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MILWAUKEE – Partway through their two-hour set at the Riverside Theater Sunday, Bret McKenzie of the Flight of the Conchords accidentally knocked his acoustic guitar off its stand.
The dramatic “ooh”s elicited from the sold-out crowd as the instrument toppled to the floor were met with a comedic “Who did that?” from McKenzie. And just like that, the episode was over.
Not that this was a particularly significant event, but what it demonstrates is the uncanny way this quirky New Zealand-bred duo will falter, crack a joke or two about it and then simply start over. Throughout the night McKenzie and Jemaine Clement actually encountered technical quandaries a handful of times, but their cool humor left audiences fully satisfied despite the pitfalls.
Opening the show exactly on time — displaying incredible punctuality by any typical concert norm — was stand up comedian Arg Baker. Donning a blue camouflage bandana and appearing very much like somebody’s hipster older brother, Baker worked the raucous crowd of largely 20- to 30-somethings with jokes ranging from gay culture in San Francisco to the quantity of lice living in a mattress store’s public pillow.
Baker’s best jokes, eliciting the loudest volume of audience applause, involved the personification of objects. For one, the comedian poked fun at the mostly unreliable mind of predictive text, and more specifically, his enduring challenge in ever getting the feature to spell “restaurant” correctly. In another joke, Baker marveled at the intellect of Google search and how it asks knowingly, “Did you mean ‘x’?” when one has hit a typo.
After a short half-hour, the main act took the stage. Sitting simply on high chairs placed near the front of the stage, Flight of the Conchords launched into “Robots,” a song off their recently released self-titled album which also appeared in their hit HBO series of, again, the same name. Shadowy lighting with twinkling white spotlights not only heightened the room’s excitement as the lights slowly went up and the band came into view, they also gave the pair a futuristic aura that matched the song.
McKenzie and Clement would also engage in lengthy chats with each other between sets, and these would generally lead right into their next song. For example, during one interlude Clement began describing how after a show girls would line up in a frenzy to kiss them (of course, this was all made up) and he divulged that McKenzie was the “technical” kisser of the group, being well-educated in all kissing styles, such as “Mayan, Egyptian and even French.” The subsequent song, then, was “A Kiss is Not a Contract.”
In addition to playing songs taken from their show and album, the Flight of the Conchords also tried out a few new numbers on the audience. In the midst of one new upbeat song, McKenzie actually got up and jammed in the first row. After clambering back onstage and rolling around on the floor briefly, at the conclusion he said with a large exhale, “That was very sexual, what just happened in the front row.”
Another new song took a decidedly somber tone. It was introduced by McKenzie, who explained, “For this one I will be playing the part of a choir of women.” Clement then lead the chorus, “There must be 50 ways that girls have left me/ Carol Brown took a bus out of town/ But I was hoping that you’d stick around.” These new songs saw such success they often earned the same degree of applause as hits like “Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros,” “Mutha’uckas” and “The Prince of Parties.”
The band actually altered the lyrics during many of their best known songs. For “Business Time,” versus were expanded to include notes about why Gemaine’s girlfriend’s T-shirt was so dirty (spaghetti) and about wiping off her pimple cream. He even mimicked tripping over his shoes while still sitting on his stool.
Other antics included speaking in a whisper and then simply mouthing words so that the audience couldn’t hear. McKenzie would joke, “It’s a shame, really, because this is the best part.” Then he held is guitar aloft and pretended to rock out to their silent verse.
The crowd was rowdy and talkative throughout the concert, to the point where the band cracked jokes and even said “Hush little children, you’re frightening,” and a man in the audience shouted back, “Welcome to Milwaukee” to even more laughter.
After performing for roughly an hour and a half, the Flight of the Conchords began their farewell with a ridiculous retelling about meeting David Bowie and Tina Turner on an acid trip in the past, which led into their song “Bowie.”
The Milwaukee crowd would not let them leave, however, and before long the Flight of the Conchords took the stage one final time for an encore which lasted an exciting half-hour. Sitting intimately on the floor at the ledge of the stage, Clement began by saying he had a song dedicated to McKenzie, titled, “Bret You Got it Goin’ On.” Silly lyrics included, “Hey man/ I put a wig on you,” and McKenzie joked that he didn’t approve of the song. On an even less serious note, the band ended with another new song, the chorus of which went, “There are angels/ In the clouds/ Doin’ it/ Behind the shroud of the clouds/ Foolin’ around/ Makin’ it rain.”
Overall, the Flight of the Conchords put on a show that incorporated plenty of new material that enhanced the songs that fans were already familiar with. Highlighting their offhanded comedy and silly banter, the band’s performance was truly not to be missed.