Rockin' in the "D" World

I was very excited about seeing Tenacious D on Friday night. Very excited. As soon as I walked toward the Festival Hall one thing struck me… bloody bogans everywhere!! I have never seen that amount of smelly suburb dwellers in one place in my whole time in Melbourne! It was quite a thing.

Anyway, I hopped on the bogan conga line to get inside and I was soon face to face with the D! I have to say I was a bit disappointed off the bat as the show seemed to be just Jack Black and Kyle Gass on stage. Where were the pyrotechnics? Where were the demons and metal monsters I would have expected from the D’s brand of balls to the wall old school rawk? Was it really worth enduring this hellish heat and smellish peeps to watch two dudes with acoustics on a stage for an hour or so?

Well this was not a question the crowd was asking. No, sir. Right from the start they are captivated. Singing along to every word and laughing hysterically even though they know what’s coming. The predictability of their favourite tunes is what they crave. Like the audience of any rock’n’roll supergroup which, I have decided, Tenacious D definitely are. Whether the crowd of loyal fanatics are wittingly or unwittingly embracing the bogan cliché it would take a sociologist to decide. I think it’s somewhere in between.

As the gig progressed I was relieved and excited to see it turn into quite a spectacle. At one point the boys had an accident with an electric guitar made out of a toilet seat. After plugging it directly into the mains sending 10000 volts through our heroes it consequently sent them through the 27th Dimension of Rock straight to hell. Once there they recruit Charlie Chaplin on bass, Colonel Sanders on drums, and the Antichrist (who looks exactly like Jesus) to shred on lead guitar. Once they arrived back from Hades, a fire and brimstone backdrop appears and the real rocking commences.

It wasn’t all good though. The sound was shit so that we couldn’t hear the wailing lead enough. Visibility was nearly zero for short-arses like me and our illustrious shit-kicker in chief, the beer was warm, the venue is a disgrace on so many levels (“Festering Hole” – Thanks Jade) and the temperature was about 72 degrees Celsius. Oh yeah and bogans are generally nice people…. Until they get drunk and hot and smelly and the sweat from their hair flicks onto your face as they mosh in front of you. Then they are annoying as fuck. Satan love ‘em!

All in all though a highly entertaining show. Jack Black’s face and physicality are unmatchable. The psychopathic enthusiasm he exudes is hilarious and infectious. And the songs are classics all. “Fuck Her Gently”? Brilliant. A metal musical comedy spectacular with mushroom costumes, metal robots, toy saxophone funk jams and recorder solos. It wouldn’t be out of place at the Comedy Festival.

And they played a ROCKIN’ version of pinball wizard at the end…. And most of the bogans looked confused. WOOO!

- nicmah

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