Despite a nefarious MBTA plot designed to keep us from attending the event, Bostonist was in the press row (i.e., the way back) for Friday’s semifinals of the Boston Comedy Festival at the Hard Rock Café. For the 7:00 show, the crowd appeared a bit slow to warm up during the first four performances, but once Jessi Campbell began to discuss her more and more feverish attempts to get out of speeding tickets, the evening began in full force. The three remaining contestants, Andy Peters, Rob O’Reilly, and Byron Bowers, kept up the energy.

Peters’ frantic performance touched on scenarios as wide-ranging as the kindergarten-like office he worked in, his father’s job marketing gasoline (“Gasoline: you have to buy this.”), and attending a karate class full of children; however, his set fell short with the panel of judges. Self-described “12-year-old lesbian” Rob O’Reilly did advance to the final round, thanks to his description of his first show at an inner-city comedy club, where he got the crowd on his side by inadvertently insulting a heckler with his throwaway comment. He also described an unintentionally racial encounter at the laundromat (he told an African-American gentleman, “this washer is for whites, and that one is for colors.”) Bowers wrapped things up by expressing his disappointment with the "depressed gorillas" at the Franklin Park Zoo, and the perils of trying to impress someone by overenunciating.

In a surprise decision (judging from the reaction of the crowd), Mario DiGiorgio advanced to the final round, having won over the judges with a rant on the uses of the word “shit” inspired by the work of prominent comedians including the late George Carlin. Bonus points from this vertically-challenged male Bostonist to E.J. Murphy, who touched on many of the problems the short among us face, from dating issues to reaching our small-sized clothes on improbably high shelves.

Semifinal coverage and contest winners after the jump!

The 9:00 semifinal (which Andy Peters referred to as an “all-star lineup”) had the attention of the audience from the opening by Boston legend Ken Rogerson to the closing round by special guest Shane Mauss. Joe Wong started brilliantly among the contestants, by launching into a routine about the peak sexual age among men being 18, but his first experience being at 25: “No one knows how much of a stud I used to be…nobody took a bite outta this peach when it was ripe!” Other notable performances came from Baron Vaughn, who puzzled over the obvious note on the KKK’s website that it was not an equal-opportunity employer, and his observation that “time flies when you hate someone’s insides.” Tyler Boeh wowed the crowd with his “beatbox sex” rendition, and David Foster not-Wallace noted that his mother’s belief that your income is a direct result of your intelligence falls short when considering rapper Lil’ Wayne.

Mauss capped off the evening with a brilliant discussion of transubstantiation being a result of “Jesus the prankster,” a concept definitely worth a Bible-study class or two. (In a nutshell, Mauss’ theory is that Jesus surprised the apostles midway through the Last Supper with the news of its composition: “How do you like that bread? Surprise! It’s my body!”)

We had hoped to attend Saturday’s competition finals at the Majestic Theater; however, we were unable to use our magnetic personalities and Bostonist swag to win over the friendly staff at the ticket counter. Damn! In classic slacker comic fashion, the winner of the $10,000 contest is still not listed on the festival website, but fellow blogger the comic's comic was there, and reports on win, place, and show.