STAND-UP TUESDAYS: ‘Live from Jamestown: Latenight @ Lucy Fest’

June 3rd, 2014

Angie Frissore

Stand-Up Tuesdays is a weekly comedy spotlight written by the wonderfully talented Angie Frissore. Covering both known and unknown comics, Stand-up Tuesdays is your new source for all things funny.

This week, Angie puts a spotlight on Rooftop Comedy’s Live from Jamestown: Latenight @ Lucy Comedy Fest. If you or your comedy troupe would like to be featured on Stand-Up Tuesdays, please email utgjames@gmail.com.

This week in Stand-Up Tuesdays, we celebrate the 2013 Lucy Comedy Fest with Rooftop Comedy’s Live from Jamestown: Latenight @ Lucy Fest, which was released last month. Featuring performances from Myq Kaplan, Jackie Kashian, Mark Normand, Joe Machi, Sean Keane, Kelly MacFarland, Harrison Greenbaum, Andi Smith, Calise Hawkins, Keith Alberstadt, Josh Gondelman, Andy Hendrickson, Kelly Collette, Jim Tews and Andy Sandford, Live from Jamestown captures the essence of the Lucy Comedy Fest in one of most badass comedy compilations ever.

The Lucy Fest is an annual festival that takes place in Jamestown, New York and celebrates the life and career of Lucille Ball. While the festival features more than just stand up comedy by offering screenings, interviews, panels and tours, it has notable featured such comedic heavyweights as Ellen DeGeneres, Bill Engvall, Kathleen Madigan and Lewis Black…to name a few. So it’s only fitting that this particular group of comedians would be hand-picked for such an event – and lucky for you and me, Rooftop Comedy is putting the excitement of Lucy Fest in the palm of your hand.

With tracks that are no more than three or four minutes at most, Live from Jamestown is the speed-dating of stand-up. The short and sweet sets lend themselves to building a momentum that is not only easy to maintain, but easy for the listener to get on board with. Each performer masterfully selects his or her material to fit such a short time frame flawlessly, with quick hits and, sadly, yes – visual humor (which is really only sad when you think about how funny those actually might be). There is never a moment in which a comedian feels cut short or has left the audience needing more, which is a challenging feat when there’s only a few minutes to work with.

While the festival is set to return for 2014 in early August, having just announced Jay Leno as their headliner, this album is Lucy Comedy Fest’s first foray into producing media – something they plan to do annually featuring the comics who continue to program their late night showcases. And that’s good news for those of us who can’t get to Jamestown.

Grab your copy of Live from Jamestown: Latenight @ Lucy Fest today and, well, have a ball (I cannot apologize enough for doing that just now).

Grade: A