Shirk Tucker, better known as Comedian Chris Tucker’s make believe brother and more. He left the stage around 8:48pm.
Unlike a lot of past comedy shows that I’ve attended, the comedians this time around did their thing and kept the show moving. There was very little lag time between to bore the audience and make people even think about asking for any money back. Ticket prices were $45.50, $55.00 and there were some who paid as high as $75.00. At the end of the show one man stated, “the show should have been longer, and covered more material”. The shows’ promoter North Eastern Entertainment Company of Connecticut, at press time did not give information about ticket sales, nor the amount of seats that were sold, but looking around, a fair estimate would have been in the neighborhood of some 10 thousand give or take a few. Open seats remained on the floor leading into the last segment of the show, but the biggest gap in seating was in the upper levels, where you saw people in bunches and then empty seats. For sure, it was clear that a majority of tickets sold came from last minute walk- ups. The demographics were clear as African Americans filled seats by the thousands, and Caucasians were few in number, but they too proved that this was their kind of show. Overall it was a very nice turn out considering the economic crisis many families find themselves in this day and time.
Around 8:55pm, the special guest, Bruce Bruce came to the stage, in all his greatness, theme music and all. For those who are not familiar with Bruce Bruce, he’s made us laugh a time or two as host of BET’s “Comic View”. He has also performed stand-up on BET's Comic View, on various shows on Comedy Central and even performed on Comedy Central Presents in 2003. Bruce appeared as a guest on Wild 'N Out on MTV. Also played an important role in promoting Def Comedy Jam, a black stand up comedy in the all stars volume 11. He also had roles in the films “XXX: State of the Union”, “The Wash”, “Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector”, “Cloud 9” and Outkast's big screen debut “Idlewild”. He was also the host of BET's "Coming to the Stage." In addition to touring nationally with his standup and appearing in films, Bruce signed on as the national spokesperson for Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits, where he is the star of their "Stand-Up for Flavor" commercials. Finally Bruce released his first book, “Baby James Brown”, from Penguin Publishing.
Bruce Bruce was very easy to see, and likewise easy to accept as his brand of humor rocked the place. Not sure what was in the mix, but he never mentioned his signature “Popeye’s Chicken” once as he kept his eyes on the prize. The comedian was dressed in a custom blue suit, sporting a classy red tie and shoes that would make a shoe salesman blush. He was spiffy clean and ready for business. No one was safe as he ragged on Grand Daddy, Momma, the kids and everyone, and the audience loved it. “ I got three kids”, he stated, and one for the life of me would not give a blood sample”. Straight out the gate, he tore into the DJ. “Man ya’ll got something different here in North Carolina that I’ve never seen”, he stated. “This is the first time that I’ve ever seen a DJ sit down and mix records. Hey man- you all right? I done seen a lot of things, but this here takes the cake”. The audience couldn’t do anything, but laugh. Then he went to work on attacking his very own “fatness”, which really woke people up. And profanity was not a sore issue, as he used it with the bleakness of it’s existence in such passages as *uck personal trainers, him wearing a muscle shirt, old people, those who stutter, such as his brother, who also snores at the same time and countless other issues that audience members just found a ball of joy.
In the past, I’ve seen Bruce Bruce with a variety of hairstyles, but not in dreadlocks. He was not only sharp in attire, but very smooth with the dreads. During the intermission, people rushed up the stairs to take photos with him for $25.00 a pop, and the girls couldn’t get enough of the dreads. Some were admiring them, while others were a bit wild and circling to pull and rub on them. He welcomed the attention and kept the long lines moving.
One of the funniest moments of the Bruce Bruce show was watching the comedian explain his creativity of sexual positions and thereafter admiring the response from the ladies in the audience. “Yea man, you might be big”, said one lady, “but you can come on and do that with me right now”. The audience laughed until some literally rolled in the floor. Then he went further to teach the women a thing or two about pleasing their men, which he stated was geared to the young girls and the old women. As his show was coming to an end, like in all of his performances, he announced that what he does is different from other comedians. “I don’t tell jokes, I talk about real life stories. I don’t have a closing joke, so my thing is to just leave”, and around 9:23pm, he did just that.
Now it was time for the headliner, Mr. Mike Epps himself. Believe it or not, by time Epps got to the stage, there were still empty seats at 9:50pm because of the earlier accident, but as the lights went down for this ending performance, it’s was extremely hard to tell that seats were open. Epps came to the stage in his signature sport collar shirt, a silkish looking dress jacket and sneakers. Perhaps some comedians pride themselves on looking the look and applying their baller/shot-caller status to the show, but Epps is one of the original OG’s that if you met him in Wal-Mart, he would look, sound and be himself. His swagger was out the door, but his comedic attitude and wit for laughter caught you by the tail end and made you whip a tear out of both eyes. From the start, people laughed so hard, they were literally crying. Epps showed why he was the headliner and the real thing and the audience loved it. Some people laughed until they coughed, with no real signs of a cold. His opening gestures and comments included his past stints in Raleigh’s Walnut Terrace Projects, aloft the drugs, prostitutes and constituents of another nature. He also took the audience back with mentions of Day-Day, his fictional character from a few of his films, amply titled, “Next Friday” and “ Friday After Next”, where he starred opposite Rapper, Producer and Writer, Ice Cube.
