Recapping Shane Gillis & Martin Urbano At Moontower Comedy Festival 2024

Photo credit: Maggie Boyd & Dylan Woodley.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. The same goes for Austin’s Moontower Comedy Festival, which is wrapping up their 2 weeks of lineups today. Our third and final recap from last weekend features two very distinctive voices in their respective field.

As an audience member, you may not realize just what it takes to carve out a specific persona for yourself. That’s just as important as facilitating the jokes themselves in some aspects. You need to find a way to stand out. And both of the comedians we are recapping today have managed to find their respective audience as a result.

While all of the other comics were right next door to each other for the first week of the fest, Shane Gillis was the exception. He sold out the H-E-B Center arena outside of Austin. And he brought some big draws along with him, including Jeff Ross (who wasn’t planning on going onstage and was high on mushrooms), Tony Hinchcliffe, and Matt McCusker.

Gillis has been getting a lot of attention for a few years now, but this moment especially seems pretty big for him. This was on the heels of his Netflix special last year and his Saturday Night Live hosting stint. As Gillis walks onstage, it doesn’t seem like he’s letting all that pressure getting to him. He’s handling the transition into being an arena comic with certain ease. Onstage, he talked about what goes into picking an intro song, why he should be a high school football coach, accidentally sending nude Snapchat photos, when you stop being friends with your mom, and opening a Downs Syndrome coffee shop. (As well as a joke that Lorne Michaels wouldn’t let him tell in his monologue).

There was also anticipation for Gillis to talk about Trump. His Trump impression has become a trademark by now, so much so that he assured a fan who shouted out for it that he’d be getting to it. He didn’t disappoint that fan, as he discussed the opening debate, saying “The boys are back. And neither of them are doing better.”

If there’s an earnestness to Gillis onstage, there’s anything but when it comes to Martin Urbano. If you’ve never seen Urbano’s stand-up before, it’s far easier to explain by recommending you watch a few clips first.

By design, Urbano’s act consists of a persona that doesn’t necessarily translate well to reading. That’s because the beauty of what he does is in the delivery, as he satirizes the “bro culture,” misogyny, and much more that you need to witness in order to fully grasp what he’s doing. In an era where we’re seeing more confessional comics taking the stage, Urbano feels like a throwback to the satiric and ironic detachment of stand-up from years past. And he totally commits to it from the jump.

800 Pound Gorilla was in Austin to tape Urbano’s new special with Spencer Griffin and Originator Productions, which will be released at a later date. It was everything you could ask for from a stand-up special. A crowd comprised of fans and people discovering Urbano for the first time, which only makes the reaction to the material that much better. Perhaps the highlight is when a white spotlight hits him as he sits on a stool and spends 15 minutes sending up that confessional stand-up road we’ve seen more and more comics going down. We definitely recommend checking out some clips of Urbano prior to his new special!