What the Folk!

A second Perth show on July 19th has just been announced after the first one sold out earlier this morning. Tickets are available here:
http://www.frontiertouring.com/fotc

Flying high with Oscar
Neala Johnson From: National Features April 18, 2012 7:00PM

BRET McKenzie: Oscar winner. Jemaine Clement: erm, not an Oscar winner.

After 15 years making beautiful music together, could a little gold statue cause a schism in New Zealand's fourth most popular folk parody duo, Flight of the Conchords?

"Well, I just came from band practice," says McKenzie, ominously. "And Jemaine ... he's built his own Oscar. He made a papier mache one."

McKenzie's Oscar, won in February, says "Best Original Song" on it. What does Clement's papier mache one say? McKenzie thinks about it.

"I can't believe I'm starting this. This is a bad rumour. This is a bad lie. What does it say? Um ... I'm stopping this here!

"It hasn't affected the band dynamic at all."

Indeed, after two seasons of intense success and togetherness while starring on their self-titled HBO TV series, McKenzie and Clement have happily taken separate paths in recent times.

"We haven't worked together for over a year. We're used to working on other projects now," says McKenzie.

Those other projects have included, for McKenzie, The Muppets - it was the song he wrote for that movie, Man or Muppet - that bagged him the Oscar.

He also filmed the comedy Two Little Boys in NZ with Aussie funnyman Hamish Blake (it will be released later this year), shot the US indie comedy Austenland and returned home to Wellington to reprise his (tiny) role as a Lord of the Rings elf in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit.

"It was really fun getting to work with Ian McKellan and Hugo Weaving, because last time I was an extra, so I wasn't really allowed to look them in the eye. Now I'm allowed to have cups of tea with them!" McKenzie gushes.

"Hugo, Ian and I had a very good time. We spent a while making up songs for Hobbit: The Musical while we were waiting around on set. It could be a Broadway classic."

When he says he was an extra on Lord of the Rings, he's not lying. McKenzie's "character" was really a creation of internet bloggers who obsessed over his two seconds of screen-time, naming the elf "Figwit" (Google it).

"People are still amused by that, very much. I think that's why Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh asked me to come back and be on the films, for fun," says McKenzie. "And depending on the edits, it'll be another very small cameo ... I wanted to do a battle!"

As for Clement, he did his own animated song and voice act in the hit Rio, popped up in Despicable Me and Dinner For Schmucks and will next be seen in Men in Black III.

McKenzie admits the Kiwi pair did wonder if they would always be a package deal - that the industry would only want them to perform together. Or that they'd only be wanted if they were doing music. Clearly, it hasn't worked out that way.

"Off the back of the show we've had so many cool opportunities both together and individually," he says. "America, at least, is happy to work with us either way, it seems.

"And I've been doing all sorts of things - some acting, some music, some writing. But people still see us as the guys from the Conchords - I don't know that we'll ever shake that."

They won't shake it, but you get the feeling this pair, who first came together as part of a five-man comedy group in the mid-'90s while at university in Wellington, couldn't stay apart anyway.

It's little surprise to hear, then, that Flight of the Conchords is back in full effect and rehearsing for an Australasian tour. This is a big deal in more ways than one - they haven't performed in Australia since becoming international multi-media megastars.

Their last appearance here was at the 2003 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, where they won Best Newcomer. But that wasn't Clement and McKenzie's Australian debut.

"Jemaine and I started off doing a five-man show called So You're a Man, which is a play where we wore skin-coloured bike shorts with detachable penises," McKenzie says. "That show got cancelled after a week. Australian audiences were not as amused as the New Zealand audiences were by nude suits."

A couple of years later they returned to the Festival as Conchords.

"We did the late show at the Hi-Fi Bar and we did our main show at a little bar across the road ... people were into it. I think we might have won an award. I don't remember."

Their triumphal return shows in July will be much, much bigger. After all, the Conchords have since played to 17,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl and 12,000 at London's Wembley Arena.

"When we played in Australia last time there would have been about 20 people," McKenzie says. "But the jokes that make 20 people laugh make 10,000 people laugh, too."

