Tenacious D at the Nottingham Motorpoint Review

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Photo: John Morris

Gig Review – Tenacious D: The Spicy Meatball Tour

Sunday 13th May 2024 - Nottingham Motorpoint

“D! D! D!” Chant the audience in every moment of silence. A crowd of thousands clearly onboard with the daft duo as they bound about the stage and spend as much delivering skits as they do playing their surprisingly varied catalogue.

Tenacious D, the now thirty-year old project from Jack Black and Kyle Gass, have a few songs that the average music fan might recognise. The biggest being ‘Tribute’ – here played mid-gig rather than being saved for the encore - but tracks such as ‘Wonderboy’, ‘The Metal’, or ‘Fuck her Gently’, have managed to gain surprising amounts of cultural traction.

Now, a lot of this is likely to do with Jack Black’s prominence. Be that in animation as the Kung Fu Panda or Bowser in the Super Mario Bros movie, or films such as Jumanji, School of Rock or Goosebumps. I think few would doubt that Jack Black’s star power have helped keep Tenacious D popular.

But, at no point does do the duo rest on this. There’s no playing through the tracks and calling it a day. Both Black and Gass seem excited to be on the stage. They’re having a blast playing ‘Tribute’ for the 18th billionth time and are equally excited playing their newest song ‘Video Games’ (not a Lana Del Rey cover).

Beyond that they work in skits to set up songs, such as the possession of their bassist to introduce ‘Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)’, or Black berating Gass at the back of the stage to case him to storm off so Black can move into ‘Dude (I Totally Miss You). There’s even a recurring joke with Black growing increasingly angry at their roadie hilariously named ‘Biffy Pyro’ as he continuous screws up with pyrotechnics. It's all silly, but it elevates some of the lesser known tracks.

They’re quite happy to joke with the audience and make the gig feel a lot more intimate than I’ve experienced at such a large venue. Be that Black purposely staring into the camera to give the audience eye contact or asking if we’d watched The Pick of Destiny, receiving a thunderous applause, before lamenting: “Well, not at the cinema, did you? Cinemas up and down the country, all empty. It almost destroyed us.”

The only point the 90-minute show drags is before the encore when Tenacious D spend almost fifteen-minutes letting each member show their stuff. And I mean EVERY member, which includes the lighting guy (woo flashing colours), the sound guy (check… check… one two… one two), and – more egregiously – lengthy solos from both guitarists and the drummer.

Somehow, for all the hijinks, Tenacious D remains musically astute. There’s a pristineness to their delivery, more than capable of matching their rock influences, despite managing to still feel human. D! D! D!

⭐⭐⭐