Bob & Tom Comedy All-Stars at Victoria

Commercial radio is on a steady decline since the early 90s, but "The Bob & Tom Show" has a very different route. The program, which is strongly focused on stand-up comedy, began as a morning show in Indianapolis 1983 and is now syndicated coast-to-coast in over 150 markets.

"I do not know what radio does, to be quite frank," said "Bob & Tom" sports director Chick McGee. "We try so organic and real as possible and try to laugh together and have fun every morning."

This approach has worked. "Bob & Tom," heard locally on WTUE-FM (104.7), has become one of the most successful morning shows in the country.

The program is presented by Bob Kevoian and Tom Griswold, who are big supporters of stand-up comedy. Every day they mix original sketches and musical comedy songs with on-air interviews with a number of strips.

The influential radio hosts have also branched into other areas, such as CDs, DVDs and a series of multi-performer concert tours. In 2004 Griswold Kevoian and launched the successful Bob & Tom Comedy All-Stars Tour.

The bill package, which features a rotating cast of performers, returns to Dayton on Saturday, November 21, for a few shows in Victoria Theater. Caroline Rhea, Tammy Pescatelli, Greg Morton, Costaki Economopoulos, Donnie Baker and Kristi Lee will perform.

For Lee, news director for Bob & Tom, "the All-Star home concerts have really how wide a collision drove their radio program.

"The show is much bigger than I thought it was," she said. "You just do not realize. I go to work every morning and I'm hanging with my friends, I'm not going to work and talk to someone in Salt Lake City.

"Then when you go to Salt Lake City for these concerts, they go, 'Oh, my God." And you go, 'Oh, my gosh! "It is really amazing."