But bigger doesn't mean different.

"In some ways it's the same show - it's just me and Jemaine sitting on stage singing songs and talking in between. I remember someone at (UK newspaper) The Guardian was totally perplexed by the fact that so many people want to come and see our show even though it's kind of a bad show.

"The ratio of energy, like, when we're up on stage with just two guitars or a guitar and a xylophone, the amount of noise that we make compared to the noise the crowd makes is a very peculiar equation."

Previous Conchords classics include You Don't Have to Be a Prostitute (done Police Roxanne style), Hurt Feelings, Too Many D--ks (On the Dance Floor) and Hiphopopotamus vs Rhymenocerous.

"It's good taking a break from working so intensely because now we have fresh material," McKenzie says. "For a while there we were working together every day for months. It was like an old married couple, we were finishing each other's stories. Now we've got fresh things to jam off."

As for the stage set-up on this tour, "it's as big as the two of us can do," McKenzie laughs.

"I'm currently working on some home-made pyrotechnics. And Jemaine's painting the backdrop sheet."

The HBO series is pretty much done with.

"It was really fun, but doing the writing and acting and the songs, we ran out of energy ... I think that's why most people just do one of those jobs," McKenzie laughs.

Yet, they have mooted the idea of a Conchords film. "Maybe while we're on tour we'll come up with a story," McKenzie says. "Maybe we'll make a movie, but we're in no hurry."

He's tight-lipped, but it could be another brush with a major studio for him after The Muppets.

"Hopefully, having an Oscar will help get the ideas through."

--

AT HOME WITH OSCAR

LAST time Bret McKenzie flew home to Wellington, he had a little something extra in his carry-on.

"Yup, got an Oscar in the house now," he grins. "He's very popular when people come around. There's been a lot of photo opportunities with my family. People are less interested in coming to visit me and more interested in coming to see that."

McKenzie reckons he's only just getting back to "normal" now after his Academy Awards experience in February.

"It was very surreal. It's been a pretty crazy few months. Really fun. It's so Hollywood," he laughs. "It's weird being home now and thinking like, 'Oh, last week we were in a room with George Clooney and Meryl Streep!'

"I'm still getting over it, getting used to it. A friend of mine was like, 'Do you remember getting up on stage?' And I actually don't remember from the moment they called my name to when I got off stage ... "

At least McKenzie knows he can always relax at home.

"Wellington is a good place to come back to - people are pretty low-key about it all. People do know who I am pretty ... pretty well now though," he laughs.

--

SEE Flight of the Conchords

VIC The Plenary, July 14, $50-$84.30. On sale now, Ticketmaster. Rod Laver Arena, July 15, $50-$84.30. On sale April 26, Ticketek.

NSW Sydney Opera House, July 5, $50-$86.50. On sale now. sydneyoperahouse.com.au. Sydney Entertainment Centre, July 6, $50-$86.20. On Sale April 26, Ticketmaster.

QLD Brisbane Entertainment Centre, July 7, $50-$86.35. On sale now, Ticketek.

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Jul 6, 2012
Sydney Entertainment Centre, Sydney - All Ages

Jul 15, 2012
Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne - All Ages

Frontier Members pre-sale from 12 Noon AEST Tuesday 24 April to 12 Noon AEST Wednesday 25 April
(or until pre-sale allocation exhausted)

General public on sale from 9am local time, Thursday 26 April

Extra dates in Melbourne and Sydney have been announced


Source

Jemaine Clement on the Flight Of The Conchords Tour and Pashing Nicole Scherzinger

Jemaine Clement is one half of New Zealand's "fourth most popular folk-parody duo," the inimitable, hilarious and hirsute Flight Of The Conchords, who - as you might have heard - are about to embark on their first ever headlining tour of Australia (and New Zealund). The multi-instrumental live comedy show will run the sartorial gamut from animal sweaters to robot costumes and will encompass the creme de la sheep's milk of kitsch instrumentals, from the sweet tunes of the ukelele to the classical toy piano and key tar; and of course, the 1983 Casio DG-20 guitar set to electric mandolin. The very instrument which spawned this guy:

