Stephen Lynch show a hit
To say Stephen Lynch's show was crazy is an understatement.
Singing about AIDS testing, throwing stools, impersonating Lewis Black and climbing on a fan’s chair only begins to describe the insanity of Stephen Lynch’s show Friday.
Touring in promotion for his album “3 Balloons,” which was released in March, Lynch took the stage at 8:10 p.m. in front of an enthusiastic Finch Fieldhouse crowd.
“There was definitely around one thousand,” said Pinconning junior Crysta Heckman, comedy chairwoman for Program Board. “We set up eleven hundred chairs, and they were almost all full.”
Lynch played the show, despite cancelling shows on Oct. 8, 9, 15 and 17. Due to a family emergency, he spent the week with his family in Saginaw. According to The Saginaw News, Lynch’s father, Leo, died Oct. 9.
“I couldn’t blow you guys off, because you’re an hour from where my mom lives, and Zach (Galifianakis) already blew you guys off,” Lynch said.
In addition to performing musical comedy with his acoustic guitar, Lynch also played a keyboard, and took a moment to impersonate Galifianakis and his piano-accompanied stand-up.
The final song of the main set was a piano-fueled ode to Lynch’s wife’s breasts, accompanied with a video and photo montage of women’s breasts. Interspersed in the bosoms were images of Morgan Freeman, an octopus doing karate, and Jeff Daniels, all of which were running jokes during the show.
“It makes them funnier, I think,” Lynch said. “If I had just flashed Morgan Freeman, it wouldn’t be funny, but put him between some boobs? Hilarious!”
Lynch was joined on this and other songs throughout the night by David Josephburg and Rod Cohen. Both tour with Lynch, and Cohen is a friend of Lynch’s from their college days at Western Michigan University.
Lynch said he was unaware of the football game between Central Michigan University and WMU the day after his performance until a few hours before the show. Although he made mention of it onstage, Lynch said he was not a football fan, and was not emotionally invested in the rivalry.
“If you hadn’t told me there was a game, I never would have known,” Lynch said. “And I still don’t care.”
After joking throughout the performance about a dream about being Prince he said he had the night before, Lynch ended his encore by singing the musician’s “Purple Rain” with Cohen and Josephburg.
During the song, he ran into the crowd,grabbing and teasing people near the aisle, and climbing onto the back of Alma College junior Morgan Valko’s chair.
“I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, Stephen Lynch is touching me!’” said Valko, a Goodrich native.
Valko said this was the second time she had seen Lynch, and enjoyed his show just as much as the first time.
Western Michigan graduate student Joey Norcross said he loved the entire show, and his favorite song was “Dirty Sanchez,” which Lynch performed with Josephburg.
“I laughed the entire time, my stomach hurt,” Norcross said.
Lynch previously performed at CMU in 2005, and sarcastically gushed about how much better that first show was.
“Oh, four years ago was a much better crowd,” Lynch said. “It was night and day. No, it was great both years, and I did a completely different show.”
Lynch said he will return to his tour next week, including an Oct. 24 show at Carnegie Hall, his first ever at the venue.
