Clusterfest Was A God Damned Delight!

When I heard about the Clusterfest lineup, I was all in. I’m a pretty big stand-up comedy fan to begin with, so I’ve seen a bunch through the years. But, for one reason or another, I’ve managed to miss seeing Kevin Hart, Bill Burr, and Jerry Seinfeld in person. I’ve seen them all on various specials they’ve put out on video, but never live. Also, San Francisco is just a hop and a skip from Seattle, I’ve visited there plenty of times, and find it to be a wonderful city. The only way this could’ve been better is if it was in my own backyard, but that’s just a minor quibble.

I’ve been to a bunch of music festivals in my day. It’s a convenient and economical way to see lots of different artists in one fell swoop. But, in recent years, they’ve left a bad taste in my mouth. Over-crowding, uninspired lineups, jacked-up prices, selling out almost instantly before any artists have even been announced. The last straw was last year’s Bumbershoot, when it was impossible to get into any of the big venues to see the headliners due to long lines and a minimal number of entrances.

Thankfully, Clusterfest was a welcome surprise.

I flew out Thursday evening and checked into Hotel Abri. Finding competent reviews of hotels in the general area of the festival was pretty difficult, because every knock against them had to do with the local homeless problem. And yeah, it’s as bad as I’ve ever seen — WAY worse than the homeless problem in Seattle — but you can’t really hold the hotels responsible for that! If you don’t like the homeless, don’t choose to stay in that area, it’s pretty simple.

Hotel Abri had the best bang for the buck, as far as amenities and quality of rooms. If I caught a whiff of any place being dirty or having bedbugs, I eliminated that place immediately. Hotel Abri was clean, bug-free, and looked as secure as I could’ve hoped. Plus, it was within a mile from the fest, had a bunch of restaurants and shopping nearby, and was pretty centrally located as far as the city is concerned.

I made my usual pilgrimage to Amoeba Records on Friday, buying a bunch of unnecessary compact discs that I don’t REALLY need (but choose to keep anyway, to listen to while driving). Clusterfest didn’t open on Friday until 5pm, so I had a full day to get settled and ease my way in.

The Friday lineup was great. Here are all the acts I saw:

• Liza Treyger
• Nick Vatterott
• Aparna Nancherla (2 times)
• Sal Vulcano
• T.J. Miller
• Ice Cube (hip hop set)
• Natasha Leggero
• Chris Hardwick
• Sarah Silverman
• Moshe Kasher
• Kevin Hart

There was also a mock-up of Paddy’s Pub from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, an outside mock-up of South Park (complete with cut-out characters you could take pictures with), and an indoor mock-up of something Seinfeld related (the line was always over an hour wait, so I never had a chance to get in there), with an outside mini-mock-up of the Seinfeld diner (selling Big Salads, among other things) and the Soup Nazi restaurant (see below).

Kevin Hart’s set finished at 11pm and that was the end of Friday. That guy is as polished and funny as ever; he was easily the highlight of the first night.

Ice Cube brought out all the hits, including a snippet of Straight Outta Compton, and his dis-track No Vaseline. It Was A Good Day closed things out, naturally.

Saturday ran from 2pm — 11pm; here’s who I saw:

• Nick Vatterott
• Jake Weisman
• Tig Notaro (2 times)
• Hannibal Buress
• Wayne’s World Script Reading (ft. the Broad City ladies, Tig Notaro, Moshe Kasher, John Michael Higgins, Ron Funches, Chris Gethard, and Tia Carrere)
• Solomon Georgio
• Naomi Ekperigin
• Chris Gethard
• Kyle Kinane
• Superjam (ft. Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz with Fred Armisen & Special Guests)
• Joe DeRosa
• Pete Davidson
• Bill Burr

On this day, I parked my ass at the Bill Graham Auditorium and pretty much didn’t leave until sundown. The thing ran to over capacity a few times, with people frequently sitting on the stairs, then being shooed away by security, then new people sitting on the stairs again.

The Wayne’s World reading was epic. They had a live band to one side, with all the comedians on the other. Abbi Jacobson played Garth, Ilana Glazer played the titular Wayne. Tig was wonderfully deadpan as Rob Lowe’s Benjamin. John Michael Higgins was hilarious as Noah (of Noah’s Arcade fame). Ron Funches stole every scene as Wayne’s ex-girlfriend Stacy. And Tia Carrere showed up to play her character in the movie Cassandra (including singing with the band when her parts came up). Chris Gethard voiced multiple roles, but was best as Alice Cooper (including singing Feed My Frankenstein with the band, where I absolutely lost my shit).

