Jo Koy meandering, overlong at Palace Theatre appearance
Comedian’s ability to be spontaneous was a struggle
ALBANY — Well into his nearly two-hour show Friday night at the Palace Theatre, comedian Jo Koy confessed to the soldout crowd, “I’m freestyling here,” meaning he was riffing on interactions with the audience and making up much of it as he went along.
“I’m trying to think of ( jokes) because I just dropped my Netflix special six months ago ... (and) you know all the punchlines,” he added.
While admirable in principle to try to give a live audience fresh material, the practical result was this: The Netflix special was 74 minutes of honed jokes and stories, and it’s included in a $15-a-month subscription, but those at the Palace on Friday, some of whom no doubt bought tickets because of that special, paid an average of $60 for an overlong, meandering, unfocused performance.
A large portion of the 110-minute set felt like frequent mediocre freestyling and crowd work poorly balanced with older routines. After 34 years of performing stand-up, Koy is too professional to utterly flop, but he returned to some references so often, particularly the effects of sciatica, that they were less callbacks to earlier jokes than tedious, frequent repetition.
The last time Koy was in the Capital Region, a year and a half ago, he was dating fellow comic Chelsea Handler, and the pair professed their love for the capital city in a series of posts on Instagram. On Friday, in contrast, now dumped by Handler, Koy started the evening by insulting his host city and complaining about the allegedly freezing temperature. When a woman in the audience shouted, “It’s 40 degrees outside,” the comedian became aggressive, saying, “Don’t talk to me . ... Is your name on the ticket? (People are) here to see Jo Koy, not Jo Koy and Some Drunk Bitch in the Back.”
For good measure he continued, “If I hear one more person say that it’s not that cold out, I’m going to kick you in your frozen p——.”
Besides sciatica, another recurring theme emerged: that Koy, at 51, has become a grumpy old man.
“Parents, let (your kids) know how hard we had it,” he said early on. Moments later: “They don’t know what we went through.” And again: “You guys had it so easy.” And in case the point had been unclear the previous three times: “They’re so used to getting everything now.”
Koy was also sloppy and dishonest in some of his details, claiming that young people today grew up with exciting breakfast cereals, while his options were plain Cheerios (“a yellow box with dry-ass circles”) and Grape Nuts (“wet gravel”). Not quite: Fruity Pebbles was introduced the year Koy was born, as were Count Chocula and Franken Berry, and the first flavored Cheerios came out when Koy was 5. Kellogg’s has been making Frosted Flakes since 1952.
He had some high points, even one involving cereal, as when he joked that Shredded Wheat is so fibrous that the post-digestive result is a clay pot in the toilet. Koy also scored with musings on why young women should not date older men, regardless of the maturity and security they may offer, and how middle-age people can enjoy dating within their age group by celebrating their mutual ailments: “I got a bunion, she got a bunion.”
Koy’s longtime friend Joey Guila opened with about 20 minutes of largely forgettable material with highlights, such as they were, including, “When I go to the club, I take calcium,” and being the rube at a wine-tasting event who asks for Zima.