Joe Mande

Joe Mande is quick to let the packed out Giant Dwarf know that normally he prepares a couple of city-specific jokes by walking around town for a day, but all he wrote down about Sydney was that "it seems like a nice place to live" and "there are a lot of Asian teens". He's sardonic, self-deprecating and often meta, pointing out that he can be very a low-energy comic, which is why he's prepped on stage with a very Tom Haverford-like app of kitsch sound effects on his iPhone — sporadically he bangs his finger down to play a cheesy foghorn sound, or a gunshot, or a "suck my dick!", that Mande admits makes him feel like a rapper. 

Rappers and hip hop artists are a topic of obsession for Mande — he admits he's seen Kendrick Lamar seven times this year and delves into his theory that the rapper is a secret statistician. He exhibits his own brand of offbeat comedic pace and timing, using pauses and deadpan expressions to his advantage, though this contrasts heavily to a really punchy, L.A. hipster persona he often adopts. Stories about his younger days as a Jewish teen druggie doing "dabs" and Californian medical marijuana go down well with the crowd, especially when he describes how he forgot to breathe. 

Like he explained in his interview with The Music last month, Mande is a heavy social media user (though he uses it somewhat ironically) and pulls from his experiences to rag on Russell Crowe's tweets about his workout regime — "does he think it's his personal assistant?" Other celebs that found themselves in front of the gun include Rebel Wilson (USA really don't like her, apparently) and Macklemore, "the world's worst rapper" and "the Jared Leto of hip hop". All in all, a great show from a guy who acts like he doesn't know what to do up on that stage, but really does.