There was a fairly even split between his renowned musical comedy and more regular stand up segments, though with Bailey, they're anything but regular, such an effusive and physical storyteller he is.
He jumps forward and backwards through his themes and ponderings, seamlessly referencing earlier jokes which then build into a great shaking pile of hilarity, with laughs on top of laughs.
Our flag-changing policy and Prime Minister ("He's like a plastic bag stuck up a tree - nobody knows how he got there, and no one can be bothered getting him down") came in for some ribbing early on, but Bailey was quick to point out how even more bewildering British politicians are, and got some good laughs out of UKIP policy.
His bagging of One Direction also got plenty of applause ("They're so unremarkable, they're like five blank scrabble tiles"), but it's his superbly imaginative language that raises his criticisms above the generic.
It's pure comic genius when he describes all the other things he'd rather listen to than One Direction, and concludes with an impersonation of Sting singing the transcripts from the Pistorious trial on a lute - and yes, he actually has a lute.
The laughs only get more uncontrollable when Bailey spends some time demonstrating how one's tongue placement can be all the difference between a guitarist appearing to 'rock out', and seemingly not knowing how to play the instrument particularly well. It's a wonderful visual gag that will keep working for hours, and also allows Bailey to demonstrate his wicked abilities on the guitar.
Turns out he's just as good at rapping too - if there was ever a school teacher struggling to convey the intricacies of energy to a science class, Bailey's rap about thermodynamics will sort them out in a jiffy.
It's Bailey's stories about some of the simplest things that prove his incomparable talents though - a man who can make you just about fall out of your seat with laughter when telling tales of skyping with parents, or returning a faulty appliance, has a deft touch indeed.
And some of his more outlandish life experiences provide the meatiest gags in the second half. His love of birds (he name checks several New Zealand specimens throughout) has seen him head to Indonesia on bird watching missions several times, and his latest effort to learn a little more of the language saw him stumble across one of the most bizarre phrase books ever written.
One of the cleverest heckles ever shouted came with a story about an injured goose and an over-zealous undercover police squad, and his eye-watering story of going dog sledding in Norway with his in-laws contained the wonderful phrase "It looked like a Maserati pulling a pringle".
A guitar made out of a Bible was used in a bit of gentle religious-ribbing, and he created his own series of funny walks to a selection of songs nominated by the audience, before his musical finale, which included oh-so-clever mash-ups of Miley Cyrus with Kraftwerk, the Downton Abbey theme with Jamaican dub reggae, and Abba in the style of Rammstein.
There are many tangential rambles throughout, but Bailey hits a rate that's more than double a laugh per minute no matter what he's talking about.
Who: Bill Bailey
What: Limboland
Where and when: ASB Theatre in Auckland, November 5 and 6, with additional shows in Hamilton on Friday November 7, and in New Plymouth on Sunday November 9.
