Tripod’s latest DVD release documents their set at the 2008 Woodford Folk Festival that was held over the new year. A rather soggy crowd braved the elements to witness Tripod in full flight as they performed their witty songs.
Being part of a musical festival, the actual set ran for a concise 50 minutes and was a wonderful sampler of their catalogue. I noticed a couple of interesting song choices, “Trees” possibly being at odds with the hippy element in the crowd and “The Only Shepherd” coming a couple of days too late for Christmas, but the crowd ate it up regardless. The short set meant that there wasn’t the extensive between song banter you would normally get at a Tripod gig, but there was enough witty repartee and crowd interaction to demonstrate their magic.
The show was captured on multiple cameras and featured a lot of rapid cutting between shots. This certainly added plenty of colour to the show which wasn’t too disruptive. Plenty of shots of the packed tent and the soggy punters outside helped to create plenty of atmosphere for the home viewer. The 2 channel Dolby sound was crisp and clear to capture every word and note.
In addition to the Woodford show, this disc featured their 2007 Melbourne Comedy Festival show How to Train an Attack Dog From Scratch (A Made Up History of the Funny Song). Having seen this show live in its original incarnation, I was able to pick up on some humourous elements in the songs that I missed the first time. There were a couple of straight songs which were devoid of humour, strange additions in a show based on the concept of funny songs which were possibly included as irony. The solid structure around the songs and the brilliant concept made it a great piece of theatre that was worth capturing for prosperity.
Even though …Attack Dog was billed as a being bootleg the quality of the vision was superb, although the audio was occasionally patchy. It was nice to see that the riotous animated sequences were added in post production to make them clear and full screen but unfortunately the sound was rather muddy, presumably taken live from the stage rather than from the original recordings.
An added surprise in this package is a brilliant song played over the ..Attack Dog menu. This song fits in well with the stage show and worked on another level as a tongue in cheek tune about artists such as Jeff Buckley.
This DVD is a wonderful document of Tripod’s work that gives us multiple sides to their act, a straight band as well as a theatrical troupe. It’s a perfect addition to any comedy lovers DVD collection.
Tripod: Live at Woodford is released through Madman Entertainment. It is available at DVD retailers throughout Australia and through the Madman Website