Crowds cluster to comedy, music festival
Fans cheer rapper and comedian Lil Dicky during his performance Friday at Colossal Clusterfest at the S.F. Civic Center. The three-day comedy and music festival also features Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Silverman, Kevin Hart and Ice Cube.
The first Colossal Clusterfest comedy and music festival launched in San Francisco on Friday, bringing a space alien talk show host, rapper Ice Cube, and a replica of Jerry’s apartment from “Seinfeld” to the Civic Center Plaza.
The first comedy headliner was Kevin Hart, but festivalgoers seemed to be there for the experiences as much as the names. A “South Park” world was built a few hundred feet from City Hall, along with a pub replica from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” in one of the wings of the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
San Francisco resident Anthony Ball was eating a Rum Ham sandwich at Clusterfest’s pop-up Paddy’s Pub on Friday afternoon. It’s a take on the comedy series’ popular episode where characters Mac and Frank eat ham soaked in rum. The festival sub looked pretty basic and soggy, but Ball proclaimed, “It’s amazing! I would eat, like, two more. It tastes like honey ham, with cheese and mayo.”
Will Ball get drunk off of the sandwiches?
“Here’s hoping,” he said.
Comedy Central President Kent Alterman said San Francisco was the first choice for the festival, produced by Superfly and Another Planet Entertainment, which also runs the Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park in August.
“San Francisco has such a great tradition of comedy roots,” Alterman said. “It just felt like the natural, organic place to have a festival like this.”
As many as 40,000 are expected to attend the three-day festival, which includes Saturday night headliner Bill Burr and Sunday night headliner Jerry Seinfeld. A strict no-cell-phone policy is being enforced.
The three-day festival wraps up Sunday. For updates from Clusterfest throughout the weekend, go to www.sfchronicle. com/entertainment.