April 24, 2010: Craig Ferguson in Toronto

I'm a big fan of Craig Ferguson. I'm a regular watcher of his late night show, and I truly believe he is the best host in late night, and will one day be the successor to David Letterman. So when I found out that he was coming to Toronto on a stand-up tour, it was a no-brainer...we needed to get tickets.

The concert was last night, and we planned a dinner once again at the Lone Star Cafe beforehand, so we could just walk the one block North to Roy Thompson Hall afterwards. The show started at 7:00, so we figured we had plenty of time since we were done and leaving the restaurant at 6:30. However, when we got outside and took out our tickets, I saw that, while the envelope the tickets came in said 'Roy Thompson Hall', the tickets said 'Massey Hall'.

So now we're at the wrong place with the show starting in less than half an hour. We hustled over to the subway station and thankfully got there in time, but it was a tense ride there while we hurried along.

The show itself was quite good, although the warm-up comic appeared to not care at all...walking around with cue cards that he could refer to for his jokes, and making absolutely NO effort to segue between his bits. Some of the material was funny, but he seemed like he didn't care.

And as I looked around the venue, I realized that my girlfriend and I were well below the median age of people that were there for the show. I probably should have realized it when I heard the guy behind me say to his wife, "Remember last time we were here...for UB40." Wait a minute, now I'm going to the same shows as people who go see UB40?? When did I get this old? Do I need to go see the Eurythmics if they do a reunion tour. (The scary part...I WOULD go see the Eurythmics. Maybe I should have said 'Enya.')

We had an interesting group of people in front of us, like the poseur thirty-something sitting in front of me with his black Misfits T-shirt and 'look-at-me-I'm-Jason-Mraz' panama hat. You can't mix a Misfits shirt with a pamama hat at a Craig Ferguson...you're cross-pollinating too many pop culture items!

And then there was the guy sitting right beside him, who, like Paulie Walnuts on the Sopranos, had to repeat every punchline for his friend as he laughed. When Craig Ferguson ended a joke with "I too am a gay Austrian lion tamer", he would uproariously laugh and hit his friend in the arm, and say, 'Gay Austrian Lion Tamer!"

And the UB40 couple behind us was an interesting treat as well, as the wife just sat there silently for the whole show, never laughing, and asking her husband what the jokes meant. And the husband, who was about 55, and had to leave at some point of the show, decided that instead of asking the TWO people between him and the aisle to stand up so he could get to the aisle, he had to get all Spiderman and climb over his seat into the back aisle. Of course he kicked my girlfriend in the shoulder on the way out, and me in the arm on the way back.

So, interesting old people and ticket fiascos aside, the show was quite entertaining, and I highly recommend you check it out if you're a fan of comedy. It's quite a bit edgier than the TV show, obviously, but it was a great night.