I have been trying to find a way to explain just how much fun the audience has at these co-bills with Christine Lavin. I have never been involved in anything like it in 20 years in the music business. People are justifiably skeptical when I tell them that, except for a few strategically placed serious songs, the audience is howling for over two hours with the kind of laughter that makes you think that some of them might be peeing themselves just a little.
My roots as a performer are in stand up comedy. To me comedy is high art. A well-crafted humor-based performance sounds like a symphony to me. The timing, the pace, the surprises, the softer moments, the big swells of sound and the overall continuity all combine to move me in ways that are very similar to the ways that I am moved by an orchestra piece.
I love and respect the art form so deeply that I felt a bit confined in the comedy club scene because frequently the audiences there were accustomed to humor that was less thoughtful and more jocular.
When I brought what I learned from stand up with me to the music world I discovered a community where creative freedom could thrive.
Christine Lavin understands the unlimited potential that smart humor can bring to an audience’s experience as well as anyone I have ever known. People love to laugh. Christine gives them more than they can handle. She gets them laughing and keeps them laughing until they look like they can’t take anymore. And she always does this without compromising the intelligence of her work. She never goes for the cheap laugh. Her humor is always part of a bigger idea that the audience will be thinking more deeply about after the laughter is gone.
