Eddie Ifft: Things I Shouldn’t Have Said
Eddie Ifft @ Mercury Cinema
9:30pm, Fri 12 Mar 2010
Over the past couple of years I’ve managed to catch Eddie Ifft in ensemble shows three times; and each time, his crude humour and uncompromising attack has left me impressed. So when the opportunity to see him perform a full hour set came along, I jumped at the chance.
And, unsurprisingly, there wasn’t much difference between short-form Eddie Ifft and long-form Eddie Ifft.
And that’s just fine by me. He’s still got a very casual manner on stage, which nicely contrasts with some of the depravity that comes forth from his mouth; challenges and apologetic shrugs are issued equally to the audience. Besides the almost-expected bad-taste (but guiltily funny) forays into rape and kiddy-fiddling, the other choice takeaways from his set this evening involved the Sex Offender app for the iPhone, his drunk airline pilot bit, and a story about his dog and a condom. And his segment on names in strip-clubs is priceless.
So – Eddie Ifft. Crude, confrontational, friendly, bloody funny. That may sound a little contradictory, but it’s not.
Afterwards, Eddie hung out in the foyer of the Mercury, selling his CD. Knowing full well that this is the big revenue maker for many artists, I snaffled one; I mentioned the first time I’d seen Ifft (where some woman in the audience had heckled him with a serious political question), hoping he’d smile with recognition at the incident. Instead, all I saw were crazed get-this-guy-away-from-me eyes.