The first time I saw Bill Hicks preform was at my high school talent show.  Between the amateur bands and magicians, Bill walked on stage and did five to ten minutes of stand up and he had the crowd howling.  At the end of his bit he announced that he was performing that weekend at a downtown club, and everyone laughed again.  "No, I'm serious.  Come down and check out my show." he replied.  I've been a fan of his comedy ever since and mourned his passing in 1994.

He may be gone, but certainly not forgotten.  Bill Hicks Live, a compilation of three concerts was released earlier this year and now Ryko has released a rarity, Sane Man.  This concert performance, filmed in Austin in 1989, was only sold for a short time in that city and via mail order.  Though low grade bootlegs have been passed around for years, this is the first time it has gotten wide distribution.

This is the earliest full length concert of Hicks' that was filmed.  This was made before he recorded Dangerous, his first album.  Though he does many bits that fans have heard on his album, seeing him pace on stage like a caged panther adds a certain edge to his show.

This was created by Bill and a group of his friends as a sort of pilot for an HBO comedy special.  He wanted to have something to shop around to the cable networks that would showcase his comedy and his more controversial material, something that was usually cut from his TV appearances.  So he recorded a pair of shows in Austin and assembled Sane Man from those appearances.  Before the tape was completed though he did

Hicks wasn't at the top of his game yet when he made this.  It's a funny concert, but not nearly as amusing as his later work.  Many of his famous shticks are present in an embryonic form.  Still funny and confrontational, but not as polished as they would later become.

Though this was filmed over 15 years ago and much of his act is political, the comedy is still very fresh today.  He talks about how we are losing the war on drugs, something that is still true, and how sad that is.  "You know what that implies?  There's a war going on and the people that are on drugs are winning it!  What does that tell you about drugs?  Some smart creative mother fuckers on that side."

He talks about smoking, and the fact that he enjoys it so much.  "I'm willing to die seven years before my time just so I'll be cool each last fucking day."  Quite ironic since he died of cancer at age 32.  (Though he cancer wasn't caused by smoking.)

Make no mistake though, this show isn't for kids or the easily offended.  Hicks isn't afraid to be rude or crude in his show.  He freely talks about sex in graphic detail and illustrates his stories by gyrating his hips in a suggestive manner.  His bit raking Debbie Gibson over the coals was classic, and in it he mentions that the best thing she could do with her mouth is to have oral sex with Tiffany.  "That, I'd pay for."

While the show is very enjoyable, there are some bits that don't quite work.  His Elvis joke, where he pretends to be The King at the end of a show goes on for way too long, and it didn't really create much laughter.

He makes up for that though with his imitation of George Michael from Wham, and correctly divines his sexual orientation.  (This was before George came out of the closet, not that it was a big surprise to most people.)  His rant on Spectravision's lame "adult features" and how they consist of a guy's hairy butt bouncing up and down is also great.  "It's not an adult feature unless someone ends up gooey."

As far as the direction goes, this was pretty much an amateur job, and it shows.  There's several times when Bill walks off camera at least partially, and some of the camera movements are jerky.  In order to make this show look like more than just a comedy routine preformed in a club, they superimposed scenes shot later of Bill driving through Austin, smoking or just mugging for the camera.  This technique just didn't work and is pretty obnoxious.  Luckily it isn't used too often.

There are two versions of this show presented on the DVD, the hour long final cut, and an alternate cut that is 20 minutes longer.  Each feature mainly the same material, but I actually found the shorter version to be a little bit stronger.  It is tighter.  A lot of the parts where he is pacing the stage are cut out, and the time between bits is much shorter.  The added material in the extended version wasn't as strong as the other comedy, and it severed to dilute the show as a whole.  One thing that I didn't like about the original version is that an obnoxious laughtrack was added.  This is a little jarring because you can tell that it's fake laughter.  They removed this canned laughter in the extended version.

Audio:

The two channel mono soundtrack betrays the low budget nature of this production.  The worst problem is that there is a hum through whole show which is noticeable. The dialog is a little muddled in parts, but it is easy to understand what Bill is saying.  There is some light distortion too.   There are no subtitles.

Video:

The full frame video also leaves something to be desired.  The colors and flat, the image is soft, and there isn't a lot of definition.  There are some video dropouts, aliasing is a problem, and the image is darker than it should be.  It looks like a VHS tape, though it is much better than the bootleg copies of this that I've seen.

Extras:

There are a good number of extras on this disc including a couple of rare concert appearances.  First off is a 16-minute performance from 1987, The Outlaws Get Religion.  Performed in Houston, there's a lot of local humor, but it also includes some bits that don't appear on Hicks' records.

Benefit for Arthur is a 30+ minute performance that was shot from the side of the stage with what looks like a consumer video tape camera.  The audio and video are very rough, and it's hard to make out what Bill is saying in some instances, but it's a great piece for Hicks completists.

There are 11-minutes worth of alternate and deleted bits from the concert featured on this disc, along with a biography of Bill,  a discography complete with audio clips, and some text pages giving the history of the Sane Man concert.

Final Thoughts:

Bill Hicks was a great comedian.  He was fighting a war against idiocy by pointing out the absurdities in our society and how the media manipulates us on a daily basis.   In this war he had a take no prisoners attitude, and he could be very in-your-face about his beliefs.  Though this isn't his best work, that would come later, it is very interesting to see this early comedy of his.  If you've never seen Bill before, buy one of his comedy albums first.  After you're a convert you'll want to run and purchase this.  Recommended.