madbaker | Foil, Arms and Hog

We saw them live last night. I decided that would be a fun birthday present. They're an Irish sketch comedy group that has been around for a while; the wife sent me one of their videos some time back and I have been sporadically watching them.

After a few hiccups getting a cab, we got there and made it through the metal detector. (Followed by a wanding - which seems repetitive.) The show started and they mixed in sketches and improv work with the crowd. Not "give us three words" improv but interacting with certain people. They couldn't get the town name "Orinda" right -- they kept calling it "Orinn-dee." They also struck comedy gold with a 14-year-old in the audience.

The only sketch I had seen before was "Three Drunken Monks", which happened to be the one the wife sent me. It was still funny.

We didn't try to brave the crowd for their merch table afterwords. While I like the T-shirt having a pig on it, I don't need any more T-shirts... and didn't want to stand there for an hour just to say "Thought you were great." It was a good 90-minute show though.