Meyers was more down to earth and observational, opening with jokes about recent gigs in Florida, then moving on to his family and Covid. After starting with a strong premise — that he has reached the age when he prefers funerals to weddings — he asked the crowd to hear him out before explaining: “What I like about funerals vis-à-vis weddings is that funerals always work out.” Then he waited for the groans to quiet before clarifying that at funerals, no one says: “Dead now. Give it six months.”
Meyers and Oliver, who were at the Beacon for three nights, are part of a trend of star comics joining forces for live tours — a trend that should only accelerate the longer the strike continues. Longtime friends Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s Restless Leg Tour will travel across the country this fall, while John Mulaney, Pete Davidson and Jon Stewart — a lineup that represents three age groups — announced a few shows in September. The bill of Oliver and Meyers is more like the Fey-Poehler model of pairing similar types: They’re both 40-something, New York-dad, politically progressive comics. But that only makes their differences stand out.
Meyers is a goofier presence, happy to do act-outs, accents and impressions, of old women who speak in prophecies or of Cousin Greg from “Succession.” His comedy is more personal, including a funny unpacking of moments of tension with his wife. At one point, he announced that she was at the show, then said he was lying, as if it would be a bad idea for him to tell all these jokes with her in the room.
As on “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” on NBC, he remained rigorously even-keeled, almost Carson-like. But he was pricklier, more mischievous, a little meaner, which can be useful in getting across parenting material. Oliver’s standup is about the fun of rage more than the expression of it. He began with this point, describing how enjoyable it was to see billionaires fail, and ended the show by making the case that post-pandemic, we can go back to normal as a country only when we can truly loathe things that don’t matter. “Luxury anger is the high point of human existence,” he said.
Then he shifted to a wistful tone, imagining a happier future where someone is up late and turns on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” to see the country star Toby Keith playing giant Jenga with “a level of enthusiasm that seems genuinely unhealthy.”
It’s enough of a surprise to hear the gentle shot at a peer that you might miss the most hopeful part of this vision: a world where talk-show hosts return to television.