Larks In Transit

Bill Bailey

The troll is back in town. Yes, Bill Bailey has returned to New Zealand, kicking off his Larks In Transit tour here (OK, in the South Island to begin with), then Australia and then, presumably, the world. 

We’d arranged with Gavin and Tor to go out to dinner at Hede first. We arrived there and had possibly the worst dining experience I’ve had in Wellington since we moved here. For details, read this. You might note the other reviews as well.

We got out of the restaurant, and walked across the road to the Michael Fowler centre to take our seats. We’d booked somewhat late (unusual for me) as we weren’t sure what dates we’d be going to Australia for our holidays, so didn’t know if we were going to make it or not. I do wish these comedians and rock stars would consult me first before going ahead and announcing their dates! Sometimes it’s so inconvenient! Anyway, we decided to delay our flights for a couple of days so we could fit Bill in. 

The format of a Bill Bailey show is pretty standard by now. He does some funny stuff, he does some musical interludes, he does some audience participation. He started off his show with a 20-minute rant about Brexit. To be fair, he did warn us pretty much straight away when he arrived on stage that that was his plan for the next 20 minutes. After that though he got off the politics and more into the stage show, which involved some new songs and poetry he’d written. He also asserted that any song would sound better when performed in the death metal style. He demonstrated this with a few choice songs supplied to him at random by audience members. Now, I know that people often think that the people shouting these out from the audience are “plants” to provide him with pre-arranged songs. But I can vouch for the fact that they aren’t, as I shouted out one song title, and he played it…so now I, and a whole bunch of other Wellingtonians, know what the death metal version of Dancing Queen sounds like. He also did Bohemian Rhapsody and Lady In Red, but steadfastly refused to do Justin Bieber.

I’ll look out for the DVD when it comes out and we’ll see what songs were picked by the audience members on it. I’ll also look out for his next tour in New Zealand as he’s always entertaining.

Next day, we were up with the lark to fly to Australia.