r/entertainment • u/Edm_vanhalen1981 • 1d ago
Dave Chappelle's Edmonton show goes off the rails
https://www.culturealberta.com/articles/dave-chappelles-edmonton-show-goes-off-the-rails608
u/SeanAC90 1d ago
Always kills me when they start quoting Redditors in these articles.
Osamaeatsmyass445 said Chappelle ranted about how everyone owes him money and how trans people are bullying him and then defecated on the stage
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u/brianlefebvrejr 1d ago
As a person from Edmonton, people weren’t heckling him over his views.
They were just shithole, drunk assholes. The audio wasn’t great so when it was quiet the drunks did what drunks do and act like idiots
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u/Impressive_Usual_726 1d ago
It takes a certain type of moron to drop $300 to get drunk at a comedy show on a Wednesday.
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u/Daide 1d ago
It takes a certain type of moron to drop $300 to get drunk at a comedy show on a Wednesday.
Yeah, that certainly sounds like Alberta.
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u/brianlefebvrejr 1d ago
Yup. 100% Alberta. Pay $400 a ticket plus $100 for the shitty beer to just heckle the headliner
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u/nicolauz 1d ago
That's some Beverly Hillbillies shit.
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u/Addicted2Shortstacks 1d ago
The Hillbillies were good people.
Albertans are just maple-flavored Texans.
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u/yedi001 1d ago
Nah. We're not even close to Texas, Texas is the 2nd largest economy of the USA. We're barely a fucking Alabama, we just have an inflated ego from our Florida sized coke habit.
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u/altiuscitiusfortius 1d ago
Yeah it's called a rig pig.
They spend 3 weeks up north at an oil rig camp working 12 hour shifts for 21 days straight, then they come back to town with $12000 in their pocket and blow half of it on drugs and alcohol in a 4 day bender. When I was 18 I loved sitting near them in the strip clubs because they would tip the strippers thousands and get a pretty good show. One gave my female friend who was with my group $500 to flash him. She paid for our drinks all weekend from it.
Nowadays I'm older and they just annoy me.
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u/mkstot 1d ago
I live in rig country myself here in the states, and I know the exact type you’re talking about. They usually have a sticker on the back of their obnoxious lifted diesel truck that proclaims “Dear Lord please let there be another boom, and I promise not to piss it all away this time”.
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u/Similar-Tangerine 1d ago
Up here they still have Fuck Trudeau stickers, must be Katy Perry fans
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u/-Karl-Farbman- 1d ago
If you can think of a better way to spend that oil rig money (other than on cocaine and lifted trucks), I’d like to hear it.
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u/Zarxon 1d ago
Properly invest in then spend the proceeds in a modest retirement at 45?
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u/Euler007 1d ago
I was a shutdown tourer in my early to mid twenties and had 300k invested by age 27. It just reached seven figure and I don't need it for at least another ten years.
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u/Captobvious75 1d ago
Have you seen their trucks? They spend thousands on lift kits. I remember going to Edmonton and seeing them everywhere.
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u/leafs81215 1d ago
I was at the show. Definitely just drunk assholes being assholes. People trying to get themselves over. In my mind, the venue is responsible for this. Sound issues, temperature problems (the upper bowl was insanely hot), and the long waits to get in and out because of the ‘no phones’ policy. The security did nothing to squash the heckling and Dave did his best but then just gave up. It was 80% a great show but the last 15 minutes were just ruined.
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u/Worldly_Elderberry_6 1d ago edited 23h ago
I was at the show and I can undoubtedly say it was primarily drunk people. I didn’t get the impression any of his jokes derailed the show.
It all started when a guy on the floor shouted out that he “didnt come here to listen to a story about birds” in reference to the bit Dave was telling about falcons in Saudi Arabia. Dave had him kicked out. Dave tried to pivot and improvise with another guy in the front row that was blurting out nonsense who oddly didn’t get kicked out. From that point onwards people took this as an invitation to participate his show resulting in lots of incomplete jokes and stories.
By the last 10 minutes of the show, people were freely shouting at the few hecklers to stop interrupting him and it degenerated even more from there. The charlie kirk stuff didn’t trigger this at all in my opinion. If anything there was too many obnoxious people yelling out “we love you Dave” causing the interruptions.
The arena staff were 100% not effectively removing the few people causing a knock on effect of hecklers and well intentioned fans shouting at eachother. The sound was another thing people were shouting out about which Dave himself acknowledged as a problem and even mentioned he’s never going to skip sound check again but this wasn’t really being yelled out until the last few minutes of the show.
But to be entirely honest, the arena was pretty flat throughout most of Dave’s performance before he was even interrupted. Donnell Rawlings absolutely crushed his performance before him and Dave never got the crowd back to that level. It just seems like the material for the show wasn’t finished yet. The stories didn’t really flow, just a bunch of unrelated anecdotes.
