080217 The Colbert Report, New York, NY

On August 2nd, 2017 I went to a taping of The Late Show starring Stephen Colbert.  When m’lady and I decided to hit up a few of Phish’s Baker’s Dozen shows at Madison Square Garden we started lurking for late-night tickets.  Why not?  It a fun, free way to kill an afternoon in America’s most expensive city.  

I was hoping for Jimmy Fallon but Colbert tickets came up first so we jumped on them.  When I found out that one of Colbert’s guests would be Joe Walsh I knew we had made the right choice.

We were staying with friends in New Jersey; the four of us drove into the city early and made it to the line with ten minutes to spare.

One thing to know about television show tapings is that they like to keep you waiting; the audience tends to wait two hours or so before the first joke is told.  Speculation as to why this is tends to be the focus of conversation throughout the line for the entire wait but the answer is quite clear.  It ensures that only true fans will be in the building when the lights go down, and after a two-hour wait those fans are sure to be nearly rabid with anticipation.  It’s a strategy that goes back at least to Colonel Tom Parker – a sketchy carnival-barker-cum-artist-manager who would have up to a dozen acts open for his #1 prize Elvis Presley, including dog trainers, jugglers and any other act that The King’s demographic would be sure to hate – and probably goes back much, much farther than that.

Anyway, it works.  When Colbert’s warm-up act came on he was given a hero’s welcome, so starved for entertainment was the crowd.  Then Colbert came out and took some questions from the audience which was great.

The band was also great.  I’d really started to admire the piano player/bandleader Jon Batiste and yeah, it turns out he’s super-solid, as was the rest of the group.

During Stephen’s lengthy monologue I paid more attention to the mechanics of the show than the show itself.  I was looking at the cameras, the lighting, and the TelePrompTers and loving all of it.  I noticed that whenever Colbert went to a clip – no matter how brief –  he would use the time he had off-camera to do lip exercises and/or quickly practise his next few lines.  

Dude’s a pro, no question about that.

When it was time for the guests Colbert explained they would be taping out of order and instead of introducing the first guest of the evening (Dave Chapelle) he started with the second (James Van Der Beek).  I didn’t know who either of them were (I know, I know…I’ve since watched some of Dave Chappelle and he’s pretty great) and to be honest Van Der Beek was a pretty lame guest.

And then they introduced Joe Walsh who received a hearty standing ovation from a pair of Canadians up in the balcony.

I’m a big, big fan of Joe Walsh.  He was funny, informative, and affable.  And then Colbert asked him if he would play!  Joe Walsh sauntered over to the band while the drummer started the unmistakable (to me at least) boom…..boom boom pah, boom…..boom boom pah of Life’s Been Good.  Once again I jumped out of my seat, and once again m’lady was right there with me.

By the time he hit the first lyric the rows behind me were all standing as well; they had to if they wanted to see (to which all I can say is “you’re welcome”).  By the time he got to the killer guitar solo the whole balcony was up.  And after eight minutes of roof-raising rock and roll gold he got the kudos he deserved from a screaming audience.

It was so glorious; Phish was going to have to step things up to beat that performance.

By this time the four of us were getting nervous.  We were all going straight from the Ed Sullivan Theatre to the Phish concert and we were loath to be late, but due to the flexible nature of television tapings the Late Show people only give a vague timeline on when the taping will end, and once inside you’re not allowed to leave.

Mercifully Colbert broke the news that Dave Chappelle wasn’t going to be there after all; due to a scheduling conflict they had taped his interview the day before.  I had guessed as much when Joe Walsh had been introduced, and under the circumstances it was pretty good news for the four of us.  

We got out of there and walked twenty blocks to MSG and made it inside well before the lights went down.  It was an out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire sort of move, in a good way.