Stephen Colbert at University at Buffalo
by Merv Burger on Apr.05, 2008, under General
I saw Stephen Colbert last night at the much-anticipated University at Buffalo Distinguished Speakers 2008 series finale.
I’ll be honest, I was hyped. When I first heard that James Earl Jones was replaced (because he was not sure he would be able to make it, due to a Broadway production,) with Stephen Colbert, I knew I had to go. I wanted to go. I would skip however many classes needed to get the ticket for this (this was unnecessary, since the first ticket give out day was on a day I had no classes.)
As for his lecture, Colbert killed. He was as funny as I expected him to be, hitting upon current events like the Spitzer scandal and the election. Along with that, he talked about his show, the difference between the younger and older generation and Buffalo, followed by a brief Question and Answer session. Almost the entire time, I had to remind myself that I was actually at a lecture, designed to inspire us, and not at a comedy show.
Alumni Arena was packed. There were over 6,000 people sitting in the stands and on the floor. Of course, being the “Student Choice Speaker,” at least half of the seats were reserved for the students, all of them being in the 300 (Obama,) section, of course. But why should I bicker about where I sat? I got to see a very funny lecture that was a good use of my student fee.
Of course, the tickets that you had to pay for were gone quickly after they went on sale. Many people didn’t get to go. Conveniently, I just so happen to have an MP3 player that has a microphone. It also had plenty of space to record an hour and a half of audio. It was also very convenient that the security for anti-recording was almost non-existent.
So here’s a low quality version of the lecture, as it was, high up in the stands. I just hope it isn’t too bad. In hindsight, I should have asked my dad for his portable recorder!
