Part 3: Preshow

We were escorted into the theater, pages everywhere to direct us.  We saw some people being diverted up into the balcony, where we really didn't want to go, for obvious reasons.  We got lucky though, and were guided into the lower seating section. But, to my dismay, we were directed to the far right of the theater.  This is good and bad.  The bad: we had a boom camera right in front of us and had to cock our heads to see Dave's desk.  However, we were right in front of Alan Kalter, the Late Show announcer.  I was hoping he'd flip out at some point during the show, and run out of the theater as is his custom. 

Overall, we had a decent view of the rest of the stage.  The first thing that struck me about it, which I've also noticed at the SNL studios and Conan O'Brien's theater, is that it's MUCH smaller than it appears on TV.  It's probably half the size you think it is, Dave's desk and the band area are no more than twelve feet apart, and the audience is about ten feet in front of Dave's desk.  MUCH smaller.

"Kaltervision"

Dave on TV

Dave in person

After everyone was seated and while stagehands were running all over the place onstage (including Pat, Kenny, and Corky!), Eddie Brill, a standup comic who warms up the audience each night, comes out and does a few jokes and tells us what to expect. He was pretty funny, but he is responsible for making us clap nonstop throughout the half an hour before the show starts; my hands are still sore.  Damn you Brill! He then introduced a clip reel, "Dave Talks to Kids," primarily to get us "warmed up" for the show so that we laugh at everything imaginable.  After the HI-larious clips, he told a few jokes, then introduced each member of the CBS Orchestra one by one, with the exception of Paul, who does not come out quite yet.  The band starts playing some music while Brill forces us to clap in time with the beat.  Unfortunately, every time we did this, not only were we off-beat but we kept going faster and faster (this seems to happen with large groups a lot--they just can't control their damn hands, it's that mob mentality).  The band didn't seem to notice, though, as Eddie introduced Paul, who comes sauntering out dressed in a zebralike black and white suit and dark shades. 

The band played a few songs by the Rolling Stones and then is quiet as Eddie comes back to his mic and starts telling us some miscellany about the show when, all of a sudden, Dave himself comes literally sprinting from backstage and making his way to the center of the stage. As he sized up the audience, he seemed very at-ease, he makes it very clear he knows what he's doing every night.  I base this on the fact that he was whipping the mic cord around like a freakin' whip.  Yeehaw!

Dave thanked Eddie Brill by asking the audience to "give it up for Martha Stewart, Jr.!"  Dave asked how we were all doing and how the weather outside was, and then asked for questions from the audience.  He chose some woman from San Francisco right in front of him, but I couldn't hear the question she asked.  Dave retorted with some smartass comment (which I can't recall) and then said "I have to go upstairs now and take my medicine;" and with that, he left the stage.  Brill came back on and said the show would begin momentarily and that we would need to start clapping before the show starts and that we would need to cheer every time a new announcement is made during the show opening (i.e. after Alan Kalter says "tonight on the show: Jodie Foster!" -cheer-  "Jungle Jack Hanna!" -cheer- you get the idea.