I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I showed up to Federation Square to see Joel Salom perform Salom’s Lot.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I showed up to Federation Square to see Joel Salom perform Salom’s Lot. I’d heard something about lasers, a robotic dog and juggling, as well as the word ‘weird’ being thrown around here and there. I’m pretty into all of those things so I thought this would probably work out.
For some background: Joel used to perform for Circus Oz as a juggler. He is good at juggling. He juggles in his show. Heaps. But juggling does not a comedian make. Amid smoke machines for the sake of them and spruiking the audience, a botched beginning (still unsure if this was deliberate as his stand-up manner makes it difficult to distinguish mistakes from intentions) provided a status quo of sorts for the show.
His stand-up anecdotes about parenthood and his family came off as pointless and were generally punch line free. Every imitation involved putting his juggling balls into his cheeks, and the screeching voice and Frankenstein-like movements executed during his impression of his mother still have me feeling second-hand embarrassment days later.
The tricks studding the show were a welcome relief. This guy is clearly good at juggling, but he really seemed to struggle on this particular evening (literally), including a drawn out awkward 2 minutes where he tried to redo his failed climatic catch between his knees again and again and again and again, commenting to the audience that it was ‘hard’ and oh god there is that second hand embarrassment thing again. But hey, we all have our shit days at work.
Then there was the robotic dog Eric. Good god, the dog – a piece of tinned technology who made a lot of crude jokes about robot bestiality and then paraded his little metal testicles all over the big screen.
As for redeeming qualities, there were some. Joel is eager to the point of endearing at times and the technology surrounding his electronic dog was great, if you could get past the awkward sexual innuendos. I was honestly blown away by his final act, the JAMIDI (juggling-activated-musical-instrument-digital-interface), a mix of juggling, lasers and looped sound to create an electronic musical routine that made me want to be at some kind of giant gross warehouse rave at 4am. But this lasted for a mere five minutes, and then there was the other 50.
A big part of me feels bad for writing this because I’m nice and Joel seems nice. Look, who knows, maybe it just wasn’t my ‘type’ of humour, but my advice to this super-skilled stuntman would be to stop with the stand-up shtick and get back to the tricks.
