Flight Of The Conchords

Flight of the what? Yes, way back in the early noughties, Kiwi comedy band FOTC were struggling to make their way after showing initial promise – best-newcomer type awards which quickly fade away. They hit the big time when their comedy radio show was picked up by HBO in the US and made into a tv show – a mockumentary about the struggles of trying to find fame in a foreign country. It ran for two series and was wildly popular (check this – Ed).

Since then, they’ve had an on-again off-again career, as both Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement have gone on to different projects in film, tv and music, picking up the odd Oscar and other awards here and there. They’ve not performed together for eight years, as they were at pains to tell us throughout the show. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, dinner! I’d recently complained on a Wellington foodies forum that we ended up going to the same old places all the time for pre-theatre dinner, and asked for suggestions of new places to go. They flooded in (many of them not reading the brief, suggesting places way too far away, or that didn’t take bookings, but that’s the internet for ya!), and we decided to try one of the suggestions, Lucky 8. This is a modern Chinese style restaurant on Courtenay Place, where you order shared dishes – much like Mr. Go’s in fact – but with a distinctly Chinese accent rather than pan-Asian. The reason I’d picked it was because they had crispy duck pancakes, which is something we’ve not had for simply a-a-a-g-e-s, darling! You know, where you build your own roll with plum sauce, cucumber, spring onion and duck. And very nice it was too. I didn’t fancy any of their cocktails – Nicola had one – so I stuck to beer.

Flight Of The Conchords are playing at the Michael Fowler Centre. Such is their popularity that the first night sold out, and they’ve arranged three additional nights this weekend…and that’s just in Wellington! They’ve also sold three nights in Auckland, as well as the rest of their New Zealand tour.

The show started promptly at 8pm, with someone dressed as a tree playing the saxophone for three tunes. No explanation, just a taster of some of the weirdness that was to come. Then Jemaine and Bret took the stage, and started talking. The show is as much about the banter as the songs, much like the tv show, the radio show etc. At the beginning they mentioned the venue, saying of all the places around the world that they’d played, this was the most…convenient. Sometimes one's not ready when the other one is, so they start talking whilst the other one gets ready, then he’s not ready, and so it goes. They did manage to play some tunes in between, and Tree returned to the stage a few more times. Later in the show they were joined by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, or Nigel as he’s better known. This is a joke that works well in America and Europe, but in The Michael Fowler Centre, home of the NZSO, they ended up apologising profusely to the real NZSO, who they alleged were actually living underneath the stage (fact-check pls – Ed). Another guest, King Homeboy, came on to do some beatboxing for a few songs as well. At one point Jemaine almost stood up (gasp!) for a bit of guitar, but they play most of their songs sitting down. They played their well-known tracks, and also some deep cuts; introducing one such by saying “this one won’t be well-known by you…or by us”. Their lack of practice, and the gap between their warm-up gigs (in May) and their 8-year hiatus, were frequently referred to. 

Tree

A great night’s entertainment, with some songs that you know…what more can you ask for? That set list in full can be found here.