Bill Cosby made quite an impression on the first-ever concert audience at NIU’s Convocation Center Friday night.

The internationally famous comedian coaxed laughter from the 6,500-person audience about twice each minute during his two-hour performance, although euphoria was diminished by sound and lighting problems.

Despite the complaints, Cosby evoked plenty of smiles from NIU students. After all, student fees built the $35.8 million arena after NIU’s Student Association and Board of Trustees – without a student vote – approved the idea.

“I didn’t really know what to expect,” Chris Carr, a freshman mechanical engineering major said. “I knew it was going to be really fun, but [Cosby] just blew me away … I think he’s always had it, and he always will have it.”

The show had two big problems: Low-angled spotlights and inadequate acoustical sound, according to multiple attendees.

“First off, Bill was great – but the acoustics stink,” DeKalb resident Jessie Flippin said. “It echoes. In the beginning, it was very, very hard to understand. There were lots of punchlines that you missed because you couldn’t hear them. So they’re gonna have to work on that. I mean, I think it’s a wonderful facility, but that’s a big problem.”

The low-angled lighting became a problem when attendees in the first few rows – in the best, most expensive seats at $74 each – were visibly disturbed by the four spotlights on Cosby. Although the lights were set at the highest point of the arena’s vertical walls – mere feet below the curved roof – each light still bled regularly into sections of five to 30 people. The location of those affected changed based on where Cosby was on the square-shaped stage, which was about 20 feet by 20 feet in size.

Early in the show, Cosby himself asked the light operators to move the lights off the crowd, but his request was to no avail as it was apparently impossible to do so.

Despite the complaints, there seemed to be a consensus about the quality of the comedian’s material.

“It was funny, it was hilarious and right on the point,” Yelivette Santiago a freshman undecided major, said. “He still has it.”

Cosby took the stage around 8:10 p.m. wearing a gray sweatshirt with the words “Northern Illinois” printed in red. He was greeted with a standing ovation.

The 65-year-old comedian enthralled the crowd with his famous noises, sound effects, impressions, facial expressions and body contortions. He told a few jokes about DeKalb and its abundance of corn. He also worked in one of his world-known catch phrases: “Hey, hey, hey!” When he revived the line from TV’s “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” the crowd responded with a wild, scream-filled applause.

Cosby’s jokes covered subjects including, but not limited to, the college application process, parenting, childhood demons, old age, childbirth pains, telemarketers, dentist appointments and sending a child off to college.

In perhaps the most impressive display of Cosby’s talent, he managed to get two widowed ladies to laugh hysterically about their late husbands – all while improvising during a short sequence where he left the stage and visited with members of the crowd.

The show’s marketability as a family event attracted many parents with their children.

“We thought it was great,” said DeKalb County resident Carrie Willie, who attended the show with her husband and 10-week-old son, John Paul. “[As a family event] it was good. I wish I could’ve brought my teenagers. It was surprisingly good.”

Willie added that she thought people could walk in and out of the seating area very well.

Chicago resident Van Washington traveled to DeKalb for a night with Cosby.

“I think [Friday’s] show was a really good show. He was really funny, and really entertaining,” Washington said. “I’m deaf and I have two sign-language interpreters here, and they were following up on what he was saying. But I was able to laugh along with everybody else. It was a good show.”

In the end, the fact that the 10,000-seat arena was 65-percent full could be considered a success for NIU.

“I think that this will lay the foundation for many, many decades of first-class entertainment and I think that [Cosby] has created a new paradigm for this part of the state,” said Manny Sanchez, chairman of NIU’s Board of Trustees. “First-class entertainment, in DeKalb at NIU, and I think this is just the beginning of many great things.”