As one half of New Zealand’s self-proclaimed “fourth-most-popular guitar-based digi-bongo a cappella-rap-funk-comedy duo” and a composer of tunes from the likes of the Muppets and the Simpsons, Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie is best known for singing songs laden with jokes. It might come as a surprise to some, then, that his debut solo album – released earlier this year – offers quite the opposite experience. Titled, categorically, Songs Without Jokes, it’s a collection of road trip-ready rock numbers inspired by the likes of Harry Nilsson and Steely Dan, with McKenzie pairing rich horn and piano arrangements with lyrics about lost love, LA and environmental disaster. We’re not talking Father John Misty levels of west coast-based existential crisis, but it’s also decidedly not a comedy record.
Ending a three-month tour that’s taken in his home country and the US, this one-off UK show sees McKenzie and his six-piece band (plus two Horne Section members) pair these new troubadour delights with material from the Conchords and other assorted comedic projects. He describes it as “a variety show” but, initially at least, it’s a bit of a hard sell. The chugging blues of Too Young (For All This Shit) and the 80s pop stylings of Dave’s Place are more than listenable – the latter given heft by droning synth and sax – but what are they doing next to a (really quite hilarious) Muppets movie song that McKenzie bagged an Oscar for in 2011, delivered in his best Kermit voice?
