Review: Axis of Awesome Show

The Awesomvirate from Axis of Awesome

Straight out of Sydney, the Axis of Awesome bursts into stage for American audiences.  This is more proof of geek culture joining the mainstream.  Not in a bad way mind you.  Not like M. Night Shamealot's The Last Airbender.  This band is pretty much covered in medals and accolades from Austrialia, it's pretty cool they were able to make it up for an American tour.  The crowd at the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse was very excited and the house was packed (and buzzed, it is a drafthouse after all).

Look, like most people there I had heard their 4 chords song.  While I love that song I wasn't sure that was going to be enough to sustain my entertainment throughout the entirety of the concert.  Man was I wrong.  I need to wear a t-shirt that says "this dude is wrong".  I expect that shirt waiting for me back at Castle DCGeekia.  There weren't really any portions of the concert itself that were weaker than others.  The bits they performed between songs played perfectly off each other.  Lots of fun self deprecating humor.  Comedy about how they are Austrialian.  Some good old fashioned anti-Canadian humor.  I mean it had just about everything.  What's up with all this Canadia hate anyhow?  Do you think it's a hang over from the French and Indian War?  Yeah, probably.

Watching their performance showed obviously not just how long the three of them have been working together, but how well they queue off each others performances.  The show felt like a pretty normal music / music comedy show (funny music anyone?) with these awesome pauses in between the music where the band would begin these pseudo casual conversations, half between themselves and half with the crowd.  It somehow felt incredibly casual, like you were sitting with them in a coffee shop or living room, yet polished like the fine comedic routine that it was.  Yes, the lead singer looks a lot like Jack Black, I kept thinking this to myself throughout the entire performance.  I was pretty shocked when as I was about to convince myself that it was just me that saw this, he goes into a bit about how he's tired of people telling him how much he resembles Mr. Black (hmm ok in this case not a Reservoir Dog, dear god, I keep forgetting Tim Roth was one).  Then goes into a song about it.  I should hate them for reading my mind like that.

In addition to everything else the entire performance was rife with nerd references.  I mean packed end to end.  I'm not even going to begin trying to list references because I would just be handing you the script for their entire show.  Looking around the crowd people were rocking woot and threadless shirts, plus the scruffy Dick Van Dyke, both key signs that you are in a nerd heavy zone.  It was especially heavy on the internet culture references.  I'm only half surprised they didn't get into making All Your Base jokes.

There were a couple of huge selling points for me on this show.  The large volume and smoothness of delivery of nerd references.  The awesome interpersonal interaction between the band members.  The self deprecating humor (ie Jack Black reference and a few others).  I really enjoyed this concert, honestly, a lot more than I thought I would going into this.  I didn't know a whole lot about them before hand and now it's obvious I was doing myself a disservice by now keeping them on my radar.  Well worth attending and their music is well worth listening to.