No sooner do I announce once more my desire to avoid posting heckler videos — because it’s my firm belief that sharing and spreading videos of comedians “destroying” hecklers only provokes more incidents, as the mind of a heckler is encouraged by the prospect of becoming the subject of the next great heckler video — than I’m sent this video from an open mic in Las Vegas.
This is different, though.
This is straight up comedian-on-comedian violence. Or wannabe-on-wannabe violence. I don’t know the parties involved in this incident, allegedly filmed last Thursday night at an open mic in downtown Las Vegas.
Freddy Correa posted the video today and wrote, “Heckler tries to attack Comic & gets kicked! I don’t condone violence but I do support self defense.”
What we can see is this: A host, unidentified in the video, presides over a sparsely attended open mic at The Beat Coffeehouse on Fremont Street. A performer, identified as “Rade Zone” and wearing foil on his head, already is mid-verbal confrontation with the host, who implores Rade Zone to sit down. The video describes Rade Zone as a heckler who disrupts comedy shows. The host repeatedly insults Rade Zone and warns him not to come back toward the microphone or himself. “Rade, if you put your hands on me again, if you put your hands on me again, if you put your hands on me again, you’re going to fucking regret it.” Rade replies: “Don’t talk shit about me. You’ve got to apologize.”
“You wonder why nobody likes you, bro,” the host pleads.
“I like him!” one woman shouts. Another man in the audience says, “I think you’re terrific, Rade. Great hat!” Someone (perhaps that man) claps. The woman in the back of the room hugs Rade.
“Unbelievable! Unbelievable!” the host continues.
“Would you stop talking about it?” a woman asks.
“Start the fucking show, asshole!” Rade yells. “Bring on the next comic! Right now! And stop making fun of me!”
The host: “You do that all by yourself, Rade.”
Rade: “No! No! You lied to me!
“I have the mic! I have the mic!”
“You said!”
“I have the mic! Throw a tantrum. ‘I’m a 60-year-old baby. I don’t get my way.’
After more insults, a few patrons walk out the front door, while Rade Zone briskly approaches, saying, “Listen, bitch, are you going to start shit with me right now?” Right then, the host lunges forward and kicks him in the stomach, Rade falling backward to the floor.
“No!”
“C’mon!”
“Call an ambulance. Call an ambulance. I hit my head,” Rade says. The woman from the back approaches him, saying “this is not OK.”
An audience member or comedian laughs and says “now that’s funny.” Good grief.
Roll the clip.
This, for reference, is an old blog by Rade Zone from 2005. And this is Rade Zone performing a Christmas parody song, “Grandpa Got Run Over by a Redneck,” for Kidd Scurry back in 2009.
So he certainly has been a fixture of that scene for many years. Whether that’s worth what happened in this open mic last week? Well, that’s up for some debate. Certainly didn’t look like anyone emerges from this video a winner. No matter how much you want to dress it up.
What happens even in a Vegas open mic sometimes gets shot and put on YouTube for all of us to see how messy it gets.
I have encountered this heckler “comedian” many, many times. Rade Zone is not funny and doesn’t try to be. He wastes the most valuable thing in comedy- stage time. Not just the time he’s on stage. He wastes yours too by talking to you through your set. He usually goes up at the end of shows because he’ll walk the audience. He has 2 friends he sometimes brings to shows, the lady in the video and a man, to try and say he brought his own audience. You see how he disrupted that show? Imagine going on after that (minus the kick).
Thanks for adding some context, because this video (two-camera shoot, in fact) only picks up the action once the host and Rade Zone are fully engaged in conflict. There’s no sense of how he may have behaved earlier in the show or onstage himself.
Wow.
My wife and I were just commenting last night about how rough open mics in Vegas were when we lived there. But THIS is insane. Props to those who are able to build a career in comedy by starting in that city. I’ve found it MUCH easier in the Midwest to launch a career. Much more stage time and a lot of medium-to-large sized cities all within a couple of hours drive from any one of them with comedy scenes. Thankful for my time in Vegas. Great people there like Keith Lyle, Angie Krum, Mike Zeithlow, & Lou Magelowitz who love comedy and care about the craft. But I’m also thankful I left.
LONG overdue!
https://youtu.be/DKdv1x6P8gc The rebuttal!
This has nothing to do with standup comedy. The art just died a little.
Just when you thought open mics in NYC were death…
I’ve been in Vegas for 7 years doing comedy, rade zone has being an asshole for years. I can attest what keith is saying is true. I don’t condone the kick but this isn’t the first time he’s heckled comics after him bombing. I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t happened earlier.
Tito is tries way … way too hard. “So I fucked my girlfriend and her sister in the ass last night!” HAHAHAHAHAAHAAAA … Brilliant! Though for as god awful as Tito is (he really is bad), Rade is 100x worse. He’s unforgivably obnoxious both on and off the stage. He’s fucking LOUD, creepy, and throws gigantic temper tantrums when someone dares take issue with his behavior. What’s worse that while he might be somewhat mentally ill, he’s perfectly aware of what he’s doing. Bars and coffee shops in town have actually stopped booking open mics because this lunatic shows up to nearly every one of them, and makes a gigantic embarrassing ass of himself.
He’s been annoying everyone for a while
https://www.lasvegasmercury.com/2003/MERC-Jul-03-Thu-2003/21559678.html
His blog reads like a serial killer’s diary. He’s obviously unstable and/or on a ton of substances.
The audience member is easily the funniest person in that room.
The house has the right to refuse the tin-foil dumb-fuck service and clearly should have had him removed. We can and do kick hecklers out of the building in my town. Not literally with our feet, that’s actually less effective. I feel the Emcee’s anger but knowing Rade’s history, he shouldn’t have taunted a obvious lunatic. That got unprofessional quick. Then explaining that he warned him into the mike…classy. Stop the show. Put down the fucking mike and get the situation under contol out of respect for the fucking patrons. You both belong at open mikes. Your both that damn good. If I ever run into you guys I’m shitting down your throats and calling it a sundae. Off stage, since you clearly don’t know that’s where it should happen. Thanks for making people love comedy! We all get too much respect as it is.
THE only comment worth reading is#13gary: the las vegas comedy scene is a shithjole of a-holes…..and the raunchiest ‘shock’ joke gets the respect of all the assheds in the bar. thats not the target audience t im after. but the other comics wont respect u -unless u can do dick jokes andget the drunx laffing! u cant win… and .as far as mentql illness? ive never seen more mental pepl than in las vegas…