An Evening With Noel Fielding (Boston Shows)
I wanted to do a little write up about Noel’s first two shows, but was rather distracted by it being my birthday and then getting terribly sick. If you’re still interested…
[It ended up being crazy long, but I’m still posting it as my own little memory thing even if no one else wants to slog through it!]
The show follows pretty closely to what is in the DVD, with some adaptations for the American audience. It begins with the Moon singing “Born in the USA”.
The first night was a little more low key than the second because it was the added night. I bought my tickets to the March 11th show about five minutes into the presale and only got slightly better seats than I got buying the March 10th seats last minute. It worked out well, because the first show was a little looser and Noel spent some time asking about American translations. The second show, there was just a roar when he took the stage that prompted Noel to say, “Fuck. I’d better be funny.”
The first night, Noel asked us what would be our equivalent of a chav and it was clear nothing quite worked, so he went with “Ali Gs”. The next night, he maneuvered us through that conversation so we never got into the slightly awkward race stuff around thug. Little things like that made it fun to see the show twice, because you really appreciate how he controls the audience interaction. He really is amazing with the audience. The audience participation was my favorite part of both shows, and I usually cringe when the audience gets involved because of all the second hand embarrassment, but he is really good at wrangling people so they aren’t too embarrassing or awkward. A bit he did that was amazing, and I’d love to know if other people have seen it, is someone came in very late while he was in the middle of the herbal tea bag routine and he joked he had no way to explain what he was doing. Then he recapped the entire show. He would go back to the bit, but every once in a while, he’d jump back and insert a few more jokes that the late comers had missed. It was so funny and so well done, I fully expected the joke to repeat the next night.
The first night, Noel talk about how he used to be able to eat nineteen burgers and still be thinner than Bowie but now his metabolism is all slowed down. He did a sad representation of his metabolism leaning against a wall and pissing itself that wasn’t in the second night. He did a lot of over forty jokes (both nights) that I enjoyed because I had just turned 39, so I could pretend that made me quite youthful! Actually, I related so hard to every joke because it is hard to go out on a rainy Thursday and I do worry about going too hard on a Friday night and “ruining the rest of the weekend”. Both nights he found someone over forty in the front row to “touch in a way no two over-forties should touch”, aka fist bump.
The first night, Noel asked for our equivalent of B&Q and someone yelled Lowes. The next night, someone yelled Home Depot, which he heard as “Home People”. After having it yelled a few more times, he pointed out they pronounce depot differently on that side of the pond and asked if we called Johnny Depp Johnny Deep. He made references to Johnny Deep all through the show and then tweeted he loved us like Johnny Deep. It was a lovely in-joke that just looks like another typo.
I am curious how this played out! The dark side of the moon says he sanded the face off a budgie and Noel said, “You don’t have budgies here. I know that. Now. Tomorrow it will be badger.” The next night, it was badger, but it sounded really fucked up! Did they fix it or just go back to budgie?
I did not expect Rich to still play Antonio Banderas, but he did! The first night, Rich kept saying “Fuck off” to anyone who wasn’t in Zorro, which I thought was hilarious, but it was toned down the next night. The first night, Rich was telling the whole audience to fuck off, so Noel was laughing a bit as he ran his hand over Rich’s stomach (he was wearing the low cut, ruffly Zorro shirt) and said he was sexy. Rich kept demanding to know why Noel was laughing while calling him sexy. (The next night, I noticed Noel didn’t laugh while admiring Rich’s outfit.)
The first night, Rich’s “The Expendables” sequels jokes fell a bit flat and he commented on the lack of laughs and Noel said, “Yeah, well we won’t do it tomorrow.” The next night, he’d changed the CGI character (from this imagined Expendables 8) from a horse named Montague to a Whisper Wolf, and Whisper Wolf went over really well. I don’t even know if the joke worked better or if Noel was just so into the idea that it became funny. I’m curious if Whisper Wolf will become standard.
