All hail the Conchording heroes
I’m willing to bet Saturday evening in Colorado marked the most schizophrenic comedy this country had to offer. What am I willing to bet? The answer is a hand job. If you can find me a more disparate entertainment lineup as the one I’m about to describe, then I will meet you in a location of your choosin'—but preferably the dressing room at Macy’s—and discreetly jerk you to fruition. Why would I make such a humiliating bet? Because I’m that confident in my assertion.
On the one hand, there was Flight Of The Conchords headlining Red Rocks on Saturday along with opening act—opening act!—Iron & Wine. On the other hand (that is, the dumber hand with fewer fingers that you use to hit your wife and flip off immigrants), there was Larry The Cable Guy headlining Wells Fargo Theater. Flight Of The Conchords, arguably the pillars of the current indie-comedy renaissance (who else in that school could sell out Red Rocks?) versus Larry The Cable Guy, the deliberately ignorant, redneck invention of a shitty comic whose real name is Daniel Whitney.
What was I, a comedy fan and a comic myself, to do with my Saturday night in Colorado? Hit up Larry The Cable Guy, of course. So I went to Larry’s show, and it was amazing. He uttered "git-r-done" 437 times. Then he said, “I don’t care who ya are, that’s funny right there,” after a bunch of racist jokes. We all laughed until gravy seeped out of our neck-folds, and then I went home and blogged about how waterboarding isn’t torture.
In the real world, however, I checked out the Conchords.
I’ve done enough comedy shows where stand-up was paired with music to know that it can go south quickly. It’s a tough mix, and it’s done poorly more than it’s done well. So I was curious to see how they were going to pull off a combo platter that included the beautiful, maudlin folk musings of Sam Beam of Iron & Wine, a straight-up standup comic in the form of Arj Barker, and the Conchords. First Beam came out and said, “You all ready to get mellow?” and went into song after song, just him and his guitar like it was the easiest gig in the world. I looked over the stage at the silhouette of the city sitting like a cardboard cutout on the horizon. I couldn't help but think that, even as a Red Rocks-load of people were “getting mellow” before a comedy show, a Wells Fargo Theater-load of fat-heads were guffawing at a catchphrase.
In my kitchen, I have two CDs that I randomly play on my little boom box when I cook. One of them is The Shepherd’s Dog by Iron & Wine. So while I quite enjoyed Beam’s set on Saturday, I couldn’t altogether concentrate. His music made me too nostalgic for meals I’ve made. The song “Resurrection Fern” damn near made me weep for a chicken marsala.
The other CD in my kitchen? Otis Redding's In Person At The Whiskey A Go Go. Oh, Otis, remember that time we made the pasta casserole?
Barker inherited the stage from Beam and made a difficult comedy spot look easy. He marveled at the size of the crowd, had the lighting guys turn up the house lights so all could marvel, and then did a few quick pot jokes to win over the Red Rocks audience. Smart move. From there, his remaining 20 minutes were a cakewalk.
And then all hailed the conquering Conchords. Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement took the stage in yellow Daft Punk-like costumes, their heads inside cardboard televisions, and blasted out their synth-heavy hit, “Too Many Dicks On The Dance Floor.” They then painstakingly explained the exact message they were trying to impart in that song, with all it’s subtleties and nuances, just in case we missed it. It was an indicative display of the balancing act the two seem to have perfected: a sly, comedic wink that hints that McKenzie and Clement are in on the joke, but they also might just have dirt in their eyes. Either way, the duo has grown into a legitimate sensation; the audience was so diehard that McKenzie had to instruct them to sit down. The crowd did—though many rose for their favorite songs—and our heroes slayed the sold-out crowd for the rest of the evening, with cellist Nigel Collins deftly providing the bass lines.
Waiting in the clusterfuck queue to exit Red Rocks after the show, I was annoyed by the sheer volume of people blocking my path back down to a Saturday night in Denver. But I was impressed, too, that a comedy-folk duo from New Zealand—a duo representative of a more thoughtful, witty, and erudite form of comedy that I truly believe is on the rise—could pull such a crowd.
But then I remembered how, while I was getting blown away at Red Rocks, Larry The Cable Guy probably just made a million dollars down at Wells Fargo. And that Dane Cook was headlining The Pepsi Center the following day. And I realized that the Conchords may have won a battle Saturday night, but the fucktards of the comedy world were still winning the war.
And I don’t care who you are—that ain’t funny right there.
