I find myself in Puntersville more and more these days as the balance between bookish and performing life is swinging more towards the former. But I’ve always thought it a good idea for comedians to go sit there every so often and observe.
You can learn a lot when you’re in that town, especially when you don’t know the acts in any way, and especially when they’re notable. Their material and performance is a surprise to you, so you can appreciate it the same way as other punters. Plus they don’t know you! You’re just another punter. Sure, you get a bit stage jealous, but you know you have more stage time coming up, you can wait for your own moment. In the meantime, the performer in you assesses and computes. What is the quality of the material? What makes this act unique and standout? What tricks do they use in stagecraft, crowd interaction, etc? Is there anything you can learn from this? Beep beep boop boop.
For example, I had a smashing time as a guest at a recent Comedy Crate gig in Northampton. I did know the MC, Jamie Allerton, but my gosh was he on a roll last week. Probably the best crowd interaction I’ve seen in a long time. Mate, you were on fire! Damn, his brain works fast.
Jamie’s brilliance set the night up nicely, and gave the other comics the crowd on a plate. I hadn’t seen Kelsey de Almeida or Kyrah Gray before. Kelsey was very good and much liked, but the crowd’s response to Kyrah in the middle was utterly joyous; she must have floated to the back of the room. The wave of appreciation continued for Eshaan Akhbar. Thanks guys for your entertainment and education! Yeah this is all general and positive, but you don’t need the minutiae of my analysis or my jealousy. Go read Chortle for that. What I have picked up on is for me. You, generic person who likes watching comedy, would just appreciate me reporting that these acts were funny and the whole night worked like magic.
It’s a fairly high capacity room at TCB, but will any of us end up playing an arena? Maybe Eshaan has a chance, but arena comedy is a different beast anyway. Let’s see what I learned from Tenacious D at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena.
Hang on, you’re thinking…isn’t that music? Yes, yes it is. But musical comedy is very much a thing and Jack Black and Kyle Gass are the TOP exponents of musical comedy in the western world. Sure, Tom Lehrer is the greatest living (if you don’t believe me, head to his site right now while it’s still there, and all his songs are free to download and in the public domain, what a guy!), but the D are the biggest and best working right now. Yeah, I play Bo Burnham constantly too, but the D have the edge (no, that’s U2/shut up lame pun brain!).
Tenacious D are all about rock and “The Metal”, and are musically ace, which they have to be. They aren’t going on about their heroes in the same genre and being all pants about it: rock fans are some of the nerdiest, most anal musos on the planet. They would have had chaps at the front chin stroking about the amps, for sure. But not all fans are going to know rock detail, so they scale big, and they scale subtle so everyone has a tune to sing to and jokes they can appreciate. Like, never changing from their semi-acoustic guitars all night, except for some fake sax-a-boom saxophones and Kyle’s recorders… while singing about metal? That’s subtle.
And for the lads from Derby, they scale big with immature songs about sex. Yes, lads from Derby near us, who had found the two pint glasses of lager that made them look like hobbits, and who shouted throughout Dave Hill’s support set. They scale big for everyone, so even twats like you can say they had a good night despite your beer ears and blurred vision. (What do you mean the saxophones were fake?) They probably didn’t even realize that “special effects guy”, Biff, (Biffy Pyro, lol) who Tenacious D called on stage to remonstrate for not pressing the pyrotechnics button at the appropriate time WAS ALSO DAVE HILL.
Dave Hill is an American comic, and not the guitarist from Slade. But he is also a very good musician, treating us to electric twiddles from famous rock songs almost as zingers punctuating his material. Flying onto stage on skates and promptly falling over, he sets the scene as though he is a would-be rock legend who has greatly overestimated his ability and his cool. But he is very cool indeed, ingratiating himself to his British audience with local observations, many of which seem last minute (in a good way), and a continued surprise at the existence of Poundland.
But the lads from Derby, who kept telling us they were from Derby by shouting “Derby lads!” and random football nonsense had to be told to shut up by different people a dozen times because they thought Dave Hill was an Oasis tribute act who just wasn’t getting in with it.
Just…this is Tenacious D! A comedy rock act with a hugely rounded comedy show at which Jack and Kyle give great performances as the ego and the talent. Ego Jack constantly swiping Kyle’s successes and putting him down, picking fights with the roadie’s, causing everyone to quit in succession so he has to beg them to come back, before fighting a Metal warrior and then ultimately the Devil himself! It’s like Simon Pern meets Spinal Tap meets…. well… Tenacious D!
Of course it’s comedy, you twats! And excellent it was, too.
