Team Coco

So, last night I, along with my OMB friend Amanda, went to see Conan O'Brien perform at the Hult Center in downtown Eugene. The show last night was the first on Conan's "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television" tour.

Kristi Turnquist of The Oregonian wrote a pretty good article covering the show. I'll use this article as a basis for my own recap of the night.

The tour came about after Conan's 17-year career at NBC ended in January, when he left the network rather than give Jay Leno his time slot and push "The Tonight Show" back to 12:05 a.m. Among the conditions of his walk-away deal: Conan is legally restricted on how negatively he can talk about NBC, and he can't return to television until fall.

The aforementioned return became a reality the morning of the performance, when news broke that Conan had made a deal with TBS to have a late-night show starting in November.

The show included many classic elements from Conan's two previous late-night shows, including: Andy Richter, LaBamba and the band (minus Max Weinberg), the masturbating bear, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, "Walker Texas Ranger" (including a special guest handle-puller, Jack McBrayer from "30Rock"), and even a musical guest: Spoon, who had performed minutes before at the nearby McDonald Theatre.

Amanda and I got to the Hult around 7:45 p.m., 15 minutes before the show was scheduled to begin. The lobby was packed. After purchasing a white shirt emblazoned with "Team Coco" in orange and dark gray lettering, I entered the hall just in time to see a guy with a giant Afro going crazy with his own unique mix of voice changing, beatboxing and plenty of explicit, raunchy lyrics. Although I didn't catch his name, the Oregonian article identified the performer as Reggie Watts, who has previously performed at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art TBA Festival.

A short intermission followed Watts. Then, the lights went down and Richter's voice made several crazy announcements. Then, the lights came up, and the band started playing and walking through the audience. The sellout crowd went nuts.

On a giant video screen above the stage, a video began to play. In it, Conan, with overgrown hair and a huge gut (reminiscent of the "strike beard", only more ridiculous), moped around the house until he got a call about a 32-city national tour. "Am I in shape? ... Yes I am!" Then followed a montage of Conan cleaning up and working out, and the video finished with him looking into the camera and saying "I'm ready. Let's do this!"

Then Conan came out. He looked pretty good, although I'm not a huge fan of the beard. The audience got to its feet, clapping, cheering and chanting his name.

He opened by welcoming the audience and announcing that he has a new job. He said starting tomorrow "I'll be the assistant manager at the Eugene Banana Republic." He asked how people felt about his beard, adding that some people think he looks like "Paul Bunyan with an eating disorder." This tour, he continued, is a "huge milestone for me," because "believe it or not, this is the first time anybody's ever paid to see me."

All of the time off, he said, allowed him to reflect and take a good look at himself. He also said he went to therapy and learned "The Five Stages of Grief Over Losing Your Talk Show," starting with denial, proceeding to "Blame Myself" and "Blame Everyone Around Me," and finally, pull yourself together and "Get your ass to Eugene, Oregon."

About halfway through the show, Conan announced that the tour needed a "wow moment" and introduced "the inflatable bat from Meatloaf's 'Bat Out of Hell' tour." After the giant bat was fully inflated and towering over the stage, Andy and Conan commented. "Look at the teeth," Conan said, in dismay, about the colored triangles that were supposed to be fangs. "It's like a used-car lot," Andy said. "That's the least threatening bat I've ever seen!" Conan added.

Another highlight was when Conan announced that he wanted to have "an intimate conversation" with the audience of more than 2,000 people. Conan would say something, and the audience responded by reading, in unison, lines shown on the video board. This resulted in Conan walking over to LaBamba and licking his face passionately, to the delight of the audience.

Near the end of the show, Conan thanked his fans for all their support, and played a cover of Cake's version of "I Will Survive." The show ended with an encore, during which Conan walked out into the audience and interacted with his fans. Four giant, bright yellow beach balls were thrown out into the audience, and it ended like one giant party.

It was, quite possibly, the best Monday night I had ever had during a school year.