Superjam was another highlight. Essentially it was Les Claypool on bass, with a drummer, a saxophonist, and a guy playing the xylophone (among other instruments), and all they did was improvisationally jam for 45 minutes (including a take on the South Park theme). Fred Armisen was brought out to play Latin drums, which was fantastic. They were on the non-main stage in the outside section of the venue, with pretty much nothing else going on at the time, so they drew a pretty big crowd that slowly dwindled throughout the set. My hunch is people weren’t digging it, but I LOVED it (and in no small part because many people didn’t).

Bill Burr headlined Saturday, and was his usual Best Comic Alive self. Jake Weisman, from earlier in the day, was another highlight for me, as someone I’d never heard of before. Tig, obviously, is always amazing. As is Kyle Kinane.

Sunday would run 2pm — 10pm. Here’s what I was able to see:

• Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee (with a Bill Burr/Jerry Seinfeld interview/Q&A)
• Matt Ingebretson
• Chris Garcia
• Trevor Moore
• Nate Bargatze (2 times)
• Pete Davidson
• Ron Funches
• Anthony Jeselnik
• Jerry Seinfeld

I normally loathe Q&A’s with the audience, because audiences are generally stupid, but thankfully this one only took up about 15 minutes or so of the day. They showed the Garry Shandling episode of CICGC, then Bill Burr & Jerry Seinfeld came out to chat, which was awesome.

I’d never heard of Nate Bargatze before this weekend, but he is a God damned treasure! He did two totally different 15-minute sets and I laughed harder at his jokes than anyone else all weekend. He was in the batch of comedians right after the Burr/Seinfeld thing, then showed up later with Ron Funches and Anthony Jeselnik (which was probably the best combo-hour of standup all weekend).

There was a huge gap in the middle of the day where my friends and I found ourselves wandering around. Like I said before, we thought about going to see the Seinfeld thing (which I believe was supposed to be a recreation of Jerry’s apartment from the show), but it was a 90-minute or 2-hour wait. We went to Paddy’s Pub to see part of the Golden State/Cleveland game, but the line to get in took forever. Once we got inside, it was hot as balls (and halftime of the game), so I didn’t stay long. I ended up getting seats back in the Auditorium for the Bargatze/Funches/Jeselnik hour. Then, went back outside to get food during an abbreviated Hannibal Buress set (who opened for Seinfeld).

I was able to catch all of Jerry’s set, and it was absolute gold as expected. That guy is in his 60s and still kills; it’s uncanny! I particularly liked his bit about Pop Tarts.

All in all, I couldn’t have been more pleased with how it all went down. Everything was pretty well clustered together, so you never really had to walk very far to get from one stage to the next. There were tons of entrances to get into the Auditorium, and tons of seating once you got inside. There wasn’t much in the way of seating for the Main Stage, but they had giant screens and lots of speakers set way back, so you could be all the way in the back and still hear and see what’s going on. Since it’s comedy, it’s not really a problem to just watch the giant screens from the back. Plus, you’re free to wander around, if you have people near you having a bullshit conversation or something.

It was also a really eclectic and solid mixture of comedians. You have your classic New York comics mingling with more contemporary, California-type comics. Standard joke-tellers with experimental freaks. Clean comics with extremely filthy comics. High energy people with really laid back people. Something for everyone, really.

If there’s one drawback, I’d say putting on the Sarah Silverman showcase against Kevin Hart’s showcase sucked a little bit. I was only able to sit in on about half of her set of comics before I went out to see all of Kevin Hart’s set. Since Sarah was introducing everyone, I never did get to see her regular set (assuming she did a regular set, of course); and as such I never got to see Kevin Hart’s openers either. But, other than that, I thought they spaced things out pretty well.

I didn’t get to see as much music as I would’ve liked (I somehow missed the Preservation Hall Jazz Band both days they played, as well as Lil Dicky and Vince Staples), but I wasn’t super disappointed about that, because it was a comedy festival first and foremost, and I made the tough choice to go comedy over music more often than not.

By the end of the third day, I was wiped out. My dogs were barking, so I bailed on going out to bars on Sunday night. Got up early on Monday, made my 10:30am flight, and was home in plenty of time to enjoy the rest of my day off.

I hope they do this again next year. If the lineup is worth it, I’ll be back, and I’ll bring as many of my comedy-loving friends as I can.