Internet sensation Jon LaJoie - his musicvideos and fake commercials have been played millions upon millions of times on YouTube - made his U.S. concert debut Tuesday at Largo in Los Angeles, mixing live music, stand-up comedy, videos and an old-fashioned, analog power point demonstration. For a debut, this was a smartly shaped, well-paced hour.
Crowd was split between industry and rapid fans and, in a rarity for a debut, the entire room was laughing as rapped about his ordinary life, sang about his uncle's lack of genitals and explained, with crudely created graphics, how to become an Internet star.
The act, obviously in its infancy, is loaded with observations that veer toward the smutty and the sophomoric; sex, vomiting, masturbation, lesbians and pickup lines are piled on one another in an intentionally awkward manner, the nasty words and phrases leaping out out of seemingly benign sentences. His naivete is there to make the audience squirm.
The Montreal native is navigating a mighty crooked line that has been walked by a multitude of comic acts - there's Steven Wright, "The Aristocrats," Flight of the Conchords, Andrew Dice Clay and Dane Cook - yet never in this manner.
Among the tunes performed on acoustic guitar and his $25 keyboard were "Everyday Normal Guy" and the encore "Show Me Your Genitals" with an extraordinarily gut-busting "High as Fuck" in the middle of the show. He screened a good number of videos, several of which are not yet on YouTube, among them the classic "Pedophile Beards." (see below)
LaJoie, who is exploring TV and record company options, will return to Los Angeles at the end of October to play at Spaceland. Show is tentatively scheduled for the 21st.