Bob & Tom Comedy All-Stars at Victoria


How to go

Who: Bob & Tom Comedy All-Stars

Where: Victoria Theatre, 138 N. Main St., Dayton

When: 7 and 10 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21

Cost: $36.50

More info: (937) 228-3630 or www.victoriatheatre.com

Commercial radio has been on a steady decline since the early ’90s, but “The Bob & Tom Show” has had a very different trajectory. The program, which focuses heavily on stand-up comedy, started as an Indianapolis morning show in 1983 and is now syndicated coast-to-coast in more than 150 markets.

“I really don’t know what radio is doing, to be quite frank,” said “Bob & Tom” sports director Chick McGee. “We try to be as organic and real as possible and make each other laugh and try to have fun every morning.”

That approach has worked. “Bob & Tom,” heard locally on WTUE-FM (104.7), has grown into one of the nation’s most successful morning shows.

The program is hosted by Bob Kevoian and Tom Griswold, who are huge proponents of stand-up comedy. Each day they mix original sketches and musical comedy numbers with on-air interviews with a number of comics.

The influential radio hosts have also branched out into other areas such as CDs, DVDs and a series of multiperformer concert tours. In 2004, Kevoian and Griswold launched the successful Bob & Tom Comedy All-Stars Tour.

The package bill, which features a rotating cast of performers, returns to Dayton on Saturday, Nov. 21, for a pair of shows at Victoria Theatre. Caroline Rhea, Tammy Pescatelli, Greg Morton, Costaki Economopoulos, Donnie Baker and Kristi Lee will perform.

For Lee, news director for “Bob & Tom,” the All-Star concerts have really driven home how wide of an impact their radio program has.

“The show is much bigger than I thought it was,” she said. “You just don’t realize it. I’m going to work every morning and I’m hanging out with my buddies, I’m not going to work and talking to somebody in Salt Lake City.

“Then when you go to Salt Lake City for these concerts, they go, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ And you go, ‘Oh, my gosh!’ It’s really amazing.”

Contact contributing arts and music writer Don Thrasher at donaldthrasher8@aol.com.

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