Speaking to Loudwire, Jack Black and Kyle Gass remembered one particularly disastrous Tenacious D show, opening for Stone Temple Pilots.
At this point, Tenacious D are… well, Tenacious D. Everyone puts respect on that name – they’re legends, and they’ve more earned that status. As Jack Black and Kyle Gass recall, though, it wasn’t always like that. In fact, there was one particularly disastrous show when they were almost booed off stage while opening for the Stone Temple Pilots.
Speaking to Loudwire ahead of the release of their Audible Original Tencious D: The Road To Redunktion, Black and Gass recalled their not-so-epic show from 1999, part of the Miller Genuine Draft Blind Date. Ardent fans would win the chance to get drunk and watch some live music based on a lottery system – only, they wouldn’t know which act would perform until the performance started.
For Tenacious D, this was a moderately big deal. This was the era before their debut album or the hit musical from 2006 – an opportunity for a fairly new act to blow some people away. Only, it didn’t play out that way.
“They’re all thinking, oh my God, it’s gonna be fuckin’ U2 or something,” Black recalled. The moment they came on, the audience went crazy – in a bad way.
“The curtain opens, and it’s Tenacious D, and everyone in unison just starts booing. ‘Fuck you! You suck! Who are you? This is not a blind date that I like!’”
Problem was, Tenacious D couldn’t just up and leave or cut their set short.
Love Classic Rock?
Get the latest Classic Rock news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
“We realize early on that if we stop, they’re not gonna pay us,” said Jack Black. “We have contractually agreed to play for 25 minutes. So we just fuckin’ nose down and we just play. Shit is flying at us. Looking out in the audience, it’s all hatred.”
They had planned much more than music, in fact – alas, the world never got a taste of it. Given the reception to their act and appearance, that plan was scrapped pronto.
“We have this comedy bit that’s supposed to happen halfway through the set where a friend of ours comes out dressed as Spider-Man [during the song ‘Spiderman’]. It’s a hilarious thing where he climbs up a fuckin’ rope and does some acrobatics, and it’s dumb — it’s called ‘Cheap-Ass Spidey.’” Black told Loudwire, also adding that this ‘Cheap-Ass Spidey’ also turned out to be a ‘Flaky-Ass Spidey’.
“And I look into the wings and there’s my friend, and he doesn’t have the fuckin’ costume on. He’s like, [does throat slash gesture]. He’s not coming out! … And we just continue, and we plow, and we finish. And, weirdly, by the end of it, I think we won some of them over.” he added.
Well, it’s the audience’s loss, really. We bet a lot of them now tell people that they saw Tenacious D perform before they really hit big.
For more on this topic, follow the Rock Observer.
