News

THAT BUZZ IN THE AIR IS CONCHORDS TAKE OFF

Paul EASTON
Oct 24 2006
The Marlborough Express
© 2006 Fairfax New Zealand Limited. All Rights Reserved.

The Flight Of The Conchords documentary last Thursday night was a welcome appetiser to the weird world of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement.

Bret and Jemaine are Flight Of The Conchords, a Kiwi comedy band, singing slightly twisted songs about girls, about David Bowie, about anything at all really.

But don’t be deceived, this is seriously clever observational material, and these guys are no mean musicians.

There was quite a buzz about this show last week, seemed as if everybody was asking me if I was going to review it.

Well two people definitely asked me anyway. Do you want me to name them? I could you know.

There hadn’t been this much excitement since the Marlborough District Council sought public submissions on a proposal to develop more industrial and commercial land in and around Blenheim.

The variation could see developers apply to set up large format retail parks … oops, sorry, I slipped into automatic for a second there.

Anyway, Flight Of The Conchords was excellent.

The self-made documentary followed Bret and Jemaine as they travelled to Austin, Texas, to play the South by Southwest music festival.

Optimism flooded the show, largely because Flight Of The Conchords are doing extremely well in the States.

It’s quite clear that despite their low-key approach, and home-town Kiwi modesty, Flight Of The Conchords are a gathering force.

They told a bombastic radio jock they thought they would become ‘medium’ rather than ‘big’.

Flight Of The Conchords have signed to Subpop records, they’ve scored air time on HBO.

They were even featured in Time magazine, ‘not just the Australian version, the real one’.

They have a fan base ‘about 10 people’ they reckon, but gathering hordes of US fans indicated otherwise.

All Flight Of The Conchords shows were packed, even if the band battled at times with crappy venues and cantankerous sound systems.

‘We asked our manager if he could get us standing on a box in a tent, and he managed it,’ they told the crowd.

I would have liked to have seen some more complete songs from the lads, but this was a documentary not a concert film.

And hey, there’s always the DVD.

Flight Of The Conchords ended on a perfect off-beat note.

An attempted stage dive by an overly enthusiastic Brent ended with him sprawled at the crowd’s feet as they stepped neatly aside.

Perhaps a reminder that Kiwis can’t fly.

l Why, God why, have they sent the team from Breakfast to London for a week?

It’s either gross extravagance from TV One, who recently axed its South East Asia newsdesk pleading poverty, or, more likely, the slavering take up of a junket (media freebie) all expenses paid trip to the UK.

Either way we just don’t need it to see Kay Gregory standing in Piccadilly Circus at 7am in the morning, our time.