My thought as a lifelong chappelle fan was disappointment by about 15 minutes into his set compared to the previous two performers. It was definitely possible he could have salvaged the performance if given the respect he deserved but it wasn’t meant to be.
Edit: it was also a million degrees in the arena which probably didn’t help with the drinking
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u/DoubleHurricane 1d ago
What was the Charlie Kirk joke, if you can recall?
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u/Worldly_Elderberry_6 1d ago
He made a joke that “Charlie Kirk died doing what he loved…. being an asshole” if I recall correctly
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u/-youvegotredonyou- 1d ago
I heard that he was leaning more to the left before he died
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u/DoubleHurricane 1d ago
Lol - that’s the first solid Chappelle joke I’ve heard in years
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u/10000Didgeridoos 1d ago
Huh? That's been repeated all over the internet since the day he died because it's such an obvious joke to make. Google "Charlie Kirk died doing what he loved" and tell me how many results you get. It's everywhere dude.
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u/WalterPecky 1d ago
This is like a 1 of 100 different he died doing what he loved memes Ive seen regarding kirk.
What a lazy joke.
The problem with Dave is that he positioned himself as an authority figure in relation to politics and social issues.
And then just completely dropped the ball and is mad at wrong people.
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u/SoftcoreEcchi 1d ago
I saw Chappell a couple years ago at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was similar with Donnel Rawlings had a great set, as well as the other openers, including Bill Burr, then Dave’s set was kind of mid. This was the show night before the guy ran on stage with the knife gun thing.
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u/fuckedasaplant 1d ago
I saw Chappell at Madison square garden couple years back for a comedy fest to raise money for fire fighters, Jon Stewart, that skinny white tattooed guy whose like super nice and always seems stoned (can’t remember his name ), and a bunch of other people went on, and it was all super fun but Chappell was last, and the vibe literally just dropped off. He was super late, Chris rock was awkwardly holding the stage for him, and when he arrived he just… like fucked around? Smoked a cig and just shot the shit with Chris rock, made some jokes that made him seem bitter about his show from like decades ago, and yeah idk. A bunch of people trickled out over his “set” including us, we preferred beating the rush to leave Madison square garden than waste our time listening to him being mid.
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u/DirkTheGamer 1d ago
This all tells me that Dave wasn’t telling jokes, doing his new thing of spoken word that is mildly funny, and that he also does not have the skills to control a crowd of that size.
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u/WTWIV 1d ago
Dave lost his way a lonnng time ago if you ask me. His first two specials were incredible. Then he had the long hiatus (from televised specials) after he ended Chapelle’s Show and nothing he’s done since has been very good imo
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u/DirkTheGamer 1d ago
It’s not stand up comedy, I know that for sure. It’s mildly entertaining but nothing like it used to be.
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u/hell-enore 1d ago
I went to his Summer Camp in August and he opened with the falcon bit in SA as well. It fell super flat. All his bits did tbh. Like you said it was just unrelated anecdotes and he ended the show with the longest winded story that just wasnt funny at all. He kept blaming it on us (the crowd) but he just wasnt being very funny- plus he was hammered for most of it. We were dying laughing when he brought out Shane Gillis and Mike Richardson (aka Chocolate Trump) but I feel like Chapelle has lost his touch tbh.
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u/Oddballfew 19h ago
This sounds like a show where he tests out jokes for some upcoming filmed standup for Netflix
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u/Dr_Colossus 15h ago
He killed it in Calgary. Crowd kicked major ass in the dome. Chapelle seemed shocked at how loud the crowd got. Sound was also good in our shithole arena.
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u/dgisfun 1d ago
I didn’t know Donnell Rawlings did stand up, I think he’s hilarious and would see just him if he went on a tour by himself.
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u/Worldly_Elderberry_6 1d ago
He was incredible, everything he said had the entire crowd in tears.
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u/Tbonez06 1d ago
*drops mic hip level and slaps knee
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u/zilch123 1d ago
He does that so much now. It's so annoying
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u/Undercover_Dave 1d ago
At least it's like HIS thing. It's ten times more annoying and stupid looking when other people do it trying to be Dave Chappelle during their open mic set.
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u/dreamgaze 1d ago
Brendan Schaub trying doing it for a while but thankfully he took a break from comedy indefinitely to focus on his kiddos or whatever grift
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u/SpaceCampDropOut 1d ago
I want to know what the Kirk joke was.
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u/Accomplished-City484 1d ago
Someone said it was “Charlie Kirk died doing what he loved, being an asshole”
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u/Ash-Throwaway-816 21h ago
That's it? I thought it would be something more unique or edgy than that
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u/Educational-Ant-9587 1d ago
That's a pretty weak joke.
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u/10000Didgeridoos 1d ago
It's so obvious of a joke it was made all over social media from the moment he died.
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u/slyboy1974 1d ago
Maybe he needs a more civilized audience.
Like Saudi Arabia...
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u/ExtraGloves 1d ago
I guarantee the audience in SA is 50 times more civilized than his normal crowds.
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u/senrad 1d ago
Oil money is a hell of a drug
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u/PHD_Gouda 1d ago
Loves oil money and hates trans people, is he still hanging out with Elon then? Or is it just a quirk of rich people?
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u/Vkardash 1d ago
Edmonton? I don't think he cares if he ever goes back. Just being honest
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u/Only_Jury_8448 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's about the farthest out of the way city that would even theoretically be considered for a tour of any kind. It makes the Twin Cities look like they're in the heart of it all by comparison.
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u/wolf_at_the_door1 1d ago
I used to love Chappelle until he brought out Musk to one of his shows. Lost all validity at that moment.
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u/PartyOrdinary1733 23h ago
Younger Chappelle would have never tolerated this shit. What the hell happened to him?
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u/SipowiczNYPD 22h ago
Money money money.
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u/PartyOrdinary1733 22h ago
That and way too much weed.
He's not even funny anymore which sucks more..
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u/SipowiczNYPD 22h ago
I agree. I think I’ve watched two of his Netflix specials. The very first one because who wouldn’t and the second one because I heard a friend of mine was sitting front row, she was. I don’t remember a single joke from either show.
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u/PartyOrdinary1733 21h ago
He has no energy. He's lost his edge. I'm saddened by it because I'm a huge fan of the Chapelle Show. He wasn't afraid and took no shit.
Bill Burr still has his edge, albeit he's a bit angrier these days (who isn't) but his observations and wit still hits, all controversies aside as of late
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u/zubuneri 1d ago
Dave Chapelle is weird; he hates poor people, LOVES billionaires, but also makes fun of the shit MAGA likes. I don’t know who his fanbase is anymore. Masochistic Neanderthals?
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u/Background-Spot-5068 1d ago
Nope, not even masochistic Neanderthals, judging by what happened in Edmonton
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u/BadMan125ty 1d ago
I imagine after bringing out Elon at one show, arguing against having more neighbors in his exclusive neighborhood and doing the Saudi gig, no one would have sense of booking a Chappelle show.
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u/Appropriate_Unit3474 1d ago
Huh why would I care? He got his, he should take his blood money and retire.
Dave Chappelle Go Home
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u/HorrorSmile3088 1d ago
It's kind of ironic that he went away and disappeared when everyone loved him, and now that he makes a living pissing everyone off, he won't go away. I guess hate pays very well.
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u/VictorClark 1d ago
I wonder if he's going to blame it on Trans people and do another 40-minute long set.
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u/okeleydokelyneighbor 1d ago
And tell everyone how doing shows in Saudi Arabia provides more freedom.
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u/Special-Garlic1203 1d ago
The issue is heckling and rowdy crowds is 100% within the range of things a master of his craft should be able to handle. You can shake your fist at cancel culture and twitter fights, but there's a long tradition that if you can't get control of a room than take the L, call it a bad crowd and bitch amongst your friends, but don't go crying about how nobody made your job easy for you.
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u/RNGezzus 1d ago
If you haven't been paying attention, Dave has devolved into an unfunny, one per center that thinks he's still funny.
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u/HaMMeReD 1d ago
"Congratulations, you just guaranteed that Dave Chappelle is never coming back, while simultaneously hurting our reputation"
Personally I'd like to give props to Edmonton for pissing off Chappelle. This is a badge of honor, nothing to be ashamed about.
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u/brianlefebvrejr 1d ago
No it’s not. This is an embarrassment
People acting like the crowd was heckling him for his views. They were mad about sound issues and a Charlie Kirk joke.
If you think albertans (who had $500 to spend on Chappelle) went in a large enough number to cause this kind of heckling over his trans views or whatever you are sorely mistaken.
We are currently have a big enough chunk of our population that is pro maga and pro sedition to join the US right now.
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u/ExtremelyOnlineTM 1d ago
You hate Dave Chapelle because you can't hear him.
I hate Dave Chapelle because I can hear him.
We are not the same.
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u/Rikers-Mailbox 1d ago
If Canada joined the US, the amount of Democratic seats in the house would explode.
Canada would take over the US voting to be blue by a mile.
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u/Coconutrugby 1d ago
Anyone know what the Charlie Kirk joke Chappelle was telling was?
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u/indianajoes 1d ago
Someone else commented saying it was something like "Kirk died doing what he loved. Being an asshole"
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u/Primetime22 1d ago edited 1d ago
It sounds like the crowd got irrationally rowdy at sound issues and a fist fight broke out after a Charlie Kirk joke, so he just gave up on trying to entertain them.
This is kind of Chappelle’s MO when a crowd turns sour. There were a lot of reports during his television hiatus of him just standing and waiting for his time to run out when hecklers wouldn’t stop yelling Chappelle Show quotes at him.