Podcast king Joe Rogan is performing stand up in Atlanta for the first time in five years, coming to the Fox Theatre for the first time on Sept. 30.
He last performed locally at the Tabernacle, a venue he loved so much that he taped one of his specials there in 2012.
The Fox Theatre, at 4,665 seats, has nearly double the capacity of the Tabernacle, which can fit 2,600.
Tickets for his Fox show go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. at Foxtheatre.org. Prices have not been released.
Like other comics Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, Rogan is restricting access to cellphones during his performance by requiring attendees to place them in magnetic pouches. This way, viewers can’t record his performance and place them on the Internet.
There is also a four-ticket purchase limit to hinder scalpers and tickets won’t be distributed to buyers until closer to the concert date.
While Rogan has been an actor, TV host, UFC wrestling analyst and podcaster over the years, he has a particular love for stand up.
But as an early adapter to podcasting, his freewheeling, unpredictable and often controversial takes on all sorts of topics connected with his fans and he was able to build a huge audience. In 2020, Spotify announced a licensing deal with Rogan to exclusively host “The Joe Rogan Experience” in a deal that reportedly paid him $200 million over three-and-a-half years.
He has been accused of spreading COVID-19 misinformation, a controversy that caused a backlash earlier this year. Then folks on the web dug up old clips of Rogan using a particular racial slur repeatedly.
Some artists like India.Arie, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young asked to be taken off the Spotify in protest. (You can still access music by all those artists on Spotify today.)
Rogan later apologized regarding the racial slur. While noting the clips were “taken out of context,” he said “it looks [expletive] horrible. Even to me.”
He has also made waves recently by criticizing Trump. And he recently said on his show that he’s a “bleeding heart liberal” when it comes to social issues like abortion and gay marriage.
“People will say like, ‘Oh, you know, you’re a secret conservative,’” he said on air. “Like, you can suck my [expletive.] You don’t know what the [expletive] you’re talking about,” he continued. “I’m so far away from being a Republican. Just because I believe in the Second Amendment and just because I support the military and just cause I support police.”
In the past, Rogan has said he’s been a fan of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. He did not vote for either Biden or Trump in the 2020 election.
