Billy Gardell November 27, Treasure Island.
As Billy Gardell walked onstage at Treasure Island Friday night to Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life,” he bowed to the audience multiple times, an expression of his appreciation for this. All of this. Though our paths crossed only briefly years ago and he probably wouldn’t remember it, I couldn’t help feeling happy for the larger-than-life comedian, one of the best I’ve ever worked with.
In 2009, Gardell headlined July 4 weekend at Palace Station, where I was the house emcee for a club that often drew fewer than 50 patrons a night. Back then, Gardell was a touring comic who made guest-starring appearances on various television shows. Rumor had it he was about to hang up his Hollywood dream, move back to his hometown of Pittsburgh and get a radio job.
A year later, Mike & Molly premiered on CBS—with Gardell playing Officer Mike Biggs opposite Melissa McCarthy’s Molly Flynn—and today Gardell is playing theaters. Toward the end of the show, he expressed his gratitude: “In my 40s, I just wanted a job to take care of my family, and I’ve landed the single-greatest job a comedian could have, so thank you for letting me do it for six years.”
Gardell is also still damn funny. This is working-class comedy from a man who’s so personable, audiences want to be his friend. He tackles topics most of us have some memory of. On his disgust with kids having access to pornography on cell phones: “They should have to earn it like we did—stumble across a Playboy that had been rained on in the woods. Hold it up to the light. ‘Is that it?’ ‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen one. I think that’s it.’”
Gardell changes the power in his voice as he hammers certain topics. “The generation that came before us should spit in our face. They fought two World Wars. The Industrial Revolution. The Great Depression. Cut the Panama Canal with f*cking shovels. Civil rights. Women’s rights. We need some medicine ’cause somebody hurt our feelings! Does that sound right to you? You think the guys who were riding those boats to D-Day stopped and went, ‘I feel so anxious about what we’re doing right now. I can’t breathe.’”
He’s come a long way since those days of playing in front of 35 people. Billy Gardell is finally playing in front of the crowds he deserves.
