Kevin Hart gets big laughs at Germain Arena
CHARLES RUNNELLS
CRUNNELLS@NEWS-PRESS.COM
Kevin Hart stepped onstage at Germain Arena and grinned.
"Let me hear you!" the superstar comedian hollered out into the sold-out crowd Friday night, and the crowd erupted into enthusiastic, deafening applause.
Hart grinned even wider.
"Nice!" he said.
From that moment on, Hart had the audience in stitches with manic jokes about a neighborhood raccoon with an attitude problem, watching his son play baseball in flip-flops, investigating a late-night noise after watching the scary movie "The Conjuring," and how he probably wouldn't rescue his fiancée from a wild-animal attack ("It depends on the animal").
He even joked about the rainstorm Friday afternoon in Southwest Florida. "Fort Myers almost killed me today!"
About 7,000 people packed Germain Arena for the sold-out show kicking off Hart's new comedy tour. The concert was part of FGCU's annual NestFest.
Kevin Hart is one of the most popular actor/comedians in the country right now. Friday's show opened on the same day as his latest movie, "Get Hard," with co-star Will Ferrell.
Wearing a camouflage jacket, black T-shirt and gold necklaces, Hart joked rapid-fire about getting engaged ("Yep! I'm doin' it all … over… again. One more time!"), living with wild animals in his neighborhood ("If you get attacked by a mountain lion, you're not coming out of that attack the way you went into it") and forgetting one day that he was playing hide-and-seek with his daughter ("About five or six hours go by, and she jumps out and she's WEAK").
After Germain Arena, Hart's huge "What Now?" tour moves on to about 70 shows in Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Memphis, New York City, Chicago, Washington, Houston and many other cities. Show promoters are calling it the biggest comedy tour in history.
Tickets for the Germain show originally sold for $35-65, but some were going for $133-$295 Friday afternoon on ticket resale websites such as stubhub.com and vividseats.com.
Hanging out in the arena concourse before the show, Hart fan Danielle D'Amato said she couldn't wait to see her favorite comedian perform.
"I'm very excited!" said D'Amato, 23, of Estero. "He's the only stand-up comedian that literally makes me laugh out loud. Nobody else can do that.
"He's goofy, and there's just something about him. He's short. I just want to put him in my pocket!"
Adriana Garcia, 25, of Naples says she's loved everything Hart has done. She loves his voice, his rubbery facial expressions and his unique rapid-fire delivery.
"I've seen all his movies and stand-up comedy," Garcia said. "We couldn't believe he was coming here! I bought my ticket the day they came out."
Hart's 2011 comedy tour, "Laugh at My Pain," grossed more than $15 million and became one of the year's top-selling comedy acts. That same year, he sold out Los Angeles' Nokia Theater two nights in a row, breaking the record previously set by comedy superstar Eddie Murphy.
Hart is trying out some new material on the road, and his management team insisted on a no-cellphone policy at the arena so people wouldn't record the jokes.
Signs posted all over the arena warned people about the policy: "NO CELL PHONES, TEXTING, TWEETING, TALKING, CAMERAS, RECORDING DEVICES OF ANY KIND DURING THE SHOW. VIOLATORS WILL BE EJECTED."
To ensure people complied with the policy, security guards manned every aisle in white polo shirts marked SECURITY and waved their flashlights at disobeyers.
The audience booed Friday when an onstage announcer reiterated the no-cellphone policy. But then they cheered when he explained Hart was doing something special that night.
"It's all-new material," he said. "It's all for you."
Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells (News-Press) (Facebook) @charlesrunnells (Twitter)