Clean stand-up comic Nate Bargatze will headline St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center on July 26 in what will be his second appearance in the metro in less than a year.

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday through Ticketmaster.

Dubbed “The Nicest Man in Stand-Up” by the Atlantic magazine, Bargatze was inspired to pursue a career in entertainment by his father, a clown turned magician. He called his 2015 debut Comedy Central special “Full Time Magic” and his debut album “Yelled at by a Clown.”

He has since released two specials for Netflix, “The Tennessee Kid” and “The Greatest Average American,” as well as “Nate Bargatze: Hello World” on Amazon Prime. The latter holds the record as Amazon’s most-streamed original comedy special in its first 28 days of viewership.

Bargatze is a frequent guest on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and has served twice as the host of “Saturday Night Live.” He sold more than 1.2 million tickets this year, making him the No. 1 earning comedian in the world according to Pollstar.

In August, Bargatze drew a sold-out crowd of 13,570 to the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand. In a Pioneer Press review, Rob Hubbard wrote: “Bargatze has a particular gift for the short short story, engaging an audience in a tale for just long enough, then moving on to the next anecdote. It’s all very accessible material, and Saturday’s hour-long set was as all-American as it could be.”

In a 2023 interview with Fox News, Bargatze said he keeps his shows clean because he’s afraid of disappointing his parents.

“I just can’t imagine cursing in front of your parents,” he said. “Still, even now, I’m 43 years old and I still just couldn’t do that. So that’s how I write. I think I write my comedy to — a lot of it is to make my parents laugh. I want them to be proud and be like, ‘Oh, come watch my son do comedy,’ and not be offended by it. I just don’t have that in me to want to offend someone or make someone feel bad.”

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