Burger with Relish

People even love or hate comedian Kathy Griffin.

Judging from the packed Abravanel Hall Saturday, Utahns love her.

The foul-mouthed, red-headed 49-year-old made up for never having visited Salt Lake City before by delivering a generous 100-minute set in front of an adoring audience, skewering pop-culture icons including Oprah Winfrey, Levi Johnston ("a pissed-off bitter queen"), Carrie Prejan, Jon Gosselin, the ballon boy, Marie and Donny Osmond, Nancy Grace, Paula Abdul, Britney Spears and many more, including Ryan Seacrest, of which she snarked, "She does a good job."

Despite frequently joking that she was pregnant with Johnston's baby, Griffin has embraced the LGBT community and they showed up in full force to support her. Griffin was tuned into her audience, remarking early on that all of lesbians in the crowd must have been Tivo-ing Suze Orman to come to Griffin's show, and later apologized to the "seven straight guys" in the crowd for making them sit through her act.

She needn't have apologized, because Griffin's gift is that she is readily identifiable to the rest of us who will never walk down a red carpet. Her act is party based on her successful, Emmy-winning show "My Life on the D-List," in which she recounts awkward and embarrassing run-ins with movie stars and pop singers. She also connects with the audience because her stream-of-consciousness, type-A aggressive act boldly proclaims what so many of us feel inside about the celebrity culture that alternately repels and sucks us in.

Before the show, in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, she promised all-new material, but she didn't live up to that be recycling many jokes about her box-of-wine-addicted 89-year-old mother that she took from her recently released comedy album "Suckin' It for the Holidays." And nearly 10 minutes of material on the various iterations of the reality show "The Real Housewives" was far too much about a forgettable TV show.

But Griffin's fast-and-furious delivery, with her right hand tightly gripping the mic stand and her left hand gesticulating wildly, ensure that any dry spells were short-lived. Most of her jokes are unprintable in a newspaper, but she connected with lines about her well-documented plastic surgery experiences, which she calls "dental work. " She added, "I have more staples in my head than a f______ Office Depot."

She also joked about her way-left-of-left political views, which includes legalizing pot for infants and outlawing heterosexual marriage. Griffin also lambasted the crying spells of Glenn Beck, who she called a "f______-up heroin addict."

Griffin also talked about the three best retorts to hecklers, which included an unmentionable reply to Anderson Cooper last year when she co-hosted CNN's New Year's Eve broadcast, But she never needed any responses to hecklers Saturday, because she killed them all.