The tour will be the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere tour for the musical-comedy duo, who've recently reunited in Wellington after a string of side projects separated them following the wrap-up on their popular (eponymous) HBO series at the end of its second season in 2009. Clement's partner in crime,Bret McKenzie, has just finished shooting on Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Hobbit (which wrapped last week), and won Academy (of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, aka Oscar) recognition for his role as musical supervisor on The Muppets Movie taking out Best Original Song for 'Man or Muppet', while Jemaine has been donning prosthetics and polishing up his screen-pash skills for his role as the villainous 70s era amputee alien, Boris, in the third incarnation of Will Smith's Men In Black franchise.

'We haven't toured in Australia in years. We just did a couple of shows in the States (from Las Vegas to The Hollywood Bowl) before we toured in Europe (where they played Wembley Arena). We're in the studio [in Wellington] right now writing and rehearsing new material. We actually had to stop to do this interview. Brett just left the room to do another interview - I'm doing three and he's doing four.'

We're working on some new material but if we're torturing the audience we won't include it in the show and we'll just draw material from our back catalogue. We'll be testing out any new songs on audiences in New Zealand before we tour Australia so you guys will be spared the new songs if they're no good.'

Being on tour means the two will be back in the same time zone, and on the same page creatively speaking. 'It's been difficult [to write new material]. We don't want to tour America again until we have new songs [so] we're just focussing on the tour for now and we'll see what happens after that.' When asked about the prospect of a Conchords movie, or even a live concert film a la Justin Bieber, Clement said there were no plans in the works for a movie right now [or even a tour mockumentary]. 'We've talked about that, but to make a movie out of the tour would take all the fun out of touring.'

[...]

Also at a conservative estimate, we have one double pass for each city to give away. To enter, write your name and preferred city below (not on Facebook) in the comments section, along with your Flight Of The Conchords-style animal rapper name, i.e. Hiphopotamus or Rhymenocerous. No points for Snoop Dogg either.

Thu 5 July Sydney Opera House NSW SOLD OUT!
Ph: (02) 9250 7777

Fri 6 July Sydney Entertainment Centre NSW NEW SHOW
Pre-sale tickets for these newly announced shows via frontiertouring.com/fotc from noon AEST on Tuesday 24 April

Sat 7 July Brisbane Entertainment Centre QLD All Ages
Ticketek 132 849

Tue 10 July Newcastle Entertainment Centre NSW All Ages
Ticketek 132 849

Wed 11 July WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong NSW All Ages
Ticketek 132 849

Fri 13 July Adelaide Entertainment Centre SA All Ages
Ticketek 132 849

Sat 14 July The Plenary, Melbourne VIC SOLD OUT!
Ticketmaster 136 100

Sun 15 July Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne VIC NEW SHOW
Pre-sale tickets for these newly announced shows via frontiertouring.com/fotc from noon AEST on Tuesday 24 April.

Wed 18 July Challenge Stadium, Perth WA SOLD OUT!
Ticketmaster 136 100

Thu 19 July Challenge Stadium, Perth WA ON SALE NOW!
Ticketmaster 136 100

The Flight of the Conchords: In full flight
JADE LAZAREVIC
21 Apr, 2012 04:00 AM

New Zealand comedy duo Flight of the Conchords are touring Australia for the first time in July.
And that’s not all they plan to do.

Bret McKenzie – who makes up one half of the hugely successful musical comedy act alongside Jemaine Clement – says Australians can also expect an apology.

As fans of the acclaimed HBO comedy series Flight of the Conchords would be aware, Aussies are often the target in the show’s sketches.

‘‘I think in the States we’ve helped give people an idea of what New Zealanders are like but I think we maybe made Australia look quite bad, which we will be apologising for on this tour,’’ McKenzie says with a laugh.

‘‘Americans really connected with the Australia-New Zealand rivalry because there’s a similar relationship between America and Canada.

‘‘Americans often come up to me and say ‘Do New Zealanders really hate Australians?’ and I’m like ‘Noooo, it was just a joke’.’’

