Michael Che Headlines a Busy (But Distanced) Parking Lot in LIC
Comedy fan Brian Martin headed to Long Island City this Sunday to see Michael Che in a pop up parking lot performance. He sent us a report from the show. Photos by Christine Evans (except where noted)!
Michael Che and a bunch of his comedy friends delivered comedy to a packed parking lot on Sunday. He was joined by DJ Don Will, Cipha Sounds, Rosebud Baker, Petey DeAbreu, & Nimesh Patel before winding up the show just improvising and conversation with buddies Joe DeRosa and Big Jay Oakerson.
This all went down in a big parking lot in Long Island City. It was attended by hundreds of mostly masked fans and protestors. The news of the show came late Sunday morning, while most of New York was either heading out to demonstrate or figuring out how to fill day 86 of lockdown. Brian’s family was checking out justiceforgeorgenyc on Instagram to see if there were any walking distance protests when they came across something a little different, a listing that said Michael Che at 4pm, and an address. “We put on our shoes, filled up our water bottles, packed our gloves, put on our masks, and started walking south from our Astoria, NY apartment. The Che show was 2.7 miles to our south,” Brian told us.
The weather was perfect, the growing crowd was diverse- there were children, and dogs and signs and protestors, comedy fans and SNL fans of all ages, races and ethnic backgrounds. The site of the show – a parking lot – hosts the LIC Flea & Food Market in pre-pandemic-protest times. Today it was filled with people sitting down, socially distancing as much as possible, while hiphop played over the loudspeakers. We arrived just as they closed the gates, and we were on the outside of them; the lot finally reaching what they considered safe capacity. That was no problem. We could hear the music fine. The sidewalks and streets around the lot proved to be a great mezzanine. And the multi-tiered parking garage directly facing the show soon became perfect balconies.
Photo via @rebelcave by Mindy Tucker. See more by scrolling through @rebelcave post below.
The crowd was seated on the ground, like kids waiting for a concernt. At 5:00 Cipha Sounds — came out to host and perform. He had a mic and the entire block could hear him perfectly. Rosebud Baker, Petey Deabreu and Nimesh Patel each did about 10 minutes, all pretty topical, and all saying how happy they were to once again have an audience. It was their first time back on stage, and everyone fessed up to feeling wobbly comedy legs as they performed from the back of a beat up old pickup truck, which served as the stage.
Photo by Brian Martin
Michael Che came out to a roar of cheers and applause sporting a pink hoodie and a bright smile. Che stepped out onto the bed of the pickup and slowly and methodically shared his thoughts with the crowd. It all felt straight from the heart and off the cuff. Each observation found its mark, some faster than others. And you could feel that we were all happy to feel some relief from the rough past weeks. Che made sure to mention that this show was not supposed to stop any momentum for the growing protests and marches of solidarity, but rather represented a short break from all of it, and that, after the show, we should all continue making our voices heard in the streets. (He also pleaded a few times to please not post any videos of the set on Instagram, which to me felt strangely comforting, being a familiar request from a past era).
After his set, he turned around and started asking for “Jay.” I fanboyed out, hoping that he meant Big Jay Oakerson. He did. Big Jay and Joe DeRosa then joined Che on the truck and talked about whatever the hell popped into their heads. It was familiar, Jay dancing on the edge of race topics, DeRosa trying to get a few shots in and then lamenting how painful bombing at a rally felt. All three made fun of what the others were wearing.
All the comedians were working for free. The show itself was free. The owner of the lot and art space (Culture Lab LIC) hosted the event for free. And all proceeds from the food and beverages sold within the lot were being donated to charity, as announced by Che. Culture Lab LIC is new nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the development of art, theater, music and community services in western Queens. Donated by the family-owned Plaxall Inc., the 12,000-square-foot converted waterfront warehouse located on the Anable Basin in Long Island City is home to three art galleries, a 90-seat theater and an outdoor event space.
We left at that point, to get ahead of the crowd, Covid fears still very much present in our mind. We sanitized our hands, threw away our finished, to-go sangrias we had purchased from a place a block away, and started the walk back to Astoria, enthusiastically discussing just how fucking great it was to laugh with other people again.
Near the end, Che thought out loud about doing this kind of show here every week. The crowd all voted YES, doubtless hoping for something to look forward to once again. Maybe the future of live comedy is in parking lots.
/fin
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