Seven years ago I got a job selling tickets for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. The Fringe has been considered the largest performing arts festival in the world. One of the acts, Tenacious D, had been scheduled, and canceled, even before I started working there. But the act was still listed in the program along with the other several hundred shows we were selling tickets for. Tenacious D was on our short "canceled" list.
For 6 weeks I sold thousands of tickets to people from all over the world who waited in line for hours to get them. I distinctly remember the faces of those few that had not heard that the Tenacious D show had canceled. There weren't many, but their sadness remains with me. They were so disappointed, so I became curious.
As The D gained popularity, I learned to understand why these fans had been so disappointed. Jack Black and Kyle Glass are: THE GREATEST BAND IN THE WORLD.
And they have rocked my socks off tonight. What an awesome show.
I was pretty lukewarm about the whole Outside Lands Festival this year. I got a press pass at the last minute and am in between a trip to New York and my first Burning Man experience. I wanted to pace myself. Friday's highlight was seeing Tom Jones, who was downright entertaining. I saw a few other bands, but nothing really worth mentioning.
But then Sunday night came. Tenacious D stepped in a few weeks before the festival after the Beastie Boys canceled their summer tour due to MCA's (Adam Yauch) cancer surgery. I was delighted to hear this marvelous news (other people were not happy, including M.I.A - she didn't realize that the Beastie Boys had canceled and was mouthing off on twitter about it. I'm sorry for you). I would finally be able to experience what I had been wondering about since 2002.
I love musical comedy shows. The Flight of the Conchords show I saw a couple months ago was one of the best shows I've seen this year. One of the things I like so much about these kinds of acts is that the musicianship is topnotch. Kyle Glass is an excellent guitar player. Jack Black has a fabulous, versatile and expressive rock voice.
And what about the musical jokes? Like Kyle playing a solo that ends with him climbing up the scale to sit on the leading tone for what seemed like forever before resolving to the tonic. I'm a music dork, and you know what? That made me laugh.
Tenacious D is lewd, raunchy, foul-mouthed and ridiculous. And I loved every minute of their show.
Jack announced that yesterday was his 40th birthday and that he had never felt better since he had been doing so much yoga. He got down on the ground and did a couple (cock?) push-ups for us. And then announced that he had been practicing "flick flacks." So he cartwheeled off the stage and then flipped back on stage a couple times ending in a hand stand. (Hopefully SOMEONE got that on video!)
What is going on here??
Kyle got pissed at Jack and forced him to bring out the stunt double. Jack yelled at him for ruining the act and Kyle stormed off the stage. So Jack sang "Friendship" and brought him back. They made up. Aw.
What about the robot "Heavy Metal" coming out on stage and doing a choreographed dance with the D? (Pictured below) or a "rock off" with the devil??
So here is a little photo essay. Yes these pictures suck, but I wasn't standing close enough to the stage to get anything worthwhile, so I went nuts taking photos of the giant digital screen. Enjoy.