Laffy Taffy

Andrew Rivers treats everyday inconveniences like personal grievances. When picking apart the indignities of budget airlines, the sudden proliferation of fake service dogs, or the logic of cozying up to doomsday preppers just to steal their bunkers, he leans on the cadence of a road comic who knows how to keep an audience nodding along.

Recorded in Provo, Utah, as part of Dry Bar Comedy’s second season and released in March 2018, the 42-minute set was directed by Aaron Stephenson and later picked up for distribution by Comedy Dynamics. Rivers spent that period regularly touring alongside Steve Hofstetter and opening for Christopher Titus, sharpening a style designed to hold up in widely different rooms.

The clean restrictions of the venue never feel like a straitjacket here. Rivers moves easily into riffs on the cushiness of backup quarterbacks in the NFL, terrible self-defense advice, and the gun culture of neighboring Idaho.