By Chelsea Reil

By 7:15 p.m., the lobby of Ell Hall was packed. When the doors of Blackman Auditorium opened 15 minutes later, hordes of students rushed to get front row seats. By 7:45 p.m., almost all of Blackman was filled.

Nick Swardson performed for almost an hour to a sold-out crowd Tuesday night. The Council for University Programs, Delta Zeta and Beta Gamma Epsilon sponsored the event. Keeping with the Springfest theme of “Kickin’ It Grade School,” the event was titled “Comedians We Wish We Had in Grade School.”

The stand-up comic, who was first discovered by fellow comedian Jamie Kennedy, developed a following for his roles in “Grandma’s Boy” and “Reno 911,” in which he plays a gay male prostitute on roller skates. The Minneapolis native also appeared in “Malibu’s Most Wanted” and “The Benchwarmers,” both of which he wrote the original screenplays for, and acted in “Blades of Glory” and “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.”

One theme in his performance was his love of alcohol, as well as its drawbacks.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever had alcohol poisoning,” he said. “It’s not fun. It’s like a hangover times, I don’t know, a million.”

He also discussed his penchant for blacking out while drinking.

“I love drinking. I love blacking out,” he said. “How fun is that? Why is it frowned upon? I love having no idea what I did last night, having it explained to me. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a detective. You wake up and you have a lot of mysteries to solve.”

But Swardson said he had many dreams when he was younger, not just detective work. Comedy wasn’t always in his plans, he said.

“It’s cool doing comedy. Not my first choice. I wanted to be a ninja when I was a kid,” he said. “I have nieces and nephews now, so I get to hear all of their little kid dreams. Sometimes it’s not even a job, it’s like, ‘I want to be a fire truck.’ What is that? I wish that everyone had to be the first thing they ever wanted to be. First thing. There would be ninjas running around, lots of princesses, quarterbacks throwing footballs to pirates.”

Swardson talked about his personal experience – or lack thereof – with higher education after asking the audience members about their opinions of Northeastern.

“So, I commend you guys for going to school,” he said. “I didn’t go to college. You guys are learning stuff. I have a terrible vocabulary. I say like, five words. I say ‘dude,’ ‘whatever,’ ‘fuck,’ ‘retarded’ and ‘gay.’