The Age of Spin: Dave Chappelle Live at the Hollywood Palladium

He brought it back and slapped all these millennials in the face with it. Welcome back brother!

Dave Chappelle manages to go into some pretty heavy topics and still make it funny, without it being awkward. Great pacing. Great crowd. Funny jokes.

This was a great way of showing that Dave Chappelle still has it.

Dave Chappelle is undoubtedly a modern day great of standup comedy. The age of spin: Dave Chappelle live at the Hollywood palladium 2017 is one of the cleverest, most relevant comedy shows I've ever watched. He's not just sharp, he weaves in the current climate of anger and disappointment into issues dividing the people, like discrimination over race, gender, etc. He looks at complex and complicated issues like the OJ Simpson trial and Bill Cosby rape allegations and traces the history of rights movements, the world war, the ensuing cold war, the change in social and cultural roles, brilliantly. He reminds us that when idols fall, what we should never ignore is the contribution they have invariably made over decades, visible and invisible, that have touched the lives of millions, and not dismiss them outright or judge them as easily as we do. Dave Chappelle, in his comeback, shows that what made him such a massively popular star in the field of entertainment two decades ago, is very much alive in him. He is relevant because he stays relevant not just because he choses topics that are current, but because he has an acute sensitivity to history and contemporary social currents, which he merges brilliantly with his acerbic, irreverent mind to create entertainment that makes us laugh out loud, but also, lingers in our minds much later, making us think deeply.

He'll have a place in entertainment as one of the legends of comedy.

It has been 10 years since Dave Chappelle has done a show in L.A. This was filmed in the Hollywood Palladium. He mentions the recent death of Garry Shandling placing the show in March 2016. He is funny, insightful, original, and edgy. The show takes on transgender, disenfranchised politics, O.J., and most of all Bill Crosby. Each one is tackled with a special side spin. The gay jokes are almost from an earlier era. I wonder if he's joking about the jokes or serious about the joking. The O.J. stuff is probably the easiest to digest and the most fun. The Bill Crosby through-line is probably the most personal. It is the conflicted musing of a younger man about his fallen hero. He also has some sly fun about Key & Peele. Chappelle is always smart and one hopes to glimpse a part of that brilliance through his work. A general comment about Netflix doing these standup shows. It would be more compelling to have the shows be more up to the minute although this one and 'Deep in the Heart of Texas' are most compelling for Chappelle.

I wasn't overly taken by the first of the new Netflix specials (well, first that I watched – they are not in an order). The Age of Spin is better in the most part. The routine has a good flow to it, and when he touches on subjects they tend to be more of interest and informed than many of the Heart of Texas jokes, which seemed to revolved around crudity too often. He does still get into rape, transgender issues, gender equality, and other sensitive subjects – and of course he does not go into them gently, but he mostly explores within them in a way that is interesting rather than directly offensive, and most importantly, is funny.

You can see in the audience a lot of times where individuals went beyond what they were comfortable with, and I did too; however, this is why I liked it – he didn't just blurt out offensive things, but rather the material was a journey where he perhaps lost some people on the way, but at the same time it was still a fun journey. I continue to not see him as esteemed as others do, but he is a great showman, and this show was pretty strong. Repeating motifs, well- observed, engaging structure, and of course with Chappelle being a presence in the middle. Easily the better of the two recent specials.