Last week I saw Tenacious D at the Hordern Pavilion. They had a really good “He is Real” shirt for the tour, but the ATM at the venue (one ATM at a venue that holds thousands? Good idea!) was broken. The night got off to a sour start as a result. The support act, a pair called TnT … I have no idea how good they were, because they tended to sing about the sort of stuff that appeals to “all young men in Australia except for me” … which indicates they were probably too generic for the rest of the audience, because do you really want to hear songs about going out and drinking with your friends?
The concert itself was fun, although it was strange to see JB and KG stringing a story onto the stage. The songs that I knew went down a treat but, because the danged movie hasn't been released out here yet, I didn't know a lot of the rest.
This would not have been a problem had the D not gone electric (me! Judas!). The acoustics were not really calibrated for electricity and vocals, so I had no idea of a great deal of what Jack Black was singing. The band … consisting of the Anti-Christ on electric guitar, Charlie Chaplin on bass and Colonel Sanders on drums … was good, but it all became as so much noise to me.
It was a fun night, but not as much fun as I would have liked. I prefer the D when they treat a concert as a concert rather than a performance … and when using the Saxaboom makes sense!
For this reason, I present to you my write up of December 30th, 2004: the Day of the D.
Contains frequent profanity!
I should recount the tales of the D here before I forget them together. It was a big concert. Okay, so maybe it was just a little bit more than 90 minutes long, but JB and KG packed them with rock.
The support act for Tenacious D were Cannon, who were an all right band. In between songs the singer tried to banter with the audience, which was more like various ways of saying “fuck” to look cool.
When the D came on, the audience went wild and stood up. Despite having seats, we stood for the rest of the concert. The presence of the D inspired us, you see. JB and KG came on and started with their cover of Queen’s “Flash”. You know, “Flash! Ah-ah, master of the universe! Flash! Ah-ah, king of the impossible!” They also had their little embellishment, “To find the motherfucking holy grail, of Flash!”
“Flash” segues excellently into “Wonderboy”, and at this time I was a little bit worried. This was exactly what they played at Brixton Academy, so I was wondering if their play-list would be the same. I need not have feared!JB and KG introduced themselves, and said that Australia had one of the best music communities in the world. We cheered.
“I’m not blowing smoke up your ass,” Jack told us. “Okay, I am blowing smoke up your ass. Golden smoke. But I’m blowing other things up there. Like truth. I am blowing truth up your ass. Feel the refreshing breeze of truth in your anus.”They played more songs, including one of my favourites, “The History of Tenacious D”. This song is memorable for one of its best, most sacreligious lines: “We walked with Jesus and his cross, he did not die in vain! No!”
They brought up other songs that I had forgotten existed, such as the excellent “Jesus Ranch”. “I had a lovely day, walking down Jesus Ranch. I fell in love with a baked potato! And did a dance. In France.”Other things happened in the night, including the song for their movie The Pick of Destiny, which they want to be sung by Ronnie James Dio. And if they couldn’t get him, they would get some other guy who was obviously big in rock. And if they couldn’t get him, they’d get some other guy who nobody had heard of. They’d contact all the rock dinosaurs until one accepted!
Jack also told us of the man he wanted to get to play his father, and if he couldn’t get him, he’d get someone else, etcetera, and they’d keep on going until they could get some old fat guy who could sing to play his father!Somewhere in the night, they talked about how they had not been together in a while, because Jack was filming King Kong and Kyle was playing in his other band, Trainwreck. The audience booed him. They booed him hard.
“Well, what do you expect me to do when he’s away for four fucking months?” asked KG angrily.
They performed another of their new songs, “Dude I totally miss you” which from my memory wasn’t that great.After one of the songs, KG’s rock inspired Jack to perform some gymnastics. Jack dropped his guitar, ran off the stage, and back flipped across it twice. Then he came back.
KG said “And now we’d like you all to meet Jack’s stunt double for the movie King Kong.”
Jack then complained “why did you have to do that for?”
“It’s a good bit,” said KG.
“It’s a good bit,” mocked Jack. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
They launched into “Karate”, which upset Kyle so much he quit the band. They had to get their chief technician (also, apparently, band psychologist) to re-unite them. This led to much stage drama and a performance of (one minute ago) “Kyle Quit the Band”.Other highlights of the night included their song written specially for King Kong.
“We played it for Peter. He said ‘That’s a good song, guys.’ And nothing more.”The crowd went wild when they played “Tribute”. At the performance of “Rock Your Socks”, people in the dance floor threw their socks at the stage. Also one person threw their panties, which KG sniffed. He threw them into the wings, where the technician caught it and threw it back to them. They remembered that they had fired him in the saxaboom segment. “Rehired, raise”. Sure, they’ve done it before, but it’s still funny.
They played a half hour encore, but this was probably to be expected because otherwise we’d get like sixty minutes of material.
Naturally, I can’t remember all of their material. They pack it in. They love it. Also other people might want to see the D and the D might want to recycle a bit of their stuff. That’s okay. It’s cool.
At any rate, I would recommend seeing them live. It was a night of my life. Okay, technically they all are, but shut up.
Wow. I am no longer that person.
