How to go
Who: Sid Davis
Where: Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub, 101 Pine St., Dayton
When: 9 p.m. Friday and 8 and 10:30 p.m. Saturday
Cost: $12 Friday and $15 Saturday
More info: (937) 224-JOKE (5653) or www.wileyscomedyclub.com
Artist info: www.siddaviscomedian.com
Sid Davis, performing at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub on Friday and Saturday, had already worked in a variety of different fields before doing his first open mike in 2004.
The Eaton native sold radio advertising and insurance, and worked as a baggage handler at Dayton International Airport and an airplane mechanic in North Carolina before diving into stand-up comedy when he was 47 years old. His age, as it turns out, was a major obstacle.
“You’re not taken seriously,” Sid Davis said recently, speaking over the phone from a cruise ship gig in The Bahamas. “The club owners would see that I had pretty good material and I’d have a pretty good set opening for somebody. They looked at me as though they thought I’d been doing it for 20 years because of my age and the way I handled myself. I was kind of funny and they thought, ‘Well, he’s good and that’s as good as he’s ever going to get.’
“But I have to go through the same learning process as the kid who starts at 17 years old,” he said. “You learn this is funny but that’s not funny. My age was kind of a disadvantage because I was always perceived as washed up. Once I learned about that perception I knew I had to kick it up a notch so I really started writing and finding my own voice. I tried to knock it out in every room I went in.”
Davis, who has lived in North Carolina since 1998, now divides his time between comedy clubs, cruise ships and corporate gigs. He says he’s looking forward to returning to Wiley’s again as a headliner after the warm homecoming he received when he performed there last December.
“Because of Facebook, I get a lot of people that come to Wiley’s,” he said. “A lot of them are people I knew from high school, and even some I didn’t know, that knew of me because of Facebook. Some of them come and meet me for the first time. It was almost like an Eaton High School reunion. Not just my class but all these other people too.
“It’s a great crowd because they came to see me so the experience with the audience is three times as powerful,” Davis added. “They’re there to see you so they’re a giving audience. This year I think the crowds will be even bigger because of the buzz from that. We expect a lot more fun this year.”
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