For eight years, Dave Chappelle was the most famous absence in comedy. After walking away from Chappelle’s Show in 2005, he largely stayed out of public life, turning up only for unannounced club sets that fans traded stories about. In June 2013 that changed: Funny Or Die announced that he would headline the Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival, a touring outdoor show built for amphitheaters rather than comedy clubs.
The tour ran for 13 dates, opening on August 23 at the Austin360 Amphitheater in Austin, Texas, and closing on September 22 at Desert Sky Pavilion in Phoenix. Chappelle shared top billing with New Zealand duo Flight of the Conchords, and the undercard was a snapshot of the comics who would dominate the next decade, including Hannibal Buress, John Mulaney, Demetri Martin, Kristen Schaal, Al Madrigal, Chris D’Elia and Jim Jefferies. A second stage hosted by Brody Stevens gave local comics a slot in every city.
It was the most substantial run of stand-up Chappelle had done since leaving his Comedy Central series, and it proved that the audience had not gone anywhere. The festival format put him in front of crowds of thousands a night, and the demand that followed set up a much bigger comeback: by the summer of 2014 he was playing a multi-night residency at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.
Our take
Oddball was not a perfect return, and amphitheaters are a hard room for any comic, but it mattered because it ended the question of whether Chappelle would ever come back. Everything that came after, from the Radio City shows to the Netflix specials and the second Saturday Night Live era, traces back to him deciding in 2013 to get on a stage that was announced in advance. It also put a Black comic at the top of a festival bill alongside the alt-comedy scene, which was not a given at the time.
Read more on our Dave Chappelle profile.
Sources: Christian Science Monitor / AP, The A.V. Club, BroadwayWorld.
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