Fred Armisen: Standup For Drummers

Fred Armisen is a funny guy. I'm not sure who found the patently unfunny lame a$$ Armisen impersonator to perform this show, but that person should be punished. I thought the show couldn't suck any harder after Tres Cool left the stage, but Fake Fred actually did the "drum soundcheck" bit that literally everyone who ever played a gig has parodied only 1,000 times. In case my comments haven't been sufficiently clearly expressed, this was one of the crappiest pieces of entertainment I have EVER consumed - and I once saw a Tom Green movie by mistake.

Not your typical comedy special. I got the impression that this was a collection of drum related humor that he had come up with over the years that made him laugh but he couldn't use at the time because it was too esoteric. I don't know that to be true, it's just what it felt like. Kind of random and disjointed.

I am guessing Fred Armisen knew this would not be particularly popular but did it anyways as a passion project. I think the results were mixed. If you like Fred Armisen or the drums (preferably both) give it a shot.

Fred starts off with a familiar tone that one would expect from him but continues on with lazy joke writing and overdone gags. Many of the "relatable" jokes for drummers seem to be just "You know when..." and "Don't you just hate it when (insert relatable thing for drummers)" All in all one can see he is a talented comedian but his attempt at trying to be niche seem to have failed in my opinion.

I wanted to like this but just didn't feel it, just like Fred doesn't get Zydeco and Jazz. When he's not overworking the snide irony, some parts of this are pretty funny or interesting, but over all it seems underdeveloped and disorganized rambling with lists of petty gripes, and some experiments in Andy Kaufman land. Its all in the title folks.

I'm a drummer and standup fan and this special let me down on both accounts. Topical drumming observations that often don't ring true, jazz bashing, pretty weak standup bits, and some drumming shoehorned in. Guy is a good enough drummer but this special just didn't really work.

Edit: Also, he has his 3 guest drummers all on drumsets at the end and you think they're going to do some cool soloing or trading fours or something but then they literally just play the same simple rock beat for like 3 minutes... It'd be like if you had 3 professional guitar players come out and play the "Smoke on the Water" riff over and over. What a waste!