I Went And Saw Tony Hinchcliffe Instead Of Chance The Rapper On Saturday Night And I'm Glad I Did
"That guy Tony has to be gay right?"
My brother-in-law read my mind and asked out loud as soon as we exited Chicago's famous "Zanies Comedy Club". One of my favorite places in the world to spend 2-3 hours on a night I'm able to.
A quick pull-up of Google and typing the name "Tony Hinchcliffe" prompted the auto-fill in to show "is he gay?" as the first suggestion.
But alas, after reading a few different sources, he is not. In fact he was/is married to a woman. Something you'd probably never guess if you saw his standup routine having zero clue who he was. At the same time, however, his set doesn't rely or depend on it at all, its just one of the things that come to mind when he's strutting back and forth across the stage in a Gucci x Adidas collab track jacket complete with tan Gucci print and red and green stripes down the arms, accompanied by the biggest rhinestone Texas-sized belt-buckle you've ever seen. It comes to mind when he goes into more detail than you would ever in a million years need describing how to properly execute a two-handed "salt & pepper grinder blow job". Or when he's straight up calling the crowd out for thinking he's gay ("just because he was born with perfect bone structure, incredible style, and swag") and telling us we're actually the gay ones for even thinking of it, and picturing him in various sexual positions.
To say I was a fan of Tony Hinchcliffe's before I even really knew who he was is an understatement. He left the entire club at Zanies that night in tears, giving us all a nice dose of that over-the-line offensive comic relief that used to be the norm, but has become rare these days.
From that point on, following Tony's rise has been fun. He's one of Joe Rogan's best friends, and a recurrent guest on his show who never holds back. Whenever Rogan has him on he has a permanent grin on his face ear to ear like he's just waiting for Hinchcliffe to utter something that will fire up the outrage police and get everybody cancelled. But still, be fucking hilarious.
His story is really admirable too. He started out as a door guy at LA's Comedy Store, managing to work his way up on stage.
His bio says -
As the host of the No.1 live podcast in the world, Kill Tony, he has scaled his namesake platform to stream to hundreds of thousands weekly and over 100 million people total in its ten years running since June 2013. Hinchcliffe and his assembly of enthusiasts collectively made ‘The Store’ the place to be on Monday nights before touring every major city in the US, traversing the globe in an international run, and discovering numerous fresh comics and elevating many more up-and-coming voices. With Kill Tony’s new home at The Comedy Mothership-Joe Rogan’s club in the core of Downtown Austin-this uniquely influential open mic in the stand up universe has a legacy unrivaled by anything else out there.
He's developed a cult following os his own, along with his band of fellow assholes. All equally, yet uniquely funny in their own right.
So when I saw word that Tony and his gang were coming to Chicago to take the Chicago Theatre stage (one of the best venues for live entertainment in the country, it's such a gem), I made sure I wasn't going to miss out.
The show was sold out, and I was supposed to go to Chance The Rapper's "Acid Rap" anniversary show at the United Center with my friend Magee anyways, so looked like I was s.o.l.
But as luck would have it, and through having amazing friends, it turned out a longtime friend of mine, who used to work for me back when I ran a promotional company out of college now owns a merchandising company that handles a lot of Tony's and other comics merch. He hooked me up with tickets (shout out Josh, thank you amigo) and said I couldn't say no or no show so my choice was easy. I apologized to Magee and reached out to WSD, who turned me down, Chief, who turned me down, and my group of married friends, who all turned me down, before saying "fuck it", and deciding I was rolling solo.
I got to Chicago Theatre around 6:30 and got settled in.
The place was buzzing.
The crowd was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It was like a mash-up of a KFC Radio live show meets a Melissa Etheridge concert meets a monster truck rally. People were all fucking over the place on the people-watching spectrum. It was great.
This was the lineup.
This was the first guy up opening, William Montgomery.
What a fucking lunatic this guy is. He had everybody dying. Without spoiling anything, he told some fucking outrageous stories about "movie ideas he's pitching to his Hollywood friends", and a dad joke about his soccer games when he was a kid that were fantastic.
I wasn't really familiar with Montgomery before this show but he's on my radar now. Just another reason seeing these big-stage comedy shows are so great. Good comics always bring awesome up-and-comers to open for them. Aside from being in awe of the fact a person can get on stage in front of thousands of strangers all alone, and make those people laugh for an hour, I think one of the other things I really respect the fuck out of comedians for is how loyal and supportive they are to their peers. It's like they understand the grind and how hard it is to catch a shot at a break so when one of them gets the chance, they can't wait to put on others just like somebody did for them. Just like gangster rappers.
The next guy up isn't pictured here but he was the least funny. He brought out a book for some physical humor but it got pretty dry after that and he wrapped his set up abruptly and awkwardly.
But he made way for this guy, Kam Patterson
who the crowd fucking EXPLODED for. People were on their feet, chanting this kids name, hooting and hollering. I had never heard of him before so I got excited because he must have been a big deal to draw this type of reaction.
And he was. He looks like he might be 24, pushing it, and came out on stage dressed like he was late to statistics class or something.
But he fucking crushed it. His entire set was almost all sex and race-based, but he was so over the top and offensive that he had everybody cracking up laughing the whole time. Again, no spoilers, but his bit about the girlfriend and The Office was one of the better jokes I've ever heard.
The last opener was this guy David Lucas
and he was fucking great. He blasted Chicago's gun and gang violence, how fucked up this city has become, and made people in the audience feel super awkward. It was great. For some strange reason I love shit like that.
When he introduced Tony the place went crazy. I couldn't believe it. People were chanting "Tony" like we were at a baseball game.
Right off the bat he made a comment about how all of our phones were locked up in yonder bags so he was allowed to say whatever the fuck he wanted. And he told us we were going to get it extra-filthy because he knew that's just how we liked it.
Again, I won't spoil anything but he made a joke about the Titanic submarine disaster that was so wrong, but so fucking funny. He tore Amy Schumer to fucking shreds repeatedly, questioned us questioning his sexuality, made fun of Rogan, Puerto Ricans, liberals, conservatives, whites, blacks, pretty much everybody under the sun he was offensive towards. And he gave zero fucks. He laughed about being "canceled" a few years ago and how it wast the best thing that ever happened to his career. I think he went for an hour and 20 minutes or so and had the entire theatre laughing non-stop.
It was one of the best Saturday nights I've had in a long, long time.
And one I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten at The United Center.
Here are the rest of his tour dates. If he's in your city or nearby, go see him. You won't regret it.