The show promised the ‘Best Band in the World’ and a trio of ‘Musical Geniuses’, with that combination we were in for a dynamite evening of musical comedy. Tripod are being supported by a different act at each of their three performances and on the opening night we were treated to the brilliantly demented Deutch siblings Die Roten Punkte. ‘Supported?’ I hear you ask? Yes this year Tripod are getting to play out their fantasies of being Rock n Roll superstars, something that Die Roten Punkte have been doing for a few years now.
Die Roten Punkte performed a solid chunk of their new – and only second – comedy festival show at us. I was pleased to discover that they weren’t suffering from the ‘second album’ syndrome. Their songs seemed to have improved in sophistication, added to their personas and were hilarious. The choreography on the Kraftwerk spoof “Ich bin Nicht ein Robotten” was a huge crowd pleaser and ‘I’m looking at you’ sounded like a possible hit single. It was a joy for me to watch Otto and Astrid begin their act to an indifferent crowd of Tripod fans wondering who the hell they were, completely transforming the room into new Punkte fans cheering and roaring with laughter, disappointed that they had to leave the stage for the first of the night’s two intervals.
With the crowd all warmed up Tripod played to the audience’s anticipation with an empty stage of red moody lighting and exciting scary music on a par with something from ‘This is Spinal Tap’. A large cardboard prop of googly eyes descended from the roof over Yon as he burst onto the stage in a beige ship captain outfit, then huge cardboard glasses flew in over a purple satin clad Scod who described his outfit as Vegas matador pimp. Finally Gatesy strutted on stage under something that appeared to be a cross between a sponge and a potato, which was never made clear.
Tripod opened with their tribute to modern technology – in particular You Tube – ‘Thank U the Wheel” and from a new song went into one of their oldest, a freshened version of ‘Its Okay’. Other oldies to please the fans include “Hot girl”, “Prefixes” and “Hot Dog Man” which made up for a lack of “Gonna Make you Happy Tonight”, though it’s hard to know whether they will do the same ‘setlist’ each night. Yon’s gorgeous “I’m not sure that I” with his trumpet solo proves that a sweet gentle song can elicit as many belly laughs as a raucous one. “Air guitar” proved Tripods mastery of perfect timing and audience manipulation with the line “I never get a big clap for real guitar” prompting the audience to clap wildly followed without missing a beat by “Unless I ask for it”. The 70s metal, epic saga of middle aged men role playing led to a tribute to the recently deceased creator of Dungeons & Dragons followed by the Geekiest heckle ever, correcting Scod on his joke about the Dungeons & Dragons scoring system. The second half included a David Bowie tribute and a surprise celebrity guest, tonight’s being Kurt from Kristen Schaal’s show and for future shows Kristen herself will play the part, followed by Sam Wills.
Tripod did a solidly entertaining two hours making the show almost three hours long, so be aware, we didn’t get out of there ‘til almost 12.30am. Tripod, you ROCK!!!
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