Rich also does a lot of jokes about Antonio being the voice of the Nasonex Bee, which I assume was only an American ad campaign. It certainly works on the level of, “Why the fuck was Antonio Banderas doing adds for nasal congestion?”
I wondered how Noel would handle the David Bowie animation, and he starts the bit normally but then stops to explain that they had to debate how to handle it. The first night, Noel said he was devastated by Bowie’s death and had been ripping him off for a decade. The conclusion was that it could be a tribute to David Bowie, because “the animation took six months so fuck it.” However, the reverse minotaur who had the head of Nick Cave in the DVD (not sure who it was in England, but noticed yet a different face in the show’s program) now has the head of Gordon Ramsey, England’s gift to the U.S.
Joey Ramone brings attention to the fact he is also dead, but Noel assures him that since he died ages ago, no one gives a fuck. At one point, Noel brings up that David is a fashion innovator, unlike Joey who has worn the same look for ten years. Joey counteracted that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones… Obviously, a different joke for those of us stalking his every move and who know he does try different styles when he is between projects, but inevitably goes back to the branded look when it’s time to work.
He did make a reference to the red hair on the second night. I already told the story, but there was a woman with fiery red hair in the front row and he said, “I had hair like that a few days ago!” It was very cute and enthusiastic. He quickly clarified that the color looked great on her and that, “Mine was fucked. I looked like Donald Trump.”
The first night, while Noel insists he is not a “shapist”, one of the shape friends he mentioned was Simon Farnaby. It was the only call-out I caught other than several Russell Brand references.
After the interval (buy your merch before the show or at the interval because shit sold like hot cakes in Boston and ran out, and there was a massive line after the show for the scraps left over. My husband heard someone buy one of everything and it came to $85. It is really reasonable for tour merch. My husband and daughter bought me a mug to surprise me because it was my birthday and because my husband was surprised he still had money in his wallet after I hit the merch table earlier.) Raymond Boombox comes out to interrogate the crowd because Noel has been kidnapped. Both nights, this section was incredible. Noel is so good at improving with the audience. My favorite was a woman I am guessing was a few years older than me (somewhere in her forties). She is hard to describe, but when she said her job was Project Manager as a toy company, it totally made sense. Like she looked like a sensible middle aged woman but with these white frame glasses and this funky print dress that I will now describe as ‘executive whimsy’. When Noel asked about her job, he looked at the camera and said (very sincerely), “I’m a little jealous.” They had a cute little back and forth, and before he left he asked who she was with and told her husband, “You’re punching above your weight, mate.” Whoever she is, I hope that every time her husband acts up she says, “Noel Fielding said you weren’t good enough for me…” I’m already mentioned the girls with boosh tattoos. He tried to arrange a threesome with a shy hipster couple. While interviewing a lighting designer, he pointed out the man’s wife was literally in his shadow while they spoke and how that reflected on the man’s lighting design skills. His wife was a clothing designer so Noel decided it could not be them that kidnapped Noel, and if it was them, he’d change the paper work. Both nights there were goth girls who looked like the type who might kidnap Noel. Both nights there were men who had clearly come in disguise with their big bushy beards. The second night, he teased a guy in a suit, telling him he was allowed to wear his own clothes when he got home from work. Since I was still wearing my work clothes, I felt a kinship. He probably had to haul ass from work to make the show on time as well! The second night, a young girl in a bodysuit hugged him tightly while Noel wondered how he would get out of the situation without a “pedophile investigation”. He asked a woman about her job and immediately left when she said therapist because “she doesn’t have time for all the crazy thoughts in my head.” There was a girl with some frizzy, curly hair and a thick, straight fringe and Boombox asked if she’d committed any crimes, “Other than that fringe.” He said he was joking and, “I’ve had worse. I mean Noel has had worse. I’ve got a perm.” I don’t remember if it was the first or second night, but Noel did intentionally show a little ass crack to the camera (in addition to the bit of ass crack that is always showing when he’s Boombox). A nice bonus. I tend to not love audience interaction at comedy shows because people can be unbearable, but Noel really works the crowd well and knows how to pick his people.
