I have to admit that when I was researching around YouTube for a post previewing Tom Wilson/Biff Tannen/Coach Fredricks' run at Helium this week, the preponderance of the "funny song" routine made me slightly trepidatious. It can be painful enough when a live comedian bombs, but for some reason the addition of an acoustic guitar compounds the awkwardness tenfold:

I attended last night's debut, the first of six sets Wilson will be doing through Saturday, and was relieved. Firstly, if anyone is in the casting stage of a Bill Clinton biopic, I submit that there may be no greater candidate for the lead role. Wilson had the audience completely under his control for the entire set, and used that power to... pick on them. Seriously, the dude is mean. Vicious. Or at least good at being typecast that way. He's also—thank god—fucking hilarious, even when he picks up the guitar, although having already seen him perform those songs online, that was the least exciting part of his set for me. If you were waffling at all about the possibility of seeing a beloved '80s idol fallen, and if last night's any indication (bolstered by great sets from opener Ian Karmel and another funny guy whose name escaped me while I was dealing with a salad order snafu) you have nothing to fear. It's well worth 10 bucks and the two-item minimum.