Every night at 7.30pm, Tim Minchin’s entire career flashes before his eyes. One minute, the pre-fame Australian comedy rocker is playing his self-effacing grunge prog epic “Rock and Roll Nerd” for 20 people in a tiny comedy club in 2004, painting himself as a “try-hard wannabe” who’s too angst-free, clean-living and lumbered with a piano to ever realise his arena rock star dreams. The next, he’s playing the same song at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in his adopted stage-wear of wild red spider-hair and mascara. Then on TV shows to audiences of millions, to 20,000 fans at London’s O2 or at the Royal Albert Hall with a full orchestra.
This is the walk-on film for Minchin’s latest tour, knowingly titled Songs the World Will Never Hear. And as he emerges for each show to a real-life rock god’s reception, it strikes him nightly that the nerd done good.
