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Flight Of The Conchords and Aziz Ansari Somewhere during their second season, word of HBO's popular indie folk sitcom Flight of the Conchords filtered to Veronica and i, and we added it to our tivo. The first episode we saw was the one where Bret and Jemaine encounter a racist fruit vendor played by Aziz Ansari, who mercilessly insults the pair until he realizes they're from New Zealand and not the hated Australia. It featured the hilarious "Puff the Magic Dragon" takeoff song "Albi, the Racist Dragon", and prompted me to hunt down their assorted recorded material, including their live tour album and BBC radio series. Time treated the duo well, and their popularity swelled. The second season of their sitcom/musical HBO series concluded to rave reviews, and they released the Distant Future ep and subsequently their debut self-titled album. In support of the latter, Flight of the Conchords embarked on a U.S. tour, the San Francisco show of which sold out in 4 minutes. Luckily Veronica and i, being old veterans of the concert ticket wars, were on Ticketmaster promptly at 10am and got our seats. After a quick mediocre, overpriced dinner at the nearby Tonga Lounge, we met up with friends Gabe, Aubbie, and Amy and walked over to the Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium. The place was swarming with people, as you would suspect given the popularity of the event. We made our way to our seats in the balcony, running into old friends Greg, Nate, and co. on our way. The opener was the aforementioned racist fruit vendor Aziz Ansari, who did a solid 30 minutes of stand up. Introduced by an offstage Jemaine as "Think of the funniest moment of your life. Aziz Ansari will be like that.", his "stoner acerbicism" was frequently hilarious and warmed us up nicely for the headliners. I've been a bit schizophrenic about this show ... while i love the TV series and especially the live tour album, i find their recently released debut studio album to be a bit of a letdown. The pair derive a lot of their humor from improv riffing that suits an informal live show, and hence their polished album, while bearing the same comedic gems, doesn't hit the same highs. Despite my disappointment with the record, naturally that assessment meant their live show should kill, right? Right? The duo came onstage to rapturous applause and immediately launched into one of their most popular songs, the homage to the human race-destroying "Robots" of the distant future of 2000. They peppered the time between songs with silly banter, trying in their typically inept way to be cool rock stars and failing miserably. The show included most (although noticeably not all) of their previous highs, like "I'm Not Crying", "The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)", "Business Time", "Hiphopopotamus Vs. Rymenoceros", "Ladies of the World", "Foux Du Fafa", and "A Kiss is Not a Contract". Bret and Jemaine frequently discussed the distribution of the crowd in the auditorium, focusing on their favorite sections with Bret doing a lap around the venue at one point. Unfortunately, my paranoia about the "standardization" of the Conchords won out ... i found most of the show to be a bit stale and lacking the spontaneity and flexibility of their previous work. A lot of it left me with a feeling of "been there, done that". The omission of a few songs, like the previously discussed "Albi" which was nonetheless frequently called out for by the crowd, also didn't sit well. I'm not a huge fan of the band's more recent hip hop direction, and that occupied a fair bit of the proceedings. I describe this in a rather dour tone, and that's not entirely appropriate ... the show was enjoyable, but wasn't the brilliant comedic triumph i was hoping it would be. My group were in agreement upon exiting the venue that it dragged a bit and perhaps ran a bit long. Perhaps it's my indie snobbery ... as soon as the masses are championing a band i invariably lose interest. Maybe i'll be happier when the hype has died down and i'm enjoying the third season of their HBO series. Or if the duo would do a smaller, more intimate club tour that gets away from prepackaged, pandering to the masses-type performances.
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