After technical issues led to the cancelling of Trevor Noah’s much-awaited show in Bengaluru last week, the comedian has now shared details of the mayhem at the venue. Performing in Mumbai on September 30, he recalled his ordeal in Bengaluru with his trade-mark wit. He called the venue a “semi-permanent tent”, and said that the path leading up to it had dogs in cages. He also mentioned that the venue had poor seating arrangements and that the air-conditioning units were blowing “hot air.” Noah also spoke about the massive traffic jam in Bengaluru that day, in the middle of which some of the disappointed attendees trying to leave the venue even had food delivered to them right there, as they were stuck. Despite all of this, Noah said he would “definitely come back to Bengaluru”. “I won’t let that stop me,” he added, after extensively roasting the venue.
Noah is in India as part of his Off The Record Tour, and was scheduled to perform in three Indian cities – New Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai. Both the Bengaluru shows on September 27 and 28 were cancelled soon after he arrived at the venue – Manpho Convention Centre in Nagavara – on the first day. Audience members who managed to reach the venue despite the unusually massive traffic jam on the Outer Ring Road had complained about bad parking arrangements, poor access roads, and lack of air-conditioning in the crowded hall. When Noah did arrive, the audience couldn’t hear him, and the comedian then cancelled both the shows.
Narrating the experience to his Mumbai audiences, Noah said, “Usually what happens is, there’s an entrance…through which you emerge into the backstage area before you come up and perform. Here we walked through an alley that was full of dogs, half of which were in cages,” Noah said.
Taking a moment to humorously describe the settings, he went on to add, “Some of these dogs are outside, what have those dogs [in cages] done? That’s what I wanted to know,” saying he had never prepared for such a scenario before a show. Clips from his comedy set describing the chaos at the Bengaluru venue are now going viral.
Noah went on to say, “So then we go on to this ‘venue’, we’ll call it. I guess it was a building. Technically. Technically, I guess some of the structures fulfilled the rules of what we consider a building. And the room – let’s call it a semi-permanent tent…”
He further explained that the supposed auditorium he was meant to perform in had no tiered seating to enable a proper view of the stage, and that there were no screens either. “And there were giant air-conditioning units on the side. But they were blowing hot air.” In a sequence that defies transcription, Noah explained how the sound of the bellowing AC units drowned out the voices of performers on stage. One person who attended the Mumbai show said Noah talked about the Bengaluru venue for nearly 15 minutes.
In another clip, Noah can be heard saying, “None of you emailed me saying, ‘Trevor, what on earth are you doing performing there?’ If you were coming to do a show in South Africa and you sent me a text saying you’re performing in hell, I’d send you a message.”
In the same clip, the comedian also took a dig at the organisers, BookMyShow, who had tried to placate the Bengaluru audience by telling them that Noah was backstage and would return soon, apparently even after he had left the venue. “An hour [after leaving the venue], I start getting tweets saying ‘Trevor, where are you?’. It’s very hot, please come back.”
He went on to describe the difficulties fans faced in leaving the venue. “There was a traffic jam for two hours, and people started ordering food. Food delivery guys came to the venue. I’ve got videos of this from fans.”
The cancelled Bengaluru show, which was expected to begin at 7.30 pm, began nearly 30 minutes late, and came to an abrupt end after many audience members complained that they couldn’t hear the performers. Noah himself was stuck in traffic, reaching the venue nearly 20 minutes late. The comedian was forced to cancel both Bengaluru shows citing “technical issues”, apologised to the audience, and promised a refund.
Read: Trevor Noah show: BookMyShow slammed for shoddy arrangements, to refund tickets