Culch.ie

It’s Business Time – an evening with Flight of the Conchords

Guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk music fans were treated to a fantastic night’s entertainment this week as Flight of the Conchords took to the stage at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre.

Of course, a gig wouldn’t be a truly good gig unless there was a story to tell, so Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokul, kindly stepped up to the plate and once more spread a plume of volcanic ash into the sky, resulting in Irish airspace being closed. This did not deter the Conchords though; they made it to Dublin on a bus. Troopers.

Our very own David O’Doherty, who had just returned from Australia, supported Flight of the Conchords. O’Doherty combined dryly sarcastic comments about the every day and the mundane with tunes played on his miniature keyboard. He well and truly warmed the audience up with his self-deprecating comments about his French trousers and his observations about the rage levels of passengers who travel in the ‘quiet’ carriages of trains. O’Doherty’s musical whimsy set the tone for the evening and he walked off stage to rapturous applause.

After a short interval the audience happily crammed back into their seats and as the curtain rose to the opening chords of The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room) the audience roared their delight at the Conchords having made it to Dublin at all. Bret and Jemaine are noted for their understated style of comedy that relies on the easy interaction between them, silliness and awkwardness. Fans of the HBO TV show that catapulted the duo to fame will be aware of the fact that Flight are the Conchords are nothing if not self deprecating; Bret and Jemaine showed this off to full effect on stage.

The duo gave an outline as to how the show would operate, how the balance would be struck between songs and talk; ‘talk, talk, song, talk’ then launched into firm favourites including The Humans are Dead, Jenny and Hiphopopatamus vs. Rhymenoceros. Bret and Jemaine also had a surprise guest touring with them – The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, also known as Nigel; one man and his cello. This is another example of the Conchords’ self deprecating sense of humour, the self in this case extending to their home land, New Zealand.

The Conchords mixed their established material – including I’m Not Crying and Foux Da Fa Fa – with new songs. Woo A Lady tells the long and extremely complicated story of Jemaine trying to, well, woo a lady in 1353. Bus Driver’s Song pretty much is what you would expect – a song sung by a bus driver as he takes tourists around a small town. Sounds tedious, but the air of whimsy and slight bewilderment added by Bret and Jemaine themselves made the songs work.

It is easy to confuse Flight of the Conchords with their contemporaries The Mighty Boosh, and to that end, it could have been a disappointing show for fans of the Boosh who expected similar from the Conchords. Whereas The Mighty Boosh put on, for want of a better phrase, a play, Flight of the Conchords rely on their music for the comedy factor and really strip down the live show into the main components that made the TV show so strong – Bret and Jemaine.

Bret and Jemaine handled heckling from the crowd with ease and enjoyment, and when someone shouted ‘Play some Prince’ from the back, they spontaneously began to play Kiss which very smoothly led into Business Time. The duo mixed it up a bit in the middle of the set with Demon Woman, and while Bret and Jemaine’s stage clothes very easily tore away to reveal the rhinestone cat suits underneath, they took several minutes to reassemble, which just added awkwardness to silliness and the crowd loved it. For the encore David O’Doherty came out and joined the lads on drums for the wonderful Bowie, then with a wave and a ‘We like you’ the Conchords were gone.

The show did feel slightly short, and the toy piano displayed prominently on stage was sadly never used, but the show was late starting due to volcanic interruptions to travel plans. It would be easy to say that we were robbed, having missed out on songs like I Told You I Was Freaky and Sugalumps – both of which were on the set list for Amsterdam the night before – but honestly, the crowd seemed so happy that the Conchords actually made it to Dublin they were willing to forgive this, and other small errors that, at the end of the day, didn’t really detract from the show at all.