RIP Gallagher

Sadness. I always wanted to see him perform live--and to sit in the front row, of course.

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Never got to sit in one of his front rows but I have seen a couple of his concerts and he always brought the funny. RIP.

One of my fondness memories was shortly after me and my wife were married and we went to our state fair to see Gallagher's show. I use to watch his Showtime TV specials back in the day, but hadn't seen him for years. He put on a great show and 90% of it was humanistic comedy, mostly about men & women and relationships. All very funny as the comedy was coming out of real world truths. In the very last part of the show he brought out his trusty sledge-o-matic and smashed watermelons and other messy stuff. The front row was covered in goo! Of course they were prepared and had brought big sheets of clear plastic. We were sitting further up in the grandstand but had a good view.

After the show was over I didn't want to fight the crowds and the traffic as the grandstand held a lot of people. So we hung around so I could buy a souvenir Gallagher t-shirt, which took forever to buy as the line was real long. By the time I had the t-shirt in hand the fair was about to close and only about a dozen people remained in the area.

Then out walks Gallagher and he stops and talks to each person. When he comes over to where me and my wife were standing, he stops and thanks us for coming to the show and we tell him how much we enjoyed the show and asked if he would autograph the t-shirt...and we mentioned we just got married. His eyes lite up and he proceeded to give advice for a happy marriage, with the Gallagher flair. He was funny while be sincere and spontaneous too. It was like our own personal comedy show and quite the treat. As he weaved his marriage advice magic, he drew little symbols on the t-shirt which illustrated what he was saying and it was all nice and positive. He ended with a smile and best wishes for us as he drew a heart on the t-shirt and handed it back to us. What a really sweet guy he was in person and I'm so glad we got to meet him.

Wow, @Citizen Rules ... that is quite a story! Thank you so much for sharing it! Weird Al used to also come back out after pretty much everyone was gone. If you hung around long enough, he and the band would come out and autograph things and take pictures with the stragglers. This is how I got to meet him four of the seven times (so far). @Yoda was with me that first time (in 1994). But Al is actually a quiet, shy guy so he wouldn't really talk much. His drummer would talk more (Bermuda Schwartz). That is so great that Gallagher spent time talking to you like that! It's my big smile for the day!

How sad. I loved Gallagher. I saw him at my college in 1980 or 1981. I can't remember which. The show was hilarious. I don't now what he has said that is controversial. It is probably something that wouldn't have been controversial then. I never thought of him as an edgy comic.

My favorite Gallagher joke was about waiting to make a left turn during a green light. The question was who could go during the yellow light; himself or the oncoming traffic. Whose light was it? He said, "It's mine, I paid for it with my damn green!" I think about that every time I make a left hand turn and shout it in my car. It never fails to crack me up.

He was one of my favorites growing up. I got to see him once as a kid with my dad and my brother. We weren't front row - we were actually pretty far back - but we still got hit with stuff when the ol' Sledge-O-Matic came out. Sad to read this news.

RIP

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Thanks for sharing your story, @Citizen Rules! It's always nice to hear when a celebrity is a nice, down-to-earth person. I used to watch all of Gallagher's specials on cable. Godspeed, dude.

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