Big Room is the second instalment in Tom Shillue’s 12 stand-up comedy MP3 albums in 12 months project.
It features two ten or so minute performances by Shillue as the warm-up act for comic Jim Gaffigan on one particular night in Denver. The shows prove Shillue is no second banana. If you enjoy fun and clean stand-up comedy, you are certainly going to enjoy Big Room even if it was five times the price.
The first show is biographical material about growing up in Norwood, Masachussetts, a very Irish Catholic town. Shillue plays off on that with stories about his first experience with Hamburger Helper tacos and Fritos as Mexican food, and Jewish girls. He follows with another funny story about how guys like to drive until they are down to fumes and one about marrying into an Italian family.
Tom Shillue picks up the Norwood reference at the beginning of the second show with a story about going to his high school reunion and what happened to the people some twenty years later. The comic’s fan will recognize the bit about his friend “talking himself off the market”. It is followed with a less interesting story about an email exchange with a high school friend. Much better is the story about his dad and getting sick during road trips.
What I am much less impressed with on this comedy album is the lame piano riff at the beginning of each track and the pre-show and post-show stuff Tom Shillue included such as “I am wearing a mic and going on stage now….” The idea is of course to make everything more real but it is just stuff you fast forward through. It feels like padding to the ten-minute performances. But considering Shillue is not greedy in pricing Big Room, what the hell.
Big Room
Tom Shillue
Stand-up Comedy MP3 Album
BSeenMedia 2012
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Good but not great if you like long form or clean stand-up.
