Stand Up - Finding Your Voice

I've been doing stand up at open mics now for about three months. I rarely kill, but get laughs most of the time. People come up to me after the show and say things like: "you were funny, it was kind of awkward, but I liked it." or: "you were good... it was kind of weird, but you were really good." I never really know how to take those comments. Obviously what you want to hear is: "you were hands down hilarious." I never expected to have broad appeal and I'm ok with that. A few comedians have complimented me on my sets, but overall I couldn't gauge how I was doing. I assumed that by not crushing the crowd and the strange comments I get afterwards that those jokes weren't that great.I asked another comedian where he feels I'm at in my progress and he told me he thinks I'm very funny and that he thinks I can do really well with certain crowds and that I just have to find those crowds. He feels I can do better at late night shows at comedy clubs in New York City and Chicago. Having this conversation, now has me questioning my approach to this whole thing. I've been throwing out jokes that only get some laughs, but don't get huge laughs. I only do jokes I like, so the ones that stay are also jokes I like. Maybe I should embrace more of the jokes that aren't crowd killers, but are ones I like and that might work in certain crowds? What do you guys think? Should I just stay with the process of throwing out the jokes that don't crush and keep the ones that do?

It depends, do you want to be a crowd pleasing comic who kills in most rooms or are you happy to be a "niche" comedian who has a particular audience?

If you want wide appeal then you need to be ruthless with the jokes, ones that consistently don't get a big reaction need to be dropped, even if you and some audiences really like them.

You don't say how long you've been gigging for, I'm guessing a year or two, if this is the case then a lot of your development and "finding your voice" will still be happening and it's just a case of getting stage time and experience.

The fact that you are questioning yourself and your act is a good thing, it shows that you have a level of self-awareness that is often lacking in comics, especially newer ones who often keep banging out material that doesn't really work and never seem to realise that the audience aren't really buying into it.