The year’s worst show

Entering the Bridgestone Arena stage, Louis CK looked sunburnt and out of place in a gray suit. He had shed his trademark black T-shirt and blue jeans.

Perhaps that should have indicated the night’s trajectory. Maybe we were too excited. Our road trips often feature hours of laughter at his albums. Maybe we expected the measured insanity of his FX show. We got none of that.

I still cannot sum up the disappointment. Hell, it’s December and CK played Nashville in mid-July. Louis had three openers, none of whom overstayed their welcome, knocking out succinct 15-minute sets. Each had their virtues and their names escape me. They all seemed to be promising comics.

But Louis … he refines material throughout his tours, and this date fell early in the tour. Perhaps we caught him too early. There wasn’t much funny in him recounting the night he knocked up his ex-wife in overly vivid detail. A lot of his usual slice-of-life and anecdotal material was nowhere to be found. Even his usually astute takes on odd movie moments fell apart in a limp retelling of a Magic Mike scene.

Usually I can get around CK’s grosser material, but he leaned way too hard on that end of his shtick in Nashville, and other material wasn’t strong enough to pick up the slack.

Here’s hoping whatever release he culls from this tour includes as little material as possible from his Nashville show.