Tommy Dassalo – Buckwild
Tommy Dassalo @ Format – Jillian McKeague Space
9:30pm, Wed 9 Mar 2011
I’d inadvertently caught Tommy Dassalo last year and, whilst being relatively pleased with the show, I didn’t feel compelled to pencil him in again this year. But I was having such a good evening that when my company suggested zinging down to catch Dassalo’s show, I couldn’t say no. So we left CitySoul, grabbed a burrito at Gluttony, jumped in a cab and arrived at Format with plenty of time to spare.
Dassalo and venue-mate Bart Freebairn were working the upstairs of the venue, milling about with the youngsters that were hovering around the bar. After snaffling a couple of beers, we ducked into the performance space, parking ourselves on a couple of tyre/cushion seats to consume our burritos (delicious!). Eventually the crowd started filtering down and we all scootched into a corner of the space; it was almost like we were watching a show in someone’s living room, with Dassalo performing with his back to the TV.
A lot of Dassalo’s material was familiar to me from last year; he’s a young fella (comparatively), so there are a lot of just-moved-out-of-home stories, along with the expected stories of women, booze, and drugs. In fact, the only material that seemed fresh to me were his repeated references to “this crack den of a venue”… but, in my happy state of mind, I was fine with that. He’s got a very amiable style; there’s a hint of shyness in his delivery, but there was nothing there that got me offside.
Was it a stellar show? Most definitely not – but it was a pleasant enough experience, amiably shared with a clutch of people half my age. And, on this day in particular, that was very much appreciated ;)