It would seem Australians have forgiven the duo. Rumours of a possible tour began circling online last month and one fan responded with the comment: ‘‘I think I just made a mess of my pants.’’

‘‘It’s causing quite a stir,’’ McKenzie says with a laugh. ‘‘That’s a strange effect to have on people. I’m not sure that’s a good quality.

‘‘It wouldn’t be much use if you were a superhero.’’

The popularity of the Flight of the Conchords has soared since they debuted on US screens in 2007, winning over fans around the world with their brand of musical comedy.

The critics rate it, too.

The series, which ran for two seasons, earned 10 Emmy Award nominations including outstanding comedy series and outstanding lead actor in a comedy series for Clement’s role. Fans have petitioned for a third series but McKenzie, 35, and Clement, 38, say there are no plans for another.

What it does mean is they have time to get back on stage doing what they love best.

‘‘I really love touring just because it’s a lot more fun having the audience there because you get that immediate response and you can try out new jokes each night and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter,’’ McKenzie says.

‘‘It’s a time where you can develop new ideas.

‘‘It’s taken us a long time to organise this tour but we’ve finally co-ordinated schedules.’’

In New Zealand they are home-town heroes, jokingly referred to as ‘‘cultural ambassadors’’ for a country that – at least to American audiences – was best known as ‘‘that place where they filmed Lord of the Rings’’, McKenzie says.

Before coming to Australia, McKenzie and Clement play their first shows on home soil since 2009.

Fans camped out for 15 hours to buy tickets and most of the 13-date tour – which wraps up with two concerts at Auckland’s Vector Arena – has sold out.

‘‘Like Australia, we haven’t played in New Zealand for a long time,’’ McKenzie says.

‘‘The reaction has been amazing. People have been lining up and camping out overnight to get tickets.’’

It’s the type of thing usually reserved for rock bands. McKenzie and Clement started out as a band, not a musical comedy act, when they met at the University of Wellington in 1998.

McKenzie studied music and English (‘‘I was doing a comedy music degree,’’ he jokes) but both dropped out to concentrate on the band.

‘‘My first impression of Jemaine ... well, I remember his funny walk,’’ McKenzie says.

‘‘We did a theatre show together and that was how we met. We started off just trying to be a band but that ended up being ridiculous.

‘‘A lot of our influences are not actually comedy musicians. They’re more non-comedy musicians like Leonard Cohen and Beck. His song Debra was a big influence for me.

‘‘A lot of musicians have a really great sense of humour and I guess we just pushed the humour to the forefront. We started touring comedy clubs so we’d write songs that had a lot of jokes in them.’’

New Zealand’s self-proclaimed ‘‘fourth most popular folk-parody duo’’ started out performing in Wellington, making the trip across the Tasman to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2003 and to Edinburgh Fringe in 2002 and 2003.

In 2004 they were commissioned to make a six-part radio series for BBC Radio 2.

That same year an HBO talent scout spotted the pair performing in Montreal and invited them to the US to discuss a television show.

They shot a one-off pilot in New York that was picked up and paired them with writer and director James Bobin, who previously worked with Sacha Baron Cohen on Da Ali G Show.

McKenzie says neither had ever considered television.

‘‘Not at all,’’ he says.

‘‘It was challenging for the American networks because we had toured the live show and once they saw the live show, it was hard for them to imagine what a TV show would be.

‘‘That’s when we started working with James Bobin and he helped us navigate that transition from a live act – from a band – to put that into the context of the sitcom world.’’

They haven’t always had such good fortune.

In Vancouver they played to an empty room in 2000 when a lone audience member (who they let in for free) left halfway through the show.

‘‘We’re lucky. We’ve have some really good shows and then some really bad shows,’’ McKenzie laughs.

‘‘I don’t know how many consecutively bad shows you’d have to have to make you stop, but I think it would be quite a few.

‘‘A lot of the material that’s in the TV show is based on our early touring experiences.’’

Set in New York City, Flight of the Conchords follows their pursuits as two clueless musicians who leave New Zealand for The Big Apple, trying – and failing – to break into the music business with the help of hapless band manager Murray (Rhys Darby) and lone fan, Mel (Kristen Schaal). Each episode features songs built into the storyline which are all equal parts silly and hilarious.

