Flight of the Conchords
Flight of the Conchords is a New Zealand musical comedy duo formed in Wellington in 1998. The band consists of multi-instrumentalists Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Beginning as a popular live comedy act in the early 2000s, the duo's comedy and music became the basis of the self-titled BBC radio series (2005) and, subsequently, the HBO American television series (2007–2009). Most recently, they released the HBO comedy special Live in London in 2018. The special was concurrently released by Sub Pop as their fifth album.
For other uses, see Flight of the Conchords (disambiguation).
Flight of the Conchords
Wellington, New Zealand
1998–present
The duo's live performances have gained them a worldwide cult following,[1] and they continue to tour periodically. They were named Best Alternative Comedy Act at the 2005 US Comedy Arts Festival and Best Newcomer at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and received a nomination for the Perrier Comedy Award at the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. They have been twice-nominated for a Grammy Award—winning Best Comedy Album in 2008—and have received seven nominations for Emmy Awards.
Previously, they referred to themselves as "New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo"; as of 2014, however, they refer to themselves as "the almost award-winning fourth-most-popular folk duo in New Zealand".[2]
Career history[edit]
1998–2006: early years[edit]
McKenzie and Clement were flatmates at Victoria University of Wellington, where they studied film and theatre before forming Flight of the Conchords in 1998. They first performed as part of a five-man group called So You're a Man, which included Taika Waititi and debuted at Wellington's BATS Theatre, garnering a small but loyal following in New Zealand and Australia.[3]
The band first performed on television on Newtown Salad, a show on Wellington's short-lived local TV station "Channel 7" (later renamed "WTV"). They played two songs on the premiere episode in 1999[4] and then later appeared over four nights in 2000 (3–6 May); the songs, in order, were "Bowie", "Ladies of the World", "Petrov, Yelyena and Me", and "Hotties".[5]
They performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2002, 2003—when they were nominated for the Perrier Award—and 2004.[6] They also performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival where they won the Best Newcomer Award. They were later featured in a 2004 campaign for British mobile phone retailer Phones 4U[7] and in the show Stand Up! on Australia's ABC TV.[8]
In 2005, HBO gave the group a special on their Friday night half-hour comedy series One Night Stand. They then headlined at the opening weekend at Comix comedy club, where they recorded two tracks included on 2007's The Distant Future.
During this period, they had television development deals with Channel 4 in the UK, NBC in the United States, and TVNZ in New Zealand but, ultimately, shows were not produced.[9] In 2006, they performed at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas. While in Texas, they recorded a documentary titled Flight of the Conchords: A Texan Odyssey, which aired on New Zealand's TV3 in late 2006.[10]
Related projects[edit]
Both McKenzie and Clement appeared alongside Rhys Darby in a horror comedy titled Diagnosis: Death, though not as Flight of the Conchords. The film was released on 3 August 2009.
The song "I'm Not Crying" appears in the film The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!. In 2014, both Clement and Rhys Darby starred in the horror comedy mockumentary titled What We Do in the Shadows, directed by Clement and Taika Waititi.
Style[edit]
Instrumentation[edit]
Traditionally, the duo both play acoustic guitar in live performances, with McKenzie almost always playing a standard grand concert-style acoustic guitar and Clement playing a parlor guitar and sometimes a classical guitar. For some songs, Clement plays the acoustic bass guitar.
They commonly employ 1980s-era novelty instruments like the Casio DG-20 guitar synthesizer and Omnichord, in addition to glockenspiel, bongos, and autoharp, among others. In the past decade, they have expanded their instrumentation; more recent performances, like those during their 2018 tour of United Kingdom and Ireland, saw both playing electric bass guitar (with Clement playing a Höfner 500/1) and using effect pedals. Since 2008, they have collaborated with musician Nigel Collins, who plays cello, keyboards, and percussion, for both studio and live performances.[34]
Albums
Radio
Tours, excluding one-off performances and mini tours, from 2008 on:[35]
