This weekend, Cy Amundson and Chad Daniels will be onstage together for the first time since March 2020.
“We did a show literally a week before lockdown,” Daniels recalls of their last gig.
Back in 2019, things were going extremely well for the two Minnesota comedians. Both were successful headliners, selling out clubs all over the country. Daniels had just released a new album, and Amundson was gaining steam in the sports world as host of ESPN’s SportsCenter on Snapchat. That’s when they decided to start a podcast.
“We tried one or two ideas that were just really, really bad,” Amundson says. “Then one day we were on the phone and said, ‘Fuck it. Let’s just do this.’ A lot of our calls would just be us catching up, and we figured we’d try to do that with microphones and find out if it’s shitty or not.”
It was not shitty. Their Middle of Somewhere podcast quickly developed a dedicated following, then it all nearly went away.
Amundson began to experience significant health problems, which were ultimately discovered to be the result of an autoimmune disease that essentially left him with extreme arthritis-like symptoms and made it nearly impossible for him to travel or even fully project his voice. For someone whose entire livelihood is based on traveling to different towns and talking for an hour at a time, the condition had the potential to destroy his career.
“It was a real fear,” Amundson says. “I don’t know if I ever let it become a full thought, but there was definitely fear.”
Amundson tried continuing on with the podcast, but health issues forced him to step away for almost two years. During that time, Daniels kept things rolling, though he now admits that the enterprise felt doomed without his co-host. Amundson had a serious heart-to-heart with his friend about what coming back to the podcast would mean to him.
“He told me some things and said, ‘I don’t have standup right now. So this is kind of my creative release,’” Daniels remembers. “And so I said ‘OK, let’s keep it going.’”
A new specialist helped Amundson better understand his condition, and even more treatments followed. This year, Amundson recovered to the point where he could come back to the Middle full-time.
“[Chad] was justifiably worn out,” Amundson admits. “But he’s the best, man. He was willing to be a part of my journey and that conversation we had allowed us to get through that period to ultimately end up where we are now.”
Where we are now is Daniels selling out venues on his own tour or joining up with the likes of superstar comic Bert Kreischer to perform for arenas. Still, he says he’s most excited about his pal finally returning to the stage.
“I was working in Cincinnati [where Amundson now resides] and he came in to do the opening spots for my shows at Go Bananas Comedy Club,” Daniels says. “As his friend, it was such a big deal to see him back up on stage, feeling better and getting back to being healthy.”
Amundson continues to perform sporadically, including a one-off show at Acme Comedy Co. this past summer that sold out almost immediately. This weekend will be something of a victory lap, and he plans to celebrate accordingly.
“We have a bunch of ideas,” Amundson says of Friday's Middle of Somewhere live recording at the Parkway Theater. “The thing you need to know about us is that we have a ton of ideas, and we pull some of them off every once in a while.”
No matter how much they shit-talk each other onstage, Amundson and Daniels both report this journey has brought them closer together than ever—as comics and friends.
“It’s cool that people like the show,” Amundson says. “But I think of how lucky I am that this great friendship I had became something greater than most people ever get to experience in their lives. I think it’s nice to be there for someone else and have him be there for me.”
Middle of Somewhere Live
Where: Parkway Theater
When: 7 p.m. Friday, October 13
Tickets: $25; click here for tickets
