concert.review . flight.of.the.conchords

concert.review:
flight of the conchords - boston, ma - agganis arena - 4.17.09
opening acts - eugene mirman (the landlord), kristen schaal (mel)

thousands of students and 20-somethings filed into boston university's hockey arena for the flight of the conchords concert last month to see the new zealand comedy folk duo perform. tickets were expensive and hard to get. (i paid $130 for mediocre floor seats.) the band played a lot of new songs from season 2 of flight of the conchords, but also a few old favorites from the first season (but unfortunately not my favorites--hiphopopotamus vs. rhymenoceros & the humans are dead).

the good:
* eugene - the man who plays bret & jemaine's landlord was the first opening act, and was hilarious. definitely one of the high points of the night for me. his jokes included comparing god to a 12-year old kid with asperger syndrome, and reading a letter he wrote to delta airlines about why delta is like al-qaeda. hilarious.
* whales on cell phones - my favorite part of the night was what seemed to be one of the few improvised parts. bret and jemaine did an impromptu demonstration of a whale trying to use a cell phone to call 911. i laughed hard for about 5 minutes straight.
* musicianship - bret & jemaine's songs are popular because they're funny, but this should not overshadow the fact that they are both excellent musicians. they played guitar, bass, drums, etc. (where 'etc.' includes random instruments like the vibraphone) flawlessly.the bad:
* mel - the fotc character mel makes me so uncomfortable on the show. probably even more so onstage. her jokes were overly intense. but i believe all this is her intent... so she's definitely good at what she does.
* lack of improvisation/variation - the songs that fotc played sounded exactly like the songs on the show. the lyrics were almost word for word, and if you've watched the episodes a few times, you already know the punch lines. some variation and/or new material would have been funnier. but, to their credit, if you hadn't seen much of the show before, it would have been completely hilarious.
* requests - this is not a criticism of fotc, but why oh why do people think that it's appropriate to yell out requests at huge concerts? this definitely jams.me.up. no doubt the band has a set list. and when there's 7,000 plus people at a show, what makes you think that they're going to play the song you're screaming out? there's hundreds of other people who also don't get it doing the same thing. save it for a small concert.

my rating (out of 10): 7. i'm a huge fan of the show, so this set a high bar for the concert. all in all, their performance was more than decent.

song.of.the.day:
to continue the fotc theme, the weekend-edition song of the day is my favorite live song done by the flight of the conchords. jemaine's robot voice is commendable.

song.of.the.day - flight of the conchords - the humans are dead