After having practiced at 5 or 6 outdoor parties of friends over the summer, I finally performed some of my parodies at a comedy show last week. I have been doing sound for local comedians for a couple of years now and, thought parodies might go over so, I gave it a shot.

I also ran the sound and hosted the show as well. This was a learning experience for me, because I learned that I need someone to man the volume controls to keep a balance on the volumes of the microphone and the backing tracks.

My first time up, I told the audience of around 120 people about the comedians that were to perform. I did a couple of quick jokes and went right into my parody of Tom Jones' "It's Not Unusual". Mine is called "I'm So Unusual". The microphone was much louder than the backing track and, it took away from the performance. I did get some laughs and a good round of applause when it was through though. I then introduced the first comedian.

He did his thing and he introduced the second comedian. After the second comic, I went up and announced that we would take a short break of ten to fifteen minutes. During the break, the headliner, Mike Donovan, told me that things would go better for me if I had someone introduce me. This gives the audience more of an impression that I was part of the show and, not just the host. So, the second comedian went back up and introduced me. The headliner manned the volume controls and, voila! What a difference!

I did 3 parodies, one after the other and, each went over better than the one before it. I sang, "I Wonder if She's a Girl" (the first parody I ever posted on Amiright, to Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World"). The other two are not complete songs but, one or two verses and a chorus of the OSes. They were, "Pay Me" to Neil Diamond's "Play Me" and "Just Like a Genius" to Dylan's "Just Like a Woman". The headliner said there was a huge difference between my first and second sets.

The audience was very kind, cheering, laughing and applauding at the end.

Having played in bands for decades, I noticed that there is a huge difference in singing to a comedy show audience and singing to a concert or rock club audience. The difference is that, the comedy show audiences actually listen to what you're saying.

I intend to take this little show to some open mike nights to polish it up a bit.

Bravo, Rick!  Maybe sometime we can introduce each other at such an event!