BY: CLARE SAUSEN // In the sold-out Lincoln Theatre, Nathan Fielder came out on stage to the sound of Lana Del Rey’s hit song Born to Die. In his infamous monotone, he began to sing the tune in the most uncomfortable way one could possibly imagine. He stood with hands by his side and kept his eyes fixed on the stage below him the entire time.
After this very Fielder-eqsue opening, he began to crack improvised jokes about the specific crowd—from the unruly air vent crawling into the box seats to the fact that Simple Plan had played the venue the night before (whose songs feel “like they’re speaking directly to me”).
After his introductory bits, Nathan went over to the laptop on stage (revealing that the Nathan for You logo on the projector was an image he had pulled up in full screen) and began the “sneak peek” portion of the evening. The audience got to see the full first episode of the upcoming fourth season of the show. In order to preserve the surprise, I won’t go into details but I can reveal that it featured a fan favorite from a prior episode and took the joke farther than it had ever gone before.
After the episode, Fielder began the Q&A portion of the evening. He insisted that he “get to know” the audience members whose questions he answered, which led to three hilarious interviews where their questions were an afterthought. Ranging from vacation shirts to dating in DC, Fielder did what he did best—made everyone in the room incredibly uncomfortable.
My personal favorite Q&A session came from audience member Andy, the best sport of all time. What started as a seemingly innocent discussion about how he met his wife led to Fielder asking him when he got to each of the “bases” (and clarifying exactly what those are). For his time, Andy was rewarded a DVD of the first two seasons of Nathan for You, signed on the shrink wrap.
From there, Nathan showed the audience the DVD exclusive audio commentary featuring a fan favorite, the Bill Gates impersonator from seasons 1 and 2. The commentary, in typical Nathan for You style, was incredibly odd and uncomfortable—consisting almost entirely of the Bill Gates Impersonator talking on the phone to an AT&T customer service representative and reminiscing about a long-lost love. Fielder then promised that the Gates impersonator would come back next season “in a big way.”
Finally, we saw another exclusive clip from the upcoming season. Again, to keep the surprise, I’ll refrain from sharing details but I can say that the upcoming special “Nathan for You: A Celebration” will follow up with fan favorites from past episodes to see how they’re doing now. If that’s not enough to get you excited, Fielder also revealed that the season finale will be two hours long and is “unlike anything we’ve done before.”
It’s rare you’ll find a crowd that laughs uproariously at dvd commentary, Fielder’s dedicated fans were more than pleased with this incredibly unique and off-the-wall performance.