Comedian Dan Gabriel has a soft spot for Cincinnati. “I actually taped my CD (Giant Robot) at Go Bananas,” the California native says. “It’s a great room. The low ceilings make the laughs sound incredible.” Don’t expect a greatest hits show, though, when Gabriel returns to the Montgomery club. “(Expect) very little stuff from Giant Robot,” he says. “I like to do new material, and new things happen to me all the time.” Gabriel got his start after fellow students at the University of California at Davis encouraged him to go to an open mic night. After college, he found himself waiting tables — at a comedy club. “I saw a lot of comics coming through,” he says, and that helped him hone his craft more effectively. Club management would often turn to him when an MC was late or didn’t show. “So starting off I got a lot of stage time just because I was there.” His opening joke was, “A lot of you are looking at me like ‘I’ve seen this guy before.’ I brought you your buffalo wings.” Gabriel performs Thursday-Sunday at Go Bananas. $8-$12.
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This article appears in Jan 14-20, 2009.