The comedic duo of Jack Black and Kyle Gass have embarked on their greatest tour yet. As the Spicy Meatball stopped off at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena, we joined the local metal heads on a journey through the band's discography...
Opening up for Tenacious D at the Arena was a man I quite frankly had never heard of, but with such a relatively small following it was really impressive to see Dave Hill sharing a stage with The D. All props to this very funny and entertaining man for holding his own and definitely winning over the crowd. The fact he entered on a small bicycle had something to do with that.
It was great to see his Nottingham themed pick-up lines that were followed by some of the most insane old school guitar shredding I had ever seen and making for a very funny juxtaposition; doing that level of research was surprising and entertaining.
Dave then moved more into his released songs with a song about a fist fight that only ever grew in its musical gravitas and ridiculousness again accompanied by Dave’s impressive guitar solos that only ever added to the comedy and enriched the experience.
After a very short wait, Overture from Tenacious D In the Pick Of Destiny began playing as Jack Black and Kyle Gass took to the stage, kicking the set off – ironically enough – with Kickapoo, these two immediately made their presence known. Jack showed off his incredible vocal range by not only singing his parts of the song but also Ronnie James Dio’s parts. With plenty of help from this incredibly loud crowd, the arena almost felt like one giant karaoke room.
Every member of the crowd knew these songs: it was quite honestly a spectacle, and there was a part of me that wanted to stand outside the arena and listen to everyone pollute the rest of Nottingham with Tenacious D’s music.
The duo continued on through the set, blessing the audience with their hits such as Tribute and Bezelboss (The Final Boss). That one blew the roof off with its epic performance, from Jack and Kyle’s perfect vocals and acting out of the scene, to the guitarist filling in for Dave Grohl’s character Satan on the song. This was easily the best song on the list with the final motif getting the crowd jumping and the whole band giving it the most energy of the night so far making for a cacophony of sound to end that part of the set.
To finish the night, Tenacious D played their very funny and brilliant F**k Her Gently which led to them bringing every previous element of the set together for one final bang: the lights went crazy, Jack belted the final note, Kyle strummed incredibly fast on his acoustic to accompany, the band played to help bring the intensity up and up, and with all of the pyro and sparks shooting off this made it an ending as brilliant as the incredible band themselves.
Tenacious D performed at Motorpoint Arena on 12th May 2024.
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