Date: Friday June 12th 2026
Venue: CFG Bank Arena
City / Town: Baltimore Maryland
Subjects: DAVE CHAPPELLE

This will obviously be a different type of review then you’re used to reading on this page. I just want to try to set the mood and give you the vibe of the show and not give away anything like particular jokes or anything. Comedy shows are different than concerts in ways yet also the same in others. One big difference is for a concert you can find the set lists pretty easily where as a Comedy show that shit is kept under wraps, there’s no Setlist.fm for jokes told at a comedy show. Many times these comics are testing material. Naturally a joke hits different than a song when seen live. When you know a song is coming you get excited, when you know a joke is coming you lose that edge and element of surprise. Now that I’ve bored you with the obvious let me set the scene. The show was set to begin at 7:30 and we arrived about 7:15. Upon arrival we were given a small piece of paper that a staff member wrote down our seat number. Why? Because after we showed our tickets to the door fella we were instructed to put our phones in a Yondr Pouch. These are little pouches so that you cannot take any recordings of the show. I Mentioned how these shows would lose some spunk if you knew things ahead of time. It also takes you back to a time when you disconnected with the world for a few hours which is honestly not the worst thing in the world.

‍ ‍He had some merch stands set up, we didn’t really explore them to much however it seemed like they had a few different style shirts. We made our way to our seats which were up in the upper balcony area, front row. I thought that’d be a home run but the gate thing in front of us had two obstructions. 1. The horizontal pole and a vertical pole that did me no favors as a short person. 2. Plexiglass. This made me sort of feel like I was watching it on TV still. I will understand this for next time but that really bummed me out a bit. Around 7:30 Daves DJ by the name of DJ Truama began his set of tunes. The first part was mostly old-school hip-hop tracks to set the vibe as he would interject a few times to get us “Hype”. I don’t know what time it was, but he then brought out the first comedian who goes by the name MARSHALL BRANDON. He is a guy that Dave tends to bring a long when he tours as we were told. He did his set for I’d imagine about 15 minutes. He had good style of delivery and focused a lot on relationships and things of that nature. His set went by pretty quick, so I’d say I enjoyed it. One thing I forgot to mention was that the stage was dead center of the arena. One square stage. Security was very tight as well as they had 3 set up inside the barricade on either side of the stage as well as 2 more on the corners outside the barricade. The Comedians would walk all the way from one side of the arena to take the stage which was neat because it was like a wrestler walkout.
The second act was a NY DJ named CIPHA SOUNDS. He is a Puerto Rican man who has a lot of energy. He focuses a good bit on his Puerto Rican origin in his set and also uses some points of ad lib as you can tell by his response to audiences and how a joke goes over. Without giving away any portion of his set I will say he told us that Chappelle locked up our phones so we couldn’t look up the openers, which I found pretty funny. His set also went by pretty quickly.
The final comedian was a guy who played “Day Day” in the wire. DONNELL RAWLINGS. He has also stared in many other films and television shows. He has a very wild and loud style. Very in your face and offensive. His primary jokes revolved around current events and what is going on in the world today and whether he agrees or disagrees with these things. Using the mic as a prop and other methods, he’s very animated as well.
DJ Trauma then got the crowd going again and played some more tunes, had everyone stand up and start dancing. It was like a party. Finally, the lights went out, and, on the screen, we see “Chappelle Live from Baltimore” while a little intro package is played and then surrounded by security DAVE CHAPPELLE made his entrance. Donned in his signature attire including a camouflage-colored coat he stepped onstage to a roaring response that lasted a minute. He immediately thanked everyone for being there and of course then went into his set which I will not give any away. I will say he was in top form. Hilarious, witty and introspective. Everything you’ve come to expect from a Chappelle standup routine. He spoke of Current events, the Chappelle show, his friendships with Kanye West and Chris Rock among other topics. As is customary he was smoking cigarettes the entire time, using them to build anticipation before a punchline at times. He’d begin a joke, pause, take a big drag while the audience began to cheer and then hit us with the punchline. Classic Chappelle. There were some stories that he told that were very interesting that seems to set the members of the audience in a select group of people having certain knowledge. There is a reason he can fill an entire Arena on a weeks’ notice and is considered one of the greatest comics of our generation. Seeing him on Netflix gives you some insight on that but the final piece of that is seeing him live in person. There is an energy in the arena not unlike a concert and he strings together jokes and stories like songs. Dave is a 21st century Foul mouthed poet and we absolutely love him for it.