Live Review: Tenacious D, Sasquatch, Damien Power

As the Convention Centre opens its doors tonight and the crowd fills into the concert hall, it's hard not to think how much money tonight's headliners are making, and wondering how long it would take Jack Black to make the same amount of money if he was doing the next Kung-Fu Panda movie. Could the time be measured in minutes? Perhaps even seconds? While the crowd's pondering, local comedian Damien Power takes to the stage, following a Kyle Gass introduction. The comedian is energetic and quick on his feet, and the crowd responds enthusiastically to his short set of observational comedy. Next, a guy dressed as a Sasquatch jams out a bunch of classic rock on an electric guitar and sings a couple of songs about doing 'shrooms. It's pretty weird.

Tenacious D's show tonight has a strong concept. The band have stripped back to perform in their old-school acoustic style, and there seems to be little other consensus about the purpose of tonight's performance. The duo want the crowd to laugh, but that doesn't mean that it's a comedy show. They also want the crowd to appreciate the band's musical merits, but it's nigh upon impossible to take a band with a song like Kielbasa in their catalogue – replete with lines like “kielbasa sausage, your butt cheeks is warm” – as a serious musical entity. The songs are all performed well, and they do succeed in reminding the audience about the funny context in which they perhaps first encountered the song – Kickapoo takes the crowd back to the opening scenes of the band's criminally underrated film Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny – but there seems to be an untapped potential for comedy throughout tonight's performance. And the audience who don't fall into the diehard fan category are left asking questions about the set. Like why aren't the two-piece backed with video, especially when numbers like Roadie have such cool videos? And when bits of between-song banter to set things up work so well – like when Gass walks off stage but Black continues the gig because he “needs the money” as a means of introducing Kyle Quit The Band – why aren't there more jokes between the tracks?

Tonight, Tenacious D do a fantastic job of representing the material from their catalogue; the only problem is that some of the songs you laughed along to when you first heard them in high school don't really pull their own weight tonight. There's such a fantastic potential to put on a stand-up comedy show, but instead the D try to put on a rock show, and it fails to be as killer as it should be. Though even that can't stop the diehard fans from having a great time.