Skip to content
Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy

Please Hold Me

Matt Braunger

Album · 2020 · 53 min

An audio-only hour about the indignities of growing older.

Listen free on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Matt Braunger excels at finding the exact point where a grown man’s dignity completely disintegrates. On Please Hold Me, he leans into the transition from a messy, hard-drinking youth to the domestic stability of marriage, contrasting his wilder past with his current reality. His best moments come when he treats his own aging like a slow-motion car crash, particularly when explaining why his remaining single, hard-partying friends now feel less like peers and more like chaotic toddlers he is responsible for keeping alive.

The hour represents a deliberate return to basics for Braunger, who released this exclusively as an audio album in early 2020. Recorded over New Year’s weekend at the Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington, Vermont, the set captures a loose, energetic club performance. Rather than polishing everything for a multi-camera television shoot, Braunger keeps the pace tight and conversational, allowing his self-deprecating storytelling to take center stage.

Much of the material centers on the awkward adjustments of his career and personal life, such as the panic of accidentally swearing on a Disney television set and his ongoing bewilderment at receiving bizarre texts from his aging parents. He also dedicates a memorable chunk of the set to former NFL star Rob Gronkowski, examining the athlete’s lovable, giant-golden-retriever energy with affectionate bafflement. The release through 800 Pound Gorilla Records marked his first pure audio-only album in over a decade, a choice he made to keep the focus entirely on the rhythm of the jokes rather than the optics of a stage production.

The set list

5 bits

  1. Accidentally dropping untimely obscenities while on the set of a Disney show

    Self-effacing autobiographical recount of an inappropriate workplace blunder.

  2. Fascination with Rob Gronkowski

    Dissecting the lovable dopiness of the former New England Patriots star.

  3. A belligerent man taking a taxi to chase a bus

    Riveting character narrative illustrating petty, angry public drunken behavior.

  4. His wife embarrassing him in public

    Comedic exploration of marital dynamics and awkward public interactions.

  5. Texting with his parents

    Observational humor on generational communication and family relationships.

How it plays

Tone
Viciously funny, self-deprecating, and observational.
On stage
Enthusiastic, animated, and relatable autobiographical storyteller.
Pace
Comedically efficient with minimal fat or dead space, driven by animated physical tempo and energetic delivery.
About
marriage and married life, texting with parents, Hollywood blunders and TV set etiquette, aging into your 40s, unruly or drunk behavior in public, cannabis tolerance

What the critics said

Praised for high comedic efficiency, tighter editing, and Braunger's reliably engaging and animated performance, though early tour reviews noted looser joke crafting compared to his more technical earlier specials.

In the room: Unifying and communal room response built to engage listeners through relatable, high-stakes storytelling.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: vanyaland.com, skipclips.com, earwolf.com, fountain.fm, mattbraunger.com, exclaim.ca, en.wikipedia.org, omny.fm.

Backstory

Reflects personal milestones including married life, aging into his 40s, and experiences working on Hollywood and Disney television productions.

Details

Released
Taped
2018, Vermont Comedy Club
Runtime
53 min
Topics
Before
Finally Live in Portland (2019)

More from Matt Braunger

If you liked this