The Colbert Report

So I went to the Sep. 29th taping of The Colbert Report, freaking awesome as hell! Me and three others drove into New York from East Stroudsburg, For me it was the first time ever driving in a city environment and to add to things I was driving a big conversion van. We left around 3PM and rolled out of the Lincoln Tunnel around 5.

We made it to the line at 5:15 and checked ourselves in, they started handing out the passes around 30 mins later. I was #89 out of I think #110

After some more waiting and going over the rules, we were shuffled in one group at a time to go through security and chill in the waiting room. They had old episodes playing on a TV. Be for we got to go into the studio, a guy came out and briefed us on general audience behavior and how we were the soundtrack for the show. Then they started calling the numbers to go in, since we got there kinda late we were in the upper most row to the left of the big C desk. Quite a good view actually.

They had some popular music playing unit the warm up comic came out, he wasn't that bad at all played off the crowed very well and was quite funny. Then Stephen came out and the crowd went crazy! He proceeded to do a out of character Q&A, nothing new was really learned here but still awesome:

He is Catholic
He use to play D&D
He doesn't see him self as a political activist, He says he is just a comedian that plays off the news he is genuinely interested in.
And he has had professional singing training.

His interaction with the audience was very cool and funny, and after the singing question he started singing the bass vocals for The Star Spangled Banner, he then pulled his stage manager in and they sang the whole thing.

After the Q&A he got behind the desk and started flinging the Wriststrong bracelets into the crowd, I unfortunately didn't get one and another person got nailed in the face by one.

Then the taping starts, the crowd lets loose, the amount of energy during this whole thing was just incredible and insanely fun. The only cues for the crowd "to go crazy" were at the start and end of the breaks, the laughing and cheering during the segments is genuine. During the breaks between segments he would talk with his staff, get his hair fixed, dance, lip sync, and air drum from his desk, to give the audience a little something silly between takes. He did have a few screw ups, and when he did he would crack jokes with the crowd. At one point they had to do a re-shoot because Stephen just couldn't hold back from laughing while trying to deliver a line, which made everyone crackup.

The interview Steven Rattner was interesting, had good flow, and most importantly had some great laughing moments.

At the end the crowd gives one last crazy fit that continued past the cameras turning off, Stephen proceeded to take a bow and dance around for a bit be for thanking us for coming out and heading to the back. The overall taping was just shy of a hour.

It was some of the most fun I had in a while and totally worth the drive and wait.

The live experience of the show is just simply awesome, if you like the show and ever have a chance to see the taping DO IT you will not regret it my friend.