Flight of the Conchords at the Sydney Opera House
8 July 2012A couple of nights ago a few friends and I caught Flight of the Conchords at their very first-ever Australian show at the Opera House.
Most people learned about the New Zealand folk-comedy musical duo via their HBO show of the same name, which featured them in wacky situations living in NYC, interspersed with their funny homage songs.
None of those TV skits were reproduced here, though. Their live tour is more about the music, which is how their original comedy act and radio shows were structured. There was silly banter between songs, but the music is the main focus of these shows.
Bret and Jemaine did a good job of performing most of my favourites, like “Too Many Dicks On The Dance Floor” and “The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room)” (though I really missed “Foux de Fafa”). Special effects and costumes were low-key (probably home-made). Some of the songs in the middle of the set were weaker, and I tuned out a bit. But the wry, bizarre, self-deprecating humour would re-appear quickly, and all was forgiven. If you like enjoy musical artist parodies and their style of humour (which is much cleverer than Weird Al, for instance), then seeing these guys live is as funny as you’d expect and hope.
The raging finales of “Demon Lover” and an extended, grinding, audience-participation (to a point) of “Sugalumps” were both catchy and hilarious.
Arj Baker, the US comedian who was in the show, also did some warm-up standup, and contributed to a couple of songs. Fun.
For your enjoyment, here’s a cool remix of “Business Time”.
