Fred Armisen: Standup For Drummers

2/7/18. I didn't know what to expect from a Fred Armisen standup. Oh, yes, I do in a way. I have watched him for years on SNL. This was like watching him playing Garth (without Kristen Wiig's Kat). Basically, he was all over the place, with occasional funny bits. The only saving grace was when he talked about and played his drums. He is actually quite a good drummer. Nice he had other drummers do their thing, especially Shiela E. So, it's a toss-up. Watch it if you like his humor, or watch it if you like drums.

A show about drummers, sounds great! Oh dear... After a few somewhat decent impersonations of famous drummers, he decided to imitate nearly every single American accent, following -yes- a map. I'm not english native, but I promise you, it was pittiful. He then loses himself in a serie of unconnected 'should be jokes' to end up shivering on the floor, impersonating a dying fox, through time-lapse. Although I admit the idea seems unconventionally interesting, it was unfortunately poorly executed. Yes, we didn't talk drums for the past 20 mins now, and I don't even seem to understand what we've been talking about. There it goes, showing us the pier in the crowd full of drums from every decades... but playing 4 bars on every kit with an unconvincing storyline has certainly not quench our thirst. Surprise, some famous guests! Perhaps it is not the end!? But it is one thing to embarrasse yourself, quite another to take some of the best drummers in the world down with you. Even as a drummer, you shouldn't bothered, quite sadly.

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.

This reminded me of the drum clinics and workshops I attended as an excited little drummer kid in the 90s and early 2000s. Definitely a drummer's sense of humour throughout, though other musicians would probably be able to relate to some of it too.

It did get a bit too random at times. Fred Armisen was funniest and best when talking drums and music. But then all of a sudden he turns around and starts doing accent impressions and just really bizarre, not-so-funny standup away from his music theme. It seemed lost and was full of cringe.

Loved anytime a drumkit was playing, especially the 'drumkits through the ages' segment. Recommend for all drummers out there!

This is the first time I've ever made a review on IMDB. I was so utterly shocked at how bad this special is that I felt the need to share with the world my repulsion.

Full disclosure: I only made it less than halfway through this special. I kept waiting for it to get good, or for there to be even a single funny joke. There wasn't. Nothing Fred Armisen says or does during this special is worth watching or listening to. The thing is, I know that Fred Armisen is a drummer, a perfectly fine drummer with a few decades of experience. Of course, he's a very well known comedian, with plenty of funny work under his belt. So this should be a no-brainer. Drum jokes? Sure! They should come naturally for Fred Armisen.

Except exactly none of this special feels natural for him. All of the drum-related jokes are remarkably low-brow surface-tier observations that could be made even by non-drummers, assuming they've spent more than 5 minutes talking to or listening to a drummer. Strangely, most of the jokes seem dismissive of aspects of drumming that are clearly taken seriously by most drummers. He compares selecting cymbals to "testing fine wine," making fun of drummers by saying that at the end of the day, they're all just cymbals. Being a drummer for as long as he has, I would expect him to recognize that there actually is an incredibly wide variety of sounds of cymbals, and that's one of the joys of the art of percussion. Early in the special, he says that he's critical of jazz music because he can't remember the melodies after the songs end. WTF??? Anybody who has spent any time seriously thinking about jazz would know that that is not the intended takeaway of a lot of jazz, and it's incredibly shallow of him to both have that opinion and think that an audience full of jazz drummers would find that funny.

He also fills this special with very mediocre and boring "impressions," which don't really add anything at all, and just seem to reinforce his inability to come up with anything witty or observant to joke about related to drumming.

This is a stunningly bad special. Do not watch it.