And there is just something about Hills in his Adelaide shows that it just wonderful. It's totally not something you see in the recorded versions of interstate shows... I suppose it's best summed up as bonding with the home town crowd (okay, technically he's from Sydney... but he loves Adelaide as much as we love him, so it still counts). He's one of those comedians who, when they're writing the show, must just put at the beginning of the set list "Bond with audience - 10 minutes - but lets be honest, it might go to 15".
Plus it leads to wonderfully inexplicable moments like this.
For the record, those two people did not know each other and were sitting on opposite sides of the audience.
There was also the fantastic moment where Hills just brought out a little crate of Fruchocs he'd been given and gave them out to the audience. Part of this involved lobbing them up into the dress circle without being able to see where he was aiming. And nobody got hit in the head or anything.
It also let me photograph the most Adelaidean thing ever... Adam, at the Festival Theatre, carrying a crate of Fruchocs.
Once he finally made it back on stage he started the show in earnest. As always there's a mix of political/social humour, as well as fatherhood and laughing at death before death gets the last laugh. Plus his Working Class Man/Advance Australia Fair mashup.
There's always a point in the show where things get a little touching... and in this case it was when Adam started to talk about losing his dad to cancer, and his relationship with his dad.
And then he showed the clip from his Adam Hills Tonight show featuring Craig Coombes whose response to having cancer was to get his gear off and take photos every Tuesday. I saw the clip when it originally aired, and it's great... but then Adam came back on and I fully expected him to say that Craig had passed away given how long he was expected to survive and how far back that clip was from.
But no, plot twist, Craig is still alive and kicking and Adam brought him out on stage.
It's clear that these two guys have profoundly affected each other's lives and it was great to see their relationship and how much they care about each other.
And when Craig got a standing ovation from the crowd you could see how special that was to him, especially as this may be the last chance he has to get up on a stage as part of one of Adam's shows.
Of course you can't have Craig up on stage for the finale of the show without somebody taking their clothes off... and yes, that's exactly what happened... both Craig and Adam stripped down to their underwear. I did wonder for a moment if there was going to be full frontal nudity... which would have been a hell of a way to close the show, but thankfully everybody kept their bits covered.
All in all though, it was a brilliant show, I laughed, I got a little choked up, I yelled and screamed and applauded my brains out.
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