New York Comic Aaron Berg Shatters Record for Most Comedy Sets in One Night
New York comedian Aaron Berg set out to beat the record for most comedy sets performed in clubs on one night, and he not only broke the record he destroyed it. The old record of 13 was set by Steve Byrne in 2003 and documented in the film 13 or Bust. In Byrne’s documentary, fellow comedians Robert Kelly and Bill Burr agreed that 13 would be really difficult to pull off. Berg’s plan was to almost double the record with 23 sets in one night.
Berg knew he might miss one or two, because on any given night you could get bumped, or you might not make it to the club on time to do your set. But he not only met his goal of 23, he picked up two more for a total of 25 sets– all in comedy clubs, all in New York City.
Berg started his stand up marathon on September 12th, 2015 at Long Island City’s Creek and the Cave club at 4pm, which coincidentally is where I saw Aaron on stage for the first time. Born in Canada, Berg moved to New York three years ago and has sharpened his stage skills in New York’s great clubs. He looks– well at first glance, a little scary. Tatted up with big guns, something you don’t see often on the comedy stages. You might think he’d be more comfortable at the Jersey Shore than a NY Comedy Club. But Aaron is very at home on the stages of New York, and in fact, he has one of the best reputations in the city for lightning fast crowd work, a realm dominated by the likes of Dave Attell, Big Jay Oakerson and Rich Vos.
Attempting 23 sets in one night might be easier for Aaron because he doesn’t rely on material, and wasn’t likely to be repeating bits. But still, 23 sets at an average of 7 minutes a piece means he’d be doing over 200 minutes of comedy in one night– not easy even with crowd work. Adding to the fatigue factor,Berg had to make sure he got from club to club in time to do his sets — while navigating New York traffic. And there was one more added issue- Berg was being followed around by a documentary crew of 14 that included producer Erin Glass, director Matt O’Dowd, New York comedian Steve Marden and comedian and photographer Jon Asher. Two cars, multiple cameras shooting every moment from every angle, and everyone had to accompany Aaron throughout the city for the planned 11 hours.
Aaron Berg performing at The Stand
I joined Aaron and crew at stop #4. I had planned to meet the crew at stop #2 at 4;45 at a small club in the east village called Klimat. Klimat has open mics and other comedy shows every night of the week in their intimate basement showroom. I ran in at about 4:47 only to find out that Berg had just stormed out minutes earlier heading for club #3, the Upper West Side venue Stand Up New York. I checked out the small crowd of about 12, before deciding that an attempt to get uptown and back when I was already behind wouldn’t make sense, so I jumped ahead to meet Berg at club #4, Emilio Savone’s New York Comedy Club. There was a much bigger crowd there, easily more than 60 people on a late Saturday afternoon and there was an audition show going on with some pretty strong performances. But when Aaron came in, the energy he and his crew brought to the room overshadowed everything that came before him. The change in the audience matched Berg’s energy and he whisked out as quickly as he came in. I hopped into teamBerg’s minivan to join Aaron and crew, and it was like jumping onto a moving subway car. I followed team Aaron through their next 5 venues, Greenwich Village Comedy Club, a failed attempt to hit up a club that was closed for health code violations (I won’t mention any names), a long trek to get to The Stand, a quick hop over to Greenwich Comedy Club where we ran into Janeane Garofalo, and then a trip back to New York Comedy Club for another set, with a new audience.
Berg at Eastville Comedy Club
The crowds were all sizes, from a group of 3 to over 100, and Aaron never repeated a joke throughout the night. But each time, Berg changed the energy of the room. Berg was a pro on stage and entertaining the audiences never became an issue. The real difficulty, and very much a part of the challenge, was getting to the sets on time. The energy in the van was intense with quick interviews, small arguments about what was the best way to get from A to B, on the spot decisions about whether to skip a spot to stay on schedule, and constant phone calls to clubs to try to squeeze in extra sets. There were pop up problems like losing a driver at 10pm and needing a replacement (from my vantage point the driver had the most stressful job of anyone on the team), a sudden rainy downpour, figuring out how to squeeze in some food, and game time decisions to break out of the van blocks ahead of the destination to make a run for the club. Cameras and crew members would give chase, trying to keep up with a fast sprinting Berg, and invariably pick up random New Yorkers along the way excited to see what was happening.
Berg, stayed cool throughout. “The tension of going from set to set, which every comic in the city has, I had that feeling for eleven hours straight, where you’re like, I don’t know if I’m going to make it,” Berg told me. But he had mentally prepped himself and knew everything would work itself out. “New York comedy is very Jazz-like,” he said. “If you’re a few minutes late shit happens and there’s always other comics standing by so you know someone can go up.”
The excitement of racing from destination to destination, and the sheer New York-ness of all the different sized and shaped clubs made for an incredible evening, and after a total of six club visits, I was ready to hop off and leave Aaron and the crew to their organized but hectic rush through the city.
Berg with Producer Erin Glass
I missed watching Berg confront a stubborn sidewalker who wouldn’t move out of the way and obviously not knowing how determined Aaron was to stay on schedule. Berg said an attempt to elbow the dude out of the way resulted in a punch in the dick– the tip of his dick specifically– which slowed him up for a moment, but didn’t stop him.
I also missed an emotional moment after club #17, where Aaron officially broke the record. It was at the Comedy Village, also known as The Grisly Pear. “They brought me up and said this is his record breaking set, and the whole crowd started cheering,” Berg recalled. “I almost cried! Before I went on stage I started welling up.”
Berg hit the last stop, club LOL in Times Square close to 3am, and the crew took a moment to breathe in Times Square before Aaron grabbed an Uber home, where he celebrated by eating a half of a turkey burger, and going to bed. And he hasn’t stopped to take a break since. “The whole thing didn’t hit me,” he said. “I forgot about the record and thought oh this was cool. I woke up after 4.5 hours, not tired, and I’m like okay this is good, and I just kept going.” Since then he’s done AXS Comedy Live at Gotham, Roastmasters, the Hoboken Comedy Festival, and about 20 sets a week. He’s looking forward to taking a week off later this year, but for now, he’s still going. But that doesn’t mean the experience hasn’t changed him. After focusing on crowd work for the last couple years, Berg has decided to go back to doing material, and work on a new CD.
“I feel like because I’ve done so much crowd work– in that night especially– one week after that I was like, oh I should start doing material again. So I started tossing some ideas down,” he said.
The documentary team is in the process of filming some B-Roll and they’re expecting to start editing soon with an anticipated early 2016 release. The film when completed will be about much more than a comedian going for a record. Berg says the film will be a toast to the New York Comedy scene. And it will be, easily. With gorgeous shots of New York clubs big and small, and a look at what it takes to get around town to perform on New York’s various stages, this doc will undoubtably become a part of the New York comedy history archive.
But it will be about much more than just New York comedy, the film becomes about New York itself and all of its different energies. And we can’t wait to see it.
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