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Flight of the Conchords: a couple of Kiwis who share a dry sense of humour and a bunch of funny songs. Pretty much a novelty coffee shop/fringe act.
So how come they rocked Wembley so hard?
I don’t know exactly, but they did. I guess two seasons of a hilarious sitcom on HBO boosts your visibility. Sure helped me go from “Flight of the what?” to: “Yeah. Huge fan.”
Tickets sold out in under 20 minutes for the show (an added date after their other shows also sold out stupid-quick).
The opening band wasn’t funny. Although one guy was wearing a cape. I think it was a cape; it was a cape-like garment for sure. But I don’t really know for sure – we were very far from the stage. Fortunately there were giant super-screens set up on either side of the playing area. Still I couldn’t figure out the cape thing. The music was good though.
They played a blend of melodic beardy goodness and chunky rock – mostly to an indifferent trickle of fans. Although, towards the latter part of their set, the seats started filling up and the excitement started mounting, and their rock got chunkier. And it was good.
Arj Barker (Dave from the TV show and a pretty kick ass stand-up in his own right) came out and did a pretty kick-ass half hour.
Can’t be easy to stand there by yourself and tell warm-up jokes to a SOLD-OUT STADIUM. He even tweeted that it would be largest crowd he’d ever performed in front of. But onstage he seemed pretty chilled about the whole thing.
Then the Conchords came out and pretty much killed it. A long set of funny and engaging songs. And talking. Their show hasn’t developed all that much from their bare-bones beginnings. As Brett pointed out early on, “This is pretty much it. Some songs and some talking… Song. Then some talking, then another song.” Until Jemaine corrected him: “Sometimes we play two songs in a row without talking.”
But they played for over two hours, which meant a lot of songs and a whole bunch of banter. We the crowd lapped it up. They played favourites such as Business Time and The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room), as well as some new stuff, like the medieval ballad Woo a Lady.
It built to a big finale that was a full-on homage to 80s Motorhead/Metallica/Guns ‘n’ Roses metal that worked the crowd into a collective ecstasy – I think. It was pretty dark in there and a lot of people were pretty far away, but I thought it was fucking rad, and I’m pretty sure most people agreed.
Then they came out with an encore that topped it.
And then it took a long time to get home.
So yeah. That was good. Those guys are rock ‘n’ roll.
