By: Becca Trabin
Eddie Pepitone performed on Friday night at Underground Arts–an enormous, multi-purpose art space in the basement of the Wolf Building on 12th and Callowhill, where Corey Cohen Comedy Productions (C.C.C.P.) has recently been putting up comedy shows. C.C.C.P. has brought Hannibull Buress, Neal Brennan, Todd Barry, and Dave Wait to Philly since opening two years ago. With openers Lisa Yost, John Nunn and Alex Grubard, Pepitone performed to a warmed-up crowd, one that was about twice the size of the crowd at his Ric Rac show last spring.
Pepitone hit the stage dancing and kept himself and the crowd amped up throughout the hour-long set. He brought in a young, hip audience, many of whom know him from his performances on Marc Maron’s WTF. A lot of his stuff was material he did last year, but most was still as funny.
Pepitone can get away with a lot. He does characters in his bits, and each one is just him flatly barking at the back of the room with all his heart. Lesser comics might get pegged as one-trick ponies for doing the same basic yell over and over, but Pepitone kept the audience wanting more. He periodically broke character and laughed along with everyone while trying to deliver his tags. It came off as well-earned and joyful. Pepitone does his thing so well that he makes other angry comics seem like the poor man’s Pepitone.
And if watching a guy spew his well-crafted rage upon us for an hour wasn’t already fantastic, the crowd was invited to stay for experimental electronic band Black Dice’s show across the hall afterward.
