The Brian McCarthy Memorial Moosehead Fund was set up 22 years ago to fund New and innovative comedy. One of this years recipients was Jordan Raskopolous, Lee Naimo and Benny Davis appearing in The Axis of Awesome Comeback Spectacular! It was a first class musical comedy show but I had difficulty in recognising the unique and original concepts in this show.
Call me a jaded old fart but I had already seen all the elements that were being spruiked as innovative elsewhere. The fictional band, their differently styled support act, a comeback tour, the theatrical device of a stadium concert setting, these have been employed before. Take these away and you are left with a garden variety musical comedy threesome. They even adopted a proven set of character traits for their trio: the slightly dim one, the rather nerdy one and the short fella that copped the ridicule of the other two.
It was fortunate that as musical comedians they are absolutely brilliant and have put together an awesomely fun show. The songs are hilarious, chock full of ideas and trimmed to the perfect length so as not to drag on. Amusing between song banter was economical, serving as both concise segues and character development. Their “Support Act”, the Polish boy band 3sum, was fabulously camp and crude. The short documentary film screened between the sets was wonderfully bizzare and comically amateurish. It was a compete package of musical comedy madness.
I noticed that the documentary which should have delved into the past of the band merely skimmed the surface, giving us little clue as to the band’s activities and the reasons they broke up. It served mostly as an introductory device to the characters in the band. As part of the between song banter, facts about the band emerged but they were tightly controlled, giving us the bare minimum required to assist with our empathy of the characters. My waiting for some sort of explosive conflict to reveal all was in vain as they only employed a couple of small on stage disagreements that had no lasting consequences.
The set list was a mixture of insane parodies and clever originals that had the punters laughing throughout. Their big closing epic was an ever popular “party trick” number involving a four chord sequence that relied on song recognition rather than written jokes as the basis of its humour. One disappointment was that they hadn’t written an encore. The audience had suspended their disbelief to play the part of genuine, adoring, long time fans and the shouting for more was unanswered.
Despite failing to live up to my lofty (perhaps unrealistic?) expectations this was a well constructed musical comedy show that ticked all the right boxes for a fantastic hour of entertainment. The Axis of Awesome may just become my new favourite band!
Visit the comedy festival website for bookings and further details