Fans of Thom Yorke and Co. will be disappointed with Dan Willis. Foregoing the dark & serious tunes of that titular band, he has instead opted to share selections of music with his audience that trigger happy memories.
The premise of Dan’s show is that there certain songs that he relates to particular moments in his life. After playing an excerpt of each he then launches into a story about it. The fact that the predominantly “popular” songs were mostly unfamiliar to me was irrelevant as his stories were intriguing and hilarious. These scripted segments were highly personal tales that were illustrated with images on a flip chart (the plasma screen he requested didn’t arrive).
Starting off the show with segments about his musical history, it seemed that as the show progressed the songs themselves became slightly irrelevant (although I’m sure they all meant a great deal to Dan) with the stories themselves taking center stage. This shifted the show’s focus somewhat but when the material is this good, who’s complaining?
Dan relies quite a bit on audience interaction. He encouraged people to call out the names of the featured songs and knowing how shy Melbourne audiences can be, he dangled prizes as incentives. This certainly got the audience enthused about talking back to Dan, but he had such a friendly stage presence that this bribery wasn’t entirely necessary as the show progressed and we warmed to him even more.
He also got to know some of the crowd during a kind of preamble to the show proper, as well as via questions he often posed to us. These answers would lead Dan off on wonderful tangents that were part improvised and part of what seemed to be a huge back catalog of anecdotes. With no show following his that evening, he happily went overtime by letting the people tell their own tales for extended periods. He genuinely enjoyed finding out more about his audience. From that evening’s crowd, we were treated to material about strange anal insertions after chatting to a nurse. An interesting feature of his show that he often includes these stories for the entertainment of future audiences. Don’t worry, no actual names are used to incriminate anyone!
A particularly interesting segment was a glimpse into the evolution of a joke that went through several celebrity references in its’ life. As misfortune seemed to meet those celebrities involved, he asked for a despised celebrity from the crowd and used it as part of a telling of that joke. Aside from the unfamiliar English references, it was very well done.
Dan’s storytelling is brilliant and his own admission of regularly saying things without thinking them through, added a sense of spontaneity. There were many times after mentioning a person in a story he would add “I promised them I wouldn’t tell that on stage!”
If “Pablo Honey” or “Amnesiac” have you feeling a bit down, get on down to see Dan Willis for some hilarious examples of the wonderful adventures that life has to offer.
Point and click Dan Willis – Radiohead for the booking details.