It might be Songs Without Jokes but Bret McKenzie is still a lot of fun

REVIEW: Reinvention is never easy, but it is possible.

The Beatles went from Merseyside mop tops to sitar-playing psychedelic pioneers. David Bowie morphed from Ziggy Stardust to The Thin White Duke. And Madonna reworked her image many times over many decades.

But can a musical comedy act go straight? More specifically, can Bret McKenzie?

After seeing him at Christchurch’s James Hay Theatre on Saturday night, the answer is yes. But it took a bit of getting use to.

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It can’t have been an easy decision for McKenzie to ditch his comedy-pop persona.

Flight of the Conchords, the HBO series, was a cult hit.

It may have run out of steam halfway through the second season, but there were plenty of memorable moments that still raise a laugh today – Business Time, Inner City Pressure and If You’re Into It leap to mind.

Such was the popularity of the show, McKenzie probably could have packed out venues for years to come, trotting out the show’s hits.

However, his new album is impressive, ambitious and the perfect showcase for his vast musical ability.

He’s also part of a nine-piece band and his nationwide tour includes his new songs and a few surprise gems.

The title of the album and the tour – Songs Without Jokes – is almost a caveat. Making clear what it is, but more importantly what it isn’t.

This is McKenzie the serious singer/songwriter, not Bret, the sweet natured, animal sweater-wearing alter ego from the TV show.

I remind myself of this as we take our seats.

The evening opened with A Little Tune, a romantic ditty with a playful piano and big brass solos.

“Here’s a little song to let you know I love you,” McKenzie crooned and the whole room swooned.

Even with his greying beard, McKenzie still looks boyish and has lost none of his on-stage energy or banter with the crowd.

Someone on social media told him the album should have been called “Songs Without Jemaine”, a reference to Jemaine Clement, his longtime collaborator.

The audience lapped it up but it was hard to know if we should be thinking about Flight of the Concords or not.

Next up was Dave’s Place, which started as a country song, he told us, before the synths were added.

The song was a highpoint of the first half, all blue-collar Americana. Think Bruce Springsteen or Sam’s Town by The Killers, with a great saxophone solo.

The title Dave’s Place wasn’t great though. Dave being the pawnshop owner played by Arj Barker in Flight of the Conchords.

I try to push the thought aside. Were we meant to be thinking about Bret and Jemaine or not?

Confiding in the crowd, McKenzie told us he didn’t have any band merchandise to sell, because it “seemed more sustainable” and because he had “thousands of Conchords CDs in his garage”.

Next up was This World, a breezy, Randy Newman-a-like song, about the dire state of the planet.

“Read the news, the future is grim,” sings McKenzie, before checking off a list of environmental problems; plastic in the oceans, pollution in the air and lying corporations.

It was all very heartfelt and all very right on. But also plays like a Flight of the Conchords social justice song.

You could almost imagine Bret singing it, having attended an Extinction Rebellion protest so he can get with a cute girl.

With life imitating art, I found myself imagining that the gig was season three of the show.

That, in a shock twist, the Conchords had split and Bret had moved back to New Zealand. Maybe Murray Hewitt was backstage, concerned about the lack of merch.

As if to reinforce my daydream, the next song was America Goodbye, a sad missive to the United States.

You could almost picture Bret in his Wellington study, looking longingly at photos of he and Jemaine kneeling beside handprints on Hollywood Boulevard or riding in a horse and carriage through Central Park.

The second half didn’t quite have the energy of the first but it had a lot more comedy. The opening number saw McKenzie sing both sides of a duet, that of lovelorn Phil and unavailable carol.

Another song deliberately discriminated against short people, it was also pretty funny.

I began to question the earlier caveat. Perhaps McKenzie liked the idea of being serious more than the reality.

The gig was a lot funnier than advertised.

There was also a sing-along section and a fun moment when the band staged rock poses for photos.

They also pressed a few nostalgia buttons with covers of songs by Kiwi bands The Front Lawn and The Black Seeds.

But the biggest cheer of the night came from the opening bars of The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room, the Flight of the Conchords song McKenzie and Clement wrote in the early 2000s.

“You’re so beautiful, you could be a part-time model”, he sang and the audience provided the backing vocals.

Again I thought about Murray Hewitt. What would he make of Bret going solo? I imagine he’d be cross.

For the encore the band performed Crazy Times, McKenzie summoning the melancholic sentiment of Frankie Valli’s My Eyes Adored You or Christopher Cross singing Arthur’s Theme.

McKenzie lives in Wellington now but obviously laments his life in the US, at least from time to time.

“LA I miss you now. I never thought I would.”

The closing number was a riotous warning about the dangers of going down an Internet rabbit hole, with a great trombone solo and lots of frantic power chords.

There will probably never be a third season of Flight of the Conchords, perhaps this is as near as we’ll get.

So McKenzie has gone straight but there’s still a lot of fun, and some great songs – both old and new – to enjoy.