ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) —
How funny Joe Pera is may be slow to dawn upon his audience. That is, in part, by design.
Pera performed two stand-up shows at the Orange Peel music venue in downtown Asheville this week. The first, beginning at 8 p.m. Tuesday, June 8, was jam-packed. The second, at 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 9, was sold out. Asheville showed out for “The Peras Tour.”
I met Pera in the green room — a clean and neatly decorated space — at the Orange Peel. There are comfortable and unobtrusive seats, a few tasteful wall decorations and plentiful natural light from the window. The room, in fact, is a perfect match for Pera.
The comedian sat in front of a tub of hummus and baby carrots. I asked him how his Tuesday morning had been in Asheville.
“Good,” he said. The answer was presented as a simple fact, not curt or unfriendly.
I asked him what he had gotten up to before he arrived at the Orange Peel.
“I took a nice long walk, saw some horses, worked on some material,” Pera reflected. “Yeah, that was pretty much it.”
He was staying in a cabin in North Asheville.
“It’s, wow, it’s like living in the 1800s,” Pera said. “I know that they built some of it afterwards, but the no AC really makes it feel authentic.”
This, in miniature, is the Joe Pera experience.
The comedian has a gift for turning the wholesome and mundane, like a long walk and farm animals, into a witty surprise. His jokes sneak up on you, not quite deadpan but not quite telegraphed. I found myself laughing at something he said, like the lack of cabin AC, a few seconds later than I should have, as though my brain needed to catch up to Pera’s slow delivery.
This is his style, he told me. Pera tells “good jokes at a gentle pace.”
“It’s not quite as in your face as another comedy show, but hopefully just as funny,” Pera reflected.
Pera has had success in recent years with a television series, “Joe Pera Talks with You,” which ran on Adult Swim from 2018-21, and a podcast, “Drifting Off with Joe Pera,” in addition to his last stand-up special, “Slow & Steady.”
His signature gentle comedy adapted well to each medium. In “Joe Pera Talks with You,” for instance, the Buffalo, New York, native played a Midwestern version of himself who would speak directly to his audience about quiet, unassuming subjects. The 11-minute episodes include titles like “Joe Pera Talks You Back to Sleep,” “Joe Pera Takes You on a Fall Drive” and “Joe Pera Reads You the Church Announcements.” Their earnest pleasantness and Midwestern boredom are absurdly funny.
I asked Pera if he thought audiences in Southern cities like Asheville responded as well to the Midwestern humor as folks up North.
“I was wondering about that,” Pera said. “But I found that it didn’t really have the impact that I thought it would on the material. Stuff carried over pretty well. People have good senses of humor everywhere.”
It certainly seemed like the audience was enthralled during his show on Tuesday night.
Despite the preparation and careful consideration you might expect from a comedian with such a deliberate delivery, Pera had a remarkable amount of improvisation in his show. He made jokes about Asheville, other North Carolina cities and a show he had performed at the Orange Peel two years prior. Pera turned that previous show into a bit for the audience, referencing how rambunctious they were several times throughout his set.
“They were a very nice audience, I remember last time,” Pera told me. “But also, the late show got a little rowdy. I didn’t expect that on a Sunday night. But it was fun, it kept me on my toes. It’s a town that also likes to drink, which is good for comedy.”
It was then that Pera asked me about the craft brewery scene in Asheville. For a performer, he was a curious listener, too. In our interview and during his show, it felt like Pera had a genuine interest in the cities he visited.
It was also clear that Pera had a real appreciation for engaging with the crowd. If the first-person nature of his podcast and television show didn’t make that clear, his set certainly did.
More than one joke involved audience members answering questions, engaging with props –– the props in question deserve to be a surprise for his future performances, but were hilariously unexpected –– and coming up onstage with the comedian.
No matter how slow his delivery may have been, Pera was not worried about racing to the punchline.
“There’s always time for a good laugh,” he smiled.
Folks who are interested in the Peras Tour but missed the shows at the Orange Peel this week can check out Pera’s website, www.joepera.com/shows/, for remaining show dates.