Every year that Denis Leary takes the stage to commence another edition of Comics Come Home is a reason to celebrate in and of itself. But when it comes to the festivities and Avengers-level lineup that rounded out the event’s 27th go-around last weekend, the milestones of more than one local institution joined forces for a night that just might go down in the show’s history as the best one yet.
The familiarities were one thing, as a welcoming vibe of deja vu took over TD Garden on Saturday night (November 4) as Leary welcomed back a number of familiar faces like Bill Burr, Marc Maron, Robert Kelly, Alex Edelman, and of course, the one and only Lenny Clarke. But, as with every year, what truly brought the heat and set the bar impossibly high was the handful of CCH newbies — Rachel Feinstein, Tammy Pescatelli, Pete Davidson, and Worcester native Orlando Baxter — who cemented their own legacies in the show’s long-running history with expertly-crafted stories that prompted their own respective tsunamis of applause.
But even with all of the fanfare surrounding the generational comedy talents that took the stage, it can be argued that the room was loudest when Leary combined another momentous milestone with the nation’s longest-running comedy fundraiser by introducing a full lineup of legendary Boston Bruins players including Johnny Bucyk, Ray Bourque, Lyndon Byers, Jay Miller, Tuukka Rask, Milan Lucic, and the one and only Patrice Bergeron before a ravenous crowd who cheered on the gatekeepers of the Black & Gold’s 100-year legacy with an unparalleled passion and appreciation.
And that was all just before the first act of the night took the stage.
From the jump — or at least from the end of Cam and Paulina Neely’s customary welcoming preamble — the talent that took to the spotlight unsurprisingly rose to the occasion, and set off a three-hour laugh-a-thon that never once wavered or devolved into untethered chaos.
Starting with Baxter batting leadoff and setting the stage ablaze with stories of his days as a Worcester school teacher, Pescatelli’s advice on love and marriage, and Feinstein’s tales of what it’s like to be married to a firefighter, the night was off to a fabulous start. The gloriously raspy and all-wise Lenny talked his signature amount of shit about catholic school nuns and reflected on some recent health scares while donning a loud shirt, and Davidson wielded his often overlooked storytelling abilities as the evening’s star-studded lineup seemed to dwindle with an almost frustrating quickness. Of course, the frustration was only based in not wanting the night to end so soon, but Edelman made sure to make the most of the time that was left.
After having told Vanyaland before the show that “this is probably the thing I care about the most” since Comics Come Home was the first comedy show he ever saw as a young kid, Edelman seized his returning moment with a hearty dose of his critically-acclaimed hybrid brand of energetic and illustrious comedy, and within his 15 or so minutes on stage, fully encapsulated why his one-man Broadway smash hit Just For Us has been so successful over the course of this past year. Repping the “Mehfuh” magic, Bobby Kelly has become a fixture of the annual ha-ha hoedown in his own right, and showed exactly why once more with a no-holds-barred Molotov cocktail of observations and reflections that had fans of all shapes and sizes doubling over in their seats.
Marc Maron assumed the penultimate position in the show, and where it wasn’t high energy in the sense of Edelman or an all-out beatdown like Kelly, it was a uniquely potent Maron experience that put on full display the legendary chops of an artist who has burrowed deep into the abyss of pain and anger, and turned it into a cathartic and long-lasting piece of comedic therapy on more than one occasion.
Saying they “saved the best for last” during an event like Comics Come Home is nearly impossible, given the titanic star power that fuels the entire evening each year. However, when Bill Burr closes down yet another edition, and destroys with the same tenacity he’s operated with every year he’s been invited to be on the show, there’s very little question as to who may be considered the gold medalist of the CCH Olympics.
Without any semblance of a fuck to give, Burr wasted no time digging his heels into a flurry of topics, and brought out some fresh material while leaving some space for jokes and stories some may have heard throughout his number of visits to the area since taking over Fenway Park last summer, but it all hit as hard on Saturday night, if not harder in some aspects, as it did all those times before.
Depending on how you look at it, Comics Come Home is, in a lot of ways, the unofficial Super Bowl of the Boston comedy scene. But for an event that has raised more than $13 million for The Cam Neely Foundation since it’s inception in 1995, there is a palpable sense of humility and camaraderie amongst those who have taken the stage in support of the cause over the years, and as made evident once again this year, a very real sense of community and a belief that laughter can truly bring people together.