Tenacious D “˜rocks’ the Wiltern

ELI GILL Jack Black of Tenacious D rocks the
socks off his fans at the band’s Wednesday night concert at the
Wiltern Theatre.

By Mary Williams
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

It’s been a long time since two guys with acoustic guitars
rocked the Wiltern that hard.

Of course, it takes a band with the attitude of Tenacious D to
put on such a deliciously self-congratulatory show.

Continually promising the audience that they would “rock
your socks off,” the band didn’t fail in its mission to
keep the crowd entertained. One fan felt so satisfied that he threw
his socks onstage.

“The D” started off its set at the Wiltern Wednesday
night in the same way as at the open mic night it played as
characters in HBO’s “Mr. Show,” which gave the
band its break. A roadie came onstage with a piece of paper and
said, “The next band asked me to read this.” Once the
laughter and applause died down, he explained Gass would not be
playing because he overdosed on Jenny Craig’s “Mac and
Chee’.”

These traditions and inside jokes won over the fans from the
start, as did the eccentricity of the band.

Black and Gass came onstage in flowing, religious-type robes,
which were solemnly removed by roadies before they started to play.
After their first few songs, they stood back from the mics without
saying a word, waiting for the applause to die down, and then
started another song. While the songs themselves were often silly,
the band appeared to take them very seriously.

Soon it loosened up, however, and Black would dance around the
stage as the more stationary Gass played guitar.

While playing its songs, both those off the newly released,
self-titled album and those from its appearances on “Mr.
Show,” Tenacious D was at its best.

Among the most popular was “The Best Song In the
World,” which, rather than being the actual best song, was
just a tribute because the band forgot the real one. Another
popular one was “Lee,” about the band’s fanatical
roadie joining Black and Gass. Lee himself came out and sang a
little during the performance, much to the delight of
“D” fans.

The band’s performance fell flat at times in between
songs. Since many of the songs either tell a story or fit into a
story, they had to be introduced with a little pre-written dialogue
between Black and Gass.

This was best done when Black started yelling at one of the
audience members, then pretending he had a gun, all so that Gass
would jump in front of the bullet, starting off the next song.
Unfortunately, many of these plot-advancing interludes followed too
closely to what the group had already done on TV and on the
album.

For example, the inward singing segment led into a shouting
match and Gass quitting the band, which in turn led to the song
about him coming back. The arguments and the songs were the same,
and in the same order as on the album.

These somewhat tired bits dragged down the show, while other
elements like the unpredictable matchup of Sasquatch, Baby Sas and
Spiderman versus Osama bin Laden made it great. There was a
constant push and pull between the unsurprising and the
unexpected.

As the band declared at the end of the show, the audience got
its money’s worth. Unless, as it also said, they paid $80 on
e-Bay.