Mike Epps performs at the Blaisdell Concert Hall on Friday, June 29. (Photo by Joah Buley, Special to the Star-Advertiser)
REVIEW BY JOHN BERGER / jberger@staradvertiser.com
There are times when the audience can really help a comic out. Mike Epps got some welcome help from the audience in the Blaisdell Concert Hall on Friday, June 29.
Only a fool heckles a comedian of Epps’ caliber. There were several fools in the audience last night and Epps shot them down in flames whenever they made themselves known.
It was OK, I guess, for that loud mouth several seats over to be yelling out her agreement with almost everything Epps said like he was a old-time gospel preacher and she was a member of the congregation. Ms. Loud Mouth was having a good time, even though she was enjoying herself at a much louder volume than necessary. It was something else entirely to have people yelling unintelligibly from various parts of the room.
Mike Epps. (Photo by Joah Buley, Special to the Star-Advertiser)
“Do you think I look retarded?” Epps responded to one incoherent heckler. “Your mother doesn’t think I look retarded!”
The audience roared its approval. The heckler wasn’t heard from again.
But there was one woman, somewhere in the “cheap seats” Epps guessed, “a projects (expletive deleted) with an EBT card,” who kept heckling him. He was in the middle of a long and dramatic story about men of different racial groups going to Heaven and meeting God when she interrupted him for the umpteenth time.
Epps stopped his story and looked up in her direction, but before he could say a word the voice of another woman in the audience rang out loud and clear: “Shut up!”
The audience laughed, Epps smiled and continued his story, and the “projects (expletive deleted)” finally got the message.
Epps utilized each heckler as fuel for a laugh, but he didn’t need their ignorant, dim-witted “help” to entertain Honolulu with a solid hour of contemporary comedy.
To put it another way, the audience gave Epps a standing ovation when he came out at the beginning of the show, and over the 60 minutes that followed, he showed the fans their faith in him was well deserved. The “big girls” in the audience got their due, the black men with white women were recognized, and several of his other classic bits went over big.
“Y’all think I’m going to go to Hell for doing this?” Epps asked after the crowd went nuts over his well-known sketch about people with handicaps. He paused, appearing to gauge the number of people who were saying he would, and then did it again — twice.
The crowd loved it.
Epps shared a succinct description of Lil Wayne — “A grown man with a camel toe” — and delivered a series of instantly recognizable impressions of celebrities Busta Rhymes, DMX, Stevie Wonder and Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
“Michelle (Obama)” doesn’t like Clinton, he explained, because the Clinton has “the hos.” Epps’ impression of Clinton calling the White House at 3 a.m. and inviting Obama to come out and party captured all the nuances of Clinton’s self-created public persona. Epps’ impression of Obama discussing marijuana was also was also right in the pocket.
Mike Epps was at ease — and in prime form — during his latest return to Honolulu on Friday, June 29, at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. (Photo by Joah Buley, Special to the Star-Advertiser)
Getting serious for a moment, Epps made it clear that he supports Obama’s reelection. He also asked the crowd to “support my (friend) DMX” and dedicated the show to him. (The hip-hop star performs at the Concert Hall tonight). But he only sounded serious when he cautioned women against getting tattoos; the warning was a set-up for a series of jokes about what some of those tattoos are going to look like in 20 or 30 years.
Epps has entertained here before and knows his way around town. He joked that Monday night is a bad night to go to Femme Nu — “Is that a haunted house or a strip club?” — and said that HPD has the best weed. He then asked if there were any weed smokers in the audience. Many people responded.
He then asked them to “throw it up here.”
No one did.
Many members of the audience were fans of Epps’ film work. His recreations of bits from his films got the loudest and longest response of all. His two upcoming films — “Sparkle” in August, and “I’m Still Standing” in January — should do very well here.
Another popular topic was sex. Epps discussed one of the awkward moments that can occur and told the men how important it is to be attentive and thorough as lovers. His animated comments about women and vibrators got some of the loudest laughs and screams of the night — from the women, anyway.
Several people in the audience caught caught Epps’ eye. A couple down front was described as looking “like two Cee-Lo Greens.” A large man wearing a wife-beater undershirt was called out as Willie D when Epps noticed him leaving the hall during the show and then greeted as 50 Cent when he returned. A couple who made the mistake of leaving together had their clothing critiqued — his shirt looked “like a table cloth.” She looked “like a pinata.”
Note to Honolulu: If rule one for a comedy show is “Don’t heckle the comic,” rule two is “Make sure you don’t have to go the rest room in the middle of the show!”
An hour of contemporary comedy has rarely passed more quickly or in more entertaining style than it did last night with Mike Epps in the Blaisdell Concert Hall.
Opening act Scruncho earned his time on stage as well. Scruncho was louder and coarser than Epps, but when he talked about how proud he was that his daughter had prevailed out of 600 children to win a spelling bee, and how proud he was that she was now going to college, he spoke for loving fathers everywhere and gave the audience something substantial to think about. His comments about the importance of respect — about people showing respect to each other — added another life lesson to his frenetic high-energy set.
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John Berger has been a mainstay in the local entertainment scene for nearly 40 years. Contact him via email at jberger@staradvertiser.com.