As I mentioned previously, I got tickets for An Evening With Kevin Smith in his hometown (well not exactly, but close enough) of Red Bank, NJ, which I went to over the weekend (and took a break from my current workload). Nature tried her hardest to prevent the wife and I from making it down there (Saturday was monsoon season in NJ for some reason), and it took almost 2 ½ hours to travel what should have been an easy 1 hour trip, but it was well worth the effort. The show was set up exactly like the Evening With Kevin Smith DVD, except that the place was full of Kevin’s friends (from before he made it big) and with a ton of Kevin Smith freaks who hang on his message board. We got there just before 8, and Kevin got on stage a couple minutes later. The first thing he said was that he wasn’t going to disappoint anyone, and will stay to answer every last question. Well, at around midnight, the wife and I had enough, and split (yes, wimps, I know), and I found out later that Kevin didn’t leave the stage until 4AM. Yes, I said 4AM, and even subtracting out an hour for the daylight savings time change, that still means he was up on stage for 7 hours. Talk about getting your money’s worth. And then afterwards, as promised, he headed over to his store, the Secret Stash, and signed copies of his new book until 6:30AM.
A lot of the questions were pretty lame, and anyone that has watched the DVD extras, or Evening With Kevin Smith should have known the answers, but Kevin usually interjected some new story or tid bit to try to keep it fresh.
Here are some of the things I remember:
- The lights went out for about 10 minutes (the storm) and Kevin was going to continue with a bullhorn, but the power came back on before it really got going.
- People up in the balcony kept falling, which was an on going joke. Either the stairs were really slippery, or there was some serious drinking going on.
- Some guy claimed to have stolen Walt Flanagan’s driver license about 2 years ago, and Walt had not replaced it yet.
- A bunch of idiots gave Kevin their driver’s license or IDs for some unknown reason.
- A girl, Corey, talked about how nervous she was asking her question, but then when asked to, jumped at the opportunity to sing "Stay" onstage.
- There were a bunch of new stories I never heard before (Beniffer stuff, Affleck/Spielberg/Lucas story, and a bunch of stuff of Kevin growing up in the Middletown, NJ area)
I had greats seats, and had a great time. I've got to get out and get a decent digital camera that can handle taking pictures in low light situations. I took a bunch of photos, but I'm not happy with the quality of any of them. I doctored up this one (done in Black & White ala Clerks):
If I wasn't so much taller then Kevin, I could be his stunt double.