Recap Flight Of The Conchords

Didn’t George Costanza warn us about this? Worlds collided at the May 11 Flight Of Conchords concert at Riverside Theater, and, per usual, those in the immediate vicinity of the dumbest, loudest people in the room suffered the most. TV and live performance, comedy and music, reality and fantasy—what normally stands apart was brought together, not always successfully, that night. It was all too much for the brain-cell wasters in the sold-out crowd, who treated the very real and very three-dimensional Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie like they were cute little images playing on their TVs at home.

Enjoying the spoils of cult fame in the U.S. from their lovable HBO TV series, Clement and McKenzie appeared slightly shell-shocked from having to explain, once again on their current tour, that, no, Murray and Mel weren’t there with them and are, in fact, fictional characters. (Even if you follow the logic of the show, there’s no reason Murray and Mel would be there. If anything, they’d be touring with The Crazy Doggz.) The duo answered the inevitable “Where Murray-Mel?” question early on during its otherwise enjoyable two-hour, two-encore set, but that still didn’t cue some of the more, ahem, soft-headed concert-goers that they were no longer in the privacy of their living rooms. As fun as the concert was, it showed that even the most skilled musical comedians forge at best an uneasy détente between enjoying a good laugh and a good song.

The problem with the show wasn’t the execution—Clement and McKenzie were pure, understated hilarity—but the audience. Folks were confused. Yelling shit at rock bands is de rigueur, but yelling shit at comedians is heckling and a potential killer of comic timing. So, how do you treat a comedy rock band? Maybe Costanza was right: some worlds need to be kept apart.