John Mayer and Dave Chappelle have announced that they will reprise their music/comedy duo show, Controlled Danger, on Sunday, December 30th at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas Nevada.
The ongoing tag-team project has started to become something of a tradition following its last-minute, two-night debut at The Fillmore in San Francisco in April of last year, during which Bob Weir joined in for a tune. Chappelle and Mayer reprised Controlled Danger in December of 2017, mounting a much larger performance at The Forum in Inglewood, CA on New Year’s Eve.
At the shows, the two entertainers both sing songs and tell jokes, giving them each a chance to try their hand at the other’s craft—buoyed by their long-running friendship and the charismatic chemistry it affords them. During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in September, Mayer spoke about his duo performances with Dave Chappelle. As John joked:
Advice to anyone who’s struggling as a stand-up comic, one of the best things that you can do is just stand next to Dave Chappelle onstage. If you get the opportunity. He’s better at what he does than anybody is at anything they do. That’s why you go see Dave. He’s a great comic, but you’re also watching someone just nail something. … All I have to do is say two funny things and people walk out going “those guys were hilarious!” …
As much as I wanna be a comic, I get a couple jokes in. And then he wants to be a singer, and he’ll sing a couple songs. He’ll sing “Creep”… and I bet you think its the TLC “Creep”, but it’s the Radiohead “Creep”.
He went on to marvel at Chappelle’s ability to command a crowd—even when singing—telling a story about watching Chappelle softly start singing Prince‘s “1999” only to have the entire audience singing along with the track’s famous synth lines by the time he hit the chorus. “He’s one of the greatest leaders of a room I’ve ever seen,” Mayer explained. Check out the segment below:
John Mayer Talks Dead & Company, Bill Murray. Friendship with Dave Chappelle
[Video: Jimmy Kimmel Live]
Tickets for John Mayer and Dave Chappelle’s Las Vegas Controlled Danger show go on sale tomorrow, Friday, November 16th at 10 a.m. PST here.