VPAC: 'Difficult but necessary' to pull plug on Nick Swardson's off ...

Ahead of Nick Swardson’s Sunday performance at the Vilar Performing Arts Center, the comedian riffed on the first parts of the words Beaver Creek and Aspen having inappropriate connotations in an Instagram promo for his current North American tour.

But few were prepared for what Swardson ended up bringing to the Vilar stage, which was a semi-coherent ramble in which he kept saying “all right” and referencing Jason Statham. It ended with Swardson being escorted off stage.

The Vilar Performing Arts Center, in a statement provided to the Vail Daily, confirmed that tickets were being refunded, and offered a brief response to the incident.

“We needed to make a difficult but necessary decision that evening that was in the best interest of the audience, the artist, and our venue,” said Tom Boyd, spokesperson for the Vail Valley Foundation, which operates the Vilar.

“He said ‘all right, here we go’ probably like 50 times, maybe 100,” said Eagle County local Drew Jones, who attended the event. “Then he started trying to do an impression of Jason Statham as a beekeeper, but he was just standing there not doing anything. Then people started getting upset and booing, but some people were cheering him on, and then the lights came on and he didn’t even react to that. And someone yelled ‘You’re drunk,’ and he said, ‘Valid point’ and walked to the other side of the stage, and then they cut his mic off and the Vilar guy walked out and said, ‘Hey, sorry, email us and you’ll get your money back.'”

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It was apparent that before Swardson even arrived in Colorado, he was planning on partying, referring to the state as “Color-Rage-O” in his Instagram promo for the tour. But in his brief explanation of what happened, in addition to blaming alcohol and marijuana edibles, he also cited altitude as a factor in what he called the “brain diarrhea” that he experienced.

In a classic case of the expression “take my advice, I’m not using it,” Swardson had warned people about altitude complications in an appearance on the Jim on Base Show podcast a month earlier.

“You have to remember altitude,” Swardson said. “For those of you out there, and are not familiar with altitude, it is not a joke, you gotta hydrate. Like I’ve done shows in Tahoe, Aspen, Denver, all that stuff and it’s gnarly, if you’re drinking a lot, you’ve got to hydrate as you do it.”