Fantasy Man’s new side kick is Bernie, the Harlequin. When Fantasy Man says, “You are a real Harlequin, aren’t you?”, Bernie says, “I dress up like one as music festivals”. The first night, Bernie didn’t work very well, but Rich was finding his groove the second night. I’d love to see a later show just to see that character more solidified. He’s still a drug addled lunatic with dubious psychic powers like Big Chief. Of course, he’s a bit more difficult to manage and will surely only get more difficult as the tour progresses.
Rich plays Gordon the triangle with an English accent and said, “I’m a cockney,” the first night. Both nights, Gordon’s false hand fell off and Noel put it on Messi’s head, so I guess that is a planned mistake, but I definitely bought it the first night.
The first night, as I said, the Bernie character just barely worked. The second night, Fantasy Man says something about Bernie being a psychopath and Rich did a slightly altered response from the first night, but the essence of the joke was that Bernie prefers the term sociopath. Fantasy Man then said, “Remember how I said you said something funny last night, but I couldn’t remember what it was? That was it!”
When Gordon mocks Noel for wearing a fat suit when he doesn’t need one, Noel comes out in his padding to tell him off and complains that we’ve now seen him looking like a “nutmeg ninja turtle.” Gordon also calls Noel a “sweaty Liza Minelli”.
The first night, Noel/Fantasy Man yelled at Rich/Bernie to speed it up with the selection of the “steve” for the final animation, and I noticed the next night it went a lot faster…
I thought both nights had great crowds with minimal assholery. The second night was sold out and more intense, and there was a Scottish guy right behind me that got obnoxious as the evening went on. He started out cool, just really enthusiastic about how “fooking British” Noel was and that it worked in America. I have to say, the dude sounded just like Noel reading the Joey Ramone story. Either Noel’s accent isn’t bad, or this guy has been in America too long.
Speaking of accents, I want to hear how he is handling the accent in NYC! In Boston, the first night he said he’d been spending time in London and that was why his accent had gotten “weird”. The next night, he added several countries to explain why his accent might sound off. He also teased a New Yorker for having a weird accent, since she didn’t sound like him.
Sorry this got so long, considering most of my description of the show was “see DVD”, but I had a great time and I would love to hear about other people’s experiences! I didn’t have a chance to stalk because it was a haul to get to Boston during rush hour so being early or staying late wasn’t an option. For anyone wondering, my daughter was too buzzed to nap before Noel, so she laughed like a maniac for a few minutes and fell asleep. She woke up occasionally and watched bits through blurry eyes and then would pass back out. She wears her tee-shirt, she’s read the program, the moon button is on her school jacket, and she remains Noel’s biggest fan with an 8:30 bedtime. She took her little Howard and Vince dollies and they were much admired by the people around us. If I had been in a position to take off work and properly stalk Noel, I would have loved to show him the dolls in person so he could behold their beauty. Some day!
[It ended up being crazy long, but I’m still posting it as my own little memory thing even if no one else wants to slog through it!]
The show follows pretty closely to what is in the DVD, with some adaptations for the American audience. It begins with the Moon singing “Born in the USA”.
The first night was a little more low key than the second because it was the added night. I bought my tickets to the March 11th show about five minutes into the presale and only got slightly better seats than I got buying the March 10th seats last minute. It worked out well, because the first show was a little looser and Noel spent some time asking about American translations. The second show, there was just a roar when he took the stage that prompted Noel to say, “Fuck. I’d better be funny.”
The first night, Noel asked us what would be our equivalent of a chav and it was clear nothing quite worked, so he went with “Ali Gs”. The next night, he maneuvered us through that conversation so we never got into the slightly awkward race stuff around thug. Little things like that made it fun to see the show twice, because you really appreciate how he controls the audience interaction. He really is amazing with the audience. The audience participation was my favorite part of both shows, and I usually cringe when the audience gets involved because of all the second hand embarrassment, but he is really good at wrangling people so they aren’t too embarrassing or