If it was real to him, he cracked jokes about it, and the audience was filling it all. A few brave soldiers, male and female, including a somewhat confused Hispanic lady tried his patience more than once and he kept the jokes coming. “Hey lady, don’t you realize I’m trying to perform?”, and believe it or not she had to come again. “Why don’t you sit your fat ass down”, he said. And the audience loved it. Thereafter he broke it down and took it to something about strippers squirting goats milk on patrons and the like. Soon he went to work on Tiger Woods and White women, and that Tiger didn’t learn anything from past history, and O.J. Simpson was a dumb M*other F*cker because he went to jail for stealing some football cards. Through it all, the building was rumbling with laughter. Soon he told his story of meeting Chris Brown in the airport, where he stated ‘Chris told me he did beat Rahanna”, rolling back over to visit jokes that spoke of Keyshia Cole’s mother Frankie, who he said added her name to the long list of Tiger Woods girl friends. “ Yea I f*cked Tiger” in a rousing voice that had the audience almost jumping out their seats. But the moment that everyone loved, beyond the crazy antics, and jokes that had people on the edge of their seats, Epps showed his humanistic and manly side as he gave great conversation to Mothers Day. Keeping it real, this show was taking place on Mothers Day Eve, and he took a moment to appease the mothers in the audience.
“White mothers and their kids are different from our kids,” stated Epps. “Black kids mothers will attack you quick”, he explained in relation to differences in treatment and how they are raised. “Black mothers will have your ass penned between the couch, and we be running from them. White mothers put their children on punishment and Black Mothers put their kids in Solitary Confinement”, as he continued. But things were just getting started good. Epps took his ramped tales of despair a step further with “kids now need a ass whipping, because we got kids who are 9 year old fags, 13-year olds on medications, big girls who like to get it on and his religious anthem that rocked the audience, topics on the Academy Award Winning Film “Precious”, where every word rendered a response in laughter. He also gave the audience a taste of his big girl dance, which cited “big girls don’t care about this and….that”, where he later stated would be part of his upcoming album “F*ck Lettuce”. So who says the audience didn’t have a good time? There was not a dry eye in the building. And he delivered a “Top Flight Security Alert”, and rhetoric about a character in one of his past films, Baby D. Thereafter he broke off to a story about young girls and old players. His hilarious tale was about old men who are still dating young girls, “living on a fixed income”, He constantly laughed at his own jokes, while making faces that woke people up. Alot of the audience got a kick out of that, while others were deeply imbedded in their seats trying to compose themselves for the next segment of the show. He made several references to a “hog leg” and a “two leader”, with many people shaking their heads in amusement, as he pleaded with the audience, ‘now I know you ain’t gonna still my stuff’, to the men looking on. He even went off on the ladies as they prepared for a evening with or without their men, symbolizing the use of a vibrator operating off the batteries from Jr.’s toys, and how the “P” word had the power to change a Nigga’s mind in the spare of the moment.
But the most hilarious moment of the evening in Epps’ show was his rendition of what he called “retarded kids”. Epps did the talk and the walk, what I felt was almost a dance and then he got down to business. For sure it was wrong to laugh and perhaps wrong for Epps to deliver such a tight fisted approach to a topic that could have been close to the hearts of many of the audience, Hell had no fury as the comedian broke this down to. “ Chicken Wing could sing, rap and he was retarded”. The audience went wild with laughter. And then he had the nerve to say that he was tying to get closer to God, and the older he got, the more he wanted to find out exactly who God was. Then it was the preacher and the offering plate. “The preacher put Sis. Carter out the church because she didn’t participate in the offering, and yaw’ll know yaw”ll do the same thing. The father get up and the mother, then the kids all go right behind each other”. And then nearing the end of his show he stated, “the only thing I’m doing wrong is smoking weed and getting some play on the side”.
Over the years Epps has performed regularly at Club Charlie Goodnights in Raleigh, and a lot of the fans were there to cheer him on. In the past he’s been a staple on the Hollywood stage in such films as “Next Friday”, “Bait”, “3 Strikes”, “Dr. DoLittle 2”, “How High”, “ All About The Benjamin’s”, “ Friday After Next’, “ Malibu’s Most Wanted”, “ The Fighting Temptations”, “ Resident Evil”, “Apocalypse”, “Still Bout it”, “Guess Who”, “ The Honeymooners”, “ Roll Bounce”, “Something New” “Talk To Me”, “ The Grand”, “ Resident Evil: Extinction”, “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins”, “ Hancock”, “Open Season 2”, “ Soul Men”, “Next Day Air”, “ The Hang Over”, “Janky Promoters”, “ Lottery Ticket”, and “Liberty City The American Dream”. He’s soon to tour with Snoop Dogg for the “Imagine That Tour”.
In closing Epps thanked the audience for coming, while addressing how nice North Carolina was and stated he was very humble and appreciative for all who came to support the show. The show ended around 10:55pm. Thereafter he headed to the Adolph Shiver/LA Inc. After Party- Club Raleigh Live to meet and greet fans. Overall Epps’ idea to showcase his generosity for allowing two up and coming comics the opportunity to show the world what they could do is genius. It’s important that we have leaders and we have followers, and Mike Epps is definitely a top notch comic, business man, and leader, teaching his followers in this new world of comedy. He’s proven he has the wit, style and charisma to make a star out of the most cumbersome of talents. Mike Epps and Friends is a show -stopper headed straight for the big stage and small screens of HBO, BET and Beyond.
