Comcast employee Seth Meyers feels a connection to Jason Kelce and wants to hang with Gritty

Philadelphia apparently loves late-night host Seth Meyers so much that Ensemble Arts Philly had to add a second show, at 9:30 p.m., following his sold-out 7 p.m. show on Saturday at Miller Theater. But we haven’t forgotten his 2015 jibe at the city when the Canadian robot HitchBOT was, as The Inquirer put it, “vandalized beyond repair on the streets of Philadelphia.”

“According to a new list, Nashville is the friendliest city in America,” Meyers said on his show at the time. “While Philadelphia beat up the person who was putting together the list.” Of course, that didn’t go down well. So what’s bringing him back to the city?

“To perform here is both a thrill and an honor,” Meyers said on Tuesday to The Inquirer. “As an employee of Comcast, I’m contractually obligated to say that I have always found Philly to be America’s finest city full of its most refined intellectuals.”

“The Acela corridor from Boston to Philly,” for Meyers, “is the richest comedy vein to mine in this nation.” As a “biased East Coaster,” Meyers said the Philly audience is his favorite kind of audience because “like Bostonians and New Yorkers, most people in Philly think they’re as funny, if not funnier, than anyone else.”

Meyers’ Miller Theater show is part of a tour that coincides with the 10th anniversary of his joining Late Night, taking over from Jimmy Fallon. “When it started in 2014, my biggest fear was, ‘How do you fill an hour every night?’” Meyers said. “Now the question is, ‘How do we fit all of this into an hour?’ Every day five things are happening that are beyond the wildest imagination of 2014 me.”

Like the time Feb. 26 when he went to get ice cream with President Biden after taping a show and a reporter asked the president about of an imminent cease-fire in Gaza. In the now-viral moment, a straight-faced Meyers is seen standing next to Biden. “The worst part of that clip was when the camera panned back to me holding my f— ice cream. There’s nowhere to put it!” the former Saturday Night Live writer said on his show the next day, describing the incident as being a cross between Curb Your Enthusiasm and Veep.

“The world is currently insane and you’re not crazy for thinking that,” Meyers told The Inquirer. Late Night with Seth Meyers, he said, aims “to be a place where people turn to find catharsis” especially during the upcoming election cycle.

The Steelers fan (Meyers’ father is from Pittsburgh) who thinks Jason Kelce “is one of those players you wish played for your team” is “genuinely jealous of the connection he and the city has.” “Also, the dude seems like an A+ older brother and as a fellow A+ older brother, I’m always going to be rooting for him,” said Meyers, older brother to actor and comedian Josh Meyers.

With double shows lined up in Philly, this weekend may not be a good time for the comedian — who recently got his “Lesbian Icon” makeover from actor Kristen Stewart in his show’s “Day Drinking” segment — to peruse the city’s libations. But if he did have the time, who would he go with?

“Gritty. Is there another answer?”

Seth Meyers, April 6, 7 p.m. (sold out) and 9:30 p.m., Miller Theater, 250 S. Broad St., Philadelphia, https://www.ensembleartsphilly.org/events-and-tickets/2023-24/kcp/seth-meyers/