Personal Performance Review and Recap: Homo Night in Canada 2009

July 2, 2009 by vongsundara 

I had a great time performing at Homo Night in Canada 2009 on Saturday night during Toronto Gay Pride Festival at Buddies in Bad Times theatre in the heart of Toronto’s gay village. I went to see the show last year when my friend and fellow comedian Julia Stretch was performing at the show, and I knew then and there that I wanted to be a part of the following year’s show. Luckily, I was able to secure a spot earlier in the year.

This year’s show was hosted by the always hilarious Richard Ryder, gay comedian extraordinaire. He did a wonderful job of running the show and keeping the energy of the crowd high. I was up first and was definitely nervous. I don’t get so much nervous for the occasion as much as I get nervous for the material I am performing.

The general rule in stand-up comedy is to start with your second-best joke and end with your best and never never never start with new material. Well, I don’t have much choice in the matter since my comedy style is storytelling. I can’t start with something old since all my sets are minimum five minutes long. The set I performed at Homo Night in Canada 2009 was basically ten minutes of all-new material from beginning to end (barring the last 30 seconds of the set, which I borrowed the ending from my Ugly People set).

Anyhow, here’s the video clip, so you can judge for yourselves:

Vong Sundara performs Super Power Bottoms during Homo Night in Canada 2009 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13sBHm6M4Og

The crowd as absolutely amazing. The crowd's reactions definitely added to the performance and helped me feel a rhythm. Overall, I was very happy with the performance. A bigger surprise to me is that the performance taped even better than it played live. After reviewing the tape, I was pleasantly surprised at some of what I missed while on the stage. Sometimes you never know unless you review the tape. I had the reverse happen when reviewing the tape for my performance of The Ghetto Truth at Spirits a few weeks back, so it was good to see the opposite happen with this performance.

I had a couple of audience members come up to me after to mention that they thought I had crossed the line a couple of times during the performance. I wasn't too upset, though, because it's always my goal to offend five percent of the crowd. Any more than five per cent means that I probably went too far, but anything less than five per cent usually means that I didn't say anything with substance that was worth thinking about.

Another quick note before I go: Mae Martin. Last year, Mae absolutely came away as the breakout star of Homo Night in Canada 2008 (at least for me anyways). I was really excited that she came back this year and performed, this time closing the show. Below is a clip of her song Showers:

Mae Martin performs Showers during Homo Night in Canada 2009 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXhrr2txcog

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