Musical talent means they can shift from ’80s electronic pop to Prince-style falsetto, parodying the sound of artists such as Pet Shop Boys, Barry White and Marvin Gaye on songs such as Business Time, Hurt Feelings, Inner City Pressure, Hiphopopotamus vs The Rhymenoceros and Mutha’uckas.

And then there’s Too Many Dicks on the Dancefloor – an ode to a nightclub in Canada where males outnumbered females.

The show’s songs featured on the albums Flight Of The Conchords and I Told You I Was Freaky, released through legendary label Sub Pop, which won the pair a Grammy award for best comedy album in 2007.

They have appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Late Show with David Letterman and even had a guest spot on an episode of The Simpsons.

So popular is the band it has played sell-out shows across the US, including a show at the legendary Hollywood Bowl.

‘‘That was our biggest show,’’ McKenzie says.

‘‘I think it was about 17,000 people and it’s an incredible feeling. When you come on stage and hear everyone clapping it sounds like an army coming over the hill.

‘‘It’s a wild experience being on stage in that situation especially for what we do because it’s sort of an ironic band, you know what I mean?

‘‘It’s a strange relationship between us and the audience because they’re partly there because they’re comedy fans but, ironically, they treat us like they would at a rock concert.’’

When they embark on the upcoming tour, fans can expect the multi-talented duo playing everything from ukulele, toy piano and keytar to synths and a ‘‘1987 Casio DG-20 electric guitar set to mandolin’’. McKenzie hinted at the possibility of new material.

‘‘We don’t have enough new songs to refuse to play our old songs so we’ll be playing songs from the TV show,’’ he says with a laugh. ‘‘Live, it’s all songs. We don’t do sketches, we don’t do scenes. You know, people might think we might have a band meeting on stage, which is a good idea, but we don’t do that. There’s no costumes or anything. It’s more like a music gig.’’

While their television characters have just one uber fan/stalker in Mel, McKenzie and Clement’s real fan base is huge.

‘‘I don’t know about Australia but touring the States and the UK we have a very committed fan base,’’ he says.

‘‘People who like us get really into it. In the States we’ve had a few people turn up dressed as robots like in the TV show. I think it was one of those costumes where they regretted it halfway through the concert.

‘‘Our fan base is pretty broad, too. One time at an airport, a really cute old couple in their late 70s came up to me, like, ‘Are you Conchordia?’. They were big fans. We also have fans who have showed up at different shows and travelled around.

‘‘Because we’ve got Mel the character they always joke that they’re like the real Mel.’’

And about that rumoured Flight of the Conchords movie? McKenzie says there are plans for a big screen version.

A new album isn’t on the cards yet, but we will see more of the pair – who split their time between Wellington and the US – in separate projects.

Clement has a bad-guy role in the third instalment of Men In Black.

Meanwhile, McKenzie, who recently won the Oscar for best original song for his composition Man Or Muppet from The Muppets, has a role in The Hobbit and the release of new film Two Little Boys alongside Gold Logie winner Hamish Blake.

‘‘I play a guy who accidentally kills a Norwegian backpacker and Hamish’s character helps me get rid of the body. It’s a very dark buddy comedy.

‘‘It’s great fun though. We had a good time ... well, I had a good time. I’m pretty sure he did too [laughs].

‘‘It was interesting because we’re both from comedy duos, so it was kind of good working with a new person when you’re used to working in a duo.

‘‘You have to work out your rhythms and your comedy pattern.’’

And as for Conchords?

‘‘We tend to do it in bursts. We do a tour and then take a break. I’m not sure what we’ll do next but I imagine working on the film idea will be next.’’

Flight of the Conchords perform at Newcastle Entertainment Centre on July 10. Tickets on sale through ticketek.com.au or 132 849.

There’s no costumes or anything.

Soooo excited!!! Secured my airline tickets to NZ for the concerts!!! Everything is really coming together! I'll be seeing the Wellington show on the 19th and the Auckland show on the 29th!!