AO Arena, Manchester
The actor’s prog-metal spoof band with Kyle Gass hilariously skewer rock cliche – but come from a place of deep love for the genre
‘Did anyone see Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny?” asks Jack Black, referring to their 2006 rockumentary. “Well, you didn’t see it in the cinema. No one did! It almost destroyed us.” The widely panned movie was indeed a box office disaster, but otherwise has been a rare blip on Tenacious D’s almost accidental rise to global domination. Formed by Black and sidekick Kyle Gass in 1994 as a joke when they were struggling actors (before High Fidelity and School of Rock catapulted the former into the Hollywood A-list), the comedy prog-metal band have gone from underground LA clubs to arenas packed with thousands of fans, all chanting “D”.
Seemingly unwittingly, the duo have tapped into a gigantic fanbase of people who love South Park/Wayne’s World-type humour as much as they adore Led Zeppelin or Ozzy Osbourne. Like Spinal Tap, it’s a spoof that comes from a deep love and knowledge of its subject. Their gigantic rubber demon references 80s rocker Dio’s 18 foot dragon, Denzil. Black has a superb operatic metal vocal. The acoustic guitar duelling and Queen/Darkness harmonies are tremendous and some of the songs sound as if they could almost have been actual venerable rock classics had they not been accosted by two ageing comedians and packed with knowingly silly lyrics about beasts, devils, farting and “the metal”.
