Date: April 14, 2009
Opening Act: Kristen Schaal
Artist Link: Flight of the Conchords
Last night, my wife Michelle and I caught the Flight of the Conchords tour in New York at Radio City Music Hall. The crazy girl, Mel, from the HBO series opened up the concert, the actress/comedian Kristen Schaal. She has been featured on a number of shows, including The Daily Show and her own special for Comedy Central.

We were standing on line in the rain, well mostly me since Michelle remembered her umbrella and Kristen Schaal comes running past all of us on line and screaming “Woo Hoo!” and she was pumping her fist in the air. I guess she was running backstage to the dressing room. Our seats weren’t that bad. I suppose there isn’t a bad seat in the house, yet we were a little far away and I was watching a lot of the facial expression-type close up’s on the big screen TV’s. It’s a gorgeous venue though and the sound was great upstairs on the 2nd mezzanine . Shirts weren’t too much, like $25 but didn’t get any. Kristen Schaal was really kooky and unique with her stand up. She would act out funny little plays she had “written.” It was actually really funny. Her last sketch she did something like she was auditioning for a part on Law & Order and her part was to act like a friend of someone that was brutally murdered in her high school. The cops interview her (one sided conversation) and she is holding a big cake like she is in Home Ec or something and she is stuffing her face with this chocolate cake and acting all shocked and wiping it over her face. it sounds out there and it is, but it was really funny.

After that Kristen introduced the guys and they came out to perform right away. They played a lot of the second season’s songs. They came out dressed in robot costumes and had voice changers to make their voices sound robotic and opened with “Too Many Dicks on the Dancefloor.” Their banter between songs was really hysterical and dry. People kept screaming out songs for them to sing and maybe it’s something they have done in the past, but some guy yells out “Freebird!” and then Jemaine says “You asked for it, DICK” and they start playing and riffing “Freebird” and getting all crazy with the song. Jemaine afterwards threatened the crowd if they scream it out again, they would play the 20 minute version. Of course some smart ass did right away. I wish these fans would just stay home or sit back and shut up. It ruins the bands flow and they have a set list which they usually go off of anyway. The band played a few favorites from the past album and season of their show, and played a few new songs including “Hurt Feelings,” “I told I was Freakie,” “Carol Brown,” “Albi The Racist Dragon,” and “Demon Woman.” They played a new song, or at least from my point of view, called “Stana,” and it was a Western/Johnny Cash style song and it was entertaining and I think will get even funnier when you hear it again and again since it is a long song. The conchords finished up the set with a R&B version of “Suga Lumps,” and even got up from their chairs to croon the fans in the audience, especially daaaa laddiesss.

The band came back for their first encore and played what many people were shouting out during the night, “Bowie,” or as most know it “Bowie’s in Space.” and closed out the first encore with a bus driver song that was probably their worst choice of the evening. A 2nd encore was next, and the band came out to play fan favorite’s “Business Time,” and “Robots.” The show was exciting, hysterical, and very enjoyable and worth the price of admission. The setting was fantastic and would highly recommend fans check out the Flight of the Conchords on their US/Canadian tour this April and May.