Last week while I was in Ohio, I saw Weird Al’s show and the opener was Puddles Pity Party. I’ll write about Weird Al tomorrow, this post is going to be about Puddles. I’m going to start by saying, he was amazing, and if you get a chance to see him, do it!
His show is what a variety act (magician/juggler/etc) should look like for an arena show (about 10,000 people). He did a show that was all singing; he didn’t speak. In the show, there were gags and audience volunteers. His structure was great: a song or two, then a song that, at the end, went right into him bringing someone up from the audience who did something during a song. Then that patter repeated.
It was interesting that after his song, he had a graphic and recorded tune when he went into the audience. The audience didn’t applaud at the end of the song as he went into the audience. I really liked that approach; it kept the energy up. It wasn’t like a thing ended, but it was an extension of the previous thing. That’s kinda like my current Nest of Envelopes routine.
The use of projection was great in this venue, there was a screen at the back of the stage and two on the sides. The two sides had video projection of him, and the one at the back had graphics/recorded video that played. The graphics or recorded video did a great job of enhancing the mood of the song he was singing.
I highly recommend this show to see what a club style magic show might look like in an arena!
-Louie