Trevor Noah: November 17th, 2017 (Live)

I had a chance to see Trevor Noah live for a second time last week, and I had an amazing time.  A mix of bits I’d seen before and things I hadn’t, but it was still awesome to see live – I laughed so hard, pretty much from start to finish.  And since Last Week Tonight wrapped up their season for the year and The Daily Show was off this week for Thanksgiving, it was pretty much the perfect time to have a live show to review.

Like I said, quite a bit I’d heard before, both from The Daily Show and from different standup clips I’ve seen.  Mostly, though, it was just short bits/observations here and there, like the difficulty of driving on the left side of the car or how Trump wants to be president but not “do” president.  In each case, they were in the middle of longer material that I wasn’t familiar with.

There were two longer stories I’d seen before, one about the N-word and another about Trevor’s first time eating tacos.  In the latter case, I’d previously seen a clip of him doing maybe 4-5 minutes on the whole anecdote, but here, with Trevor’s tangential style of delivery, I bet it took at least 20.  It really highlighted to me that, as a stand-up, it’s hard to get a sense of what he’s really like in a clip or short snippet.  On The Daily Show, of course, the stories fit into nice 5-to-10-minute segments, but onstage, Trevor really knows how to take his times getting somewhere, going on numerous detours and coming back to his main point just often enough that you remember what story he’s telling.  Granted, I haven’t seen a ton of full stand-up shows, but that style strikes me as fairly unique.

As for stuff that was new to me, there was plenty to love.  He had a fun story about when he got to interview Obama for The Daily Show and an absolutely hysterical bit about trap music – I was dying.  He also had a really great routine about immigration and xenophobia; I loved his proposal that anyone who hates immigrants shouldn’t be allowed to eat immigrant food, and he had some terrific insights on white people who are afraid of “becoming the minority” in America.

Overall, a really fantastic show.  As usual, a lot of great observations about race, culture, and politics, some good silly stuff, and just an all-around great time.  I’m continually impressed by Trevor’s sharpness and talent.

Warnings

Language (including the N-word,) a few drug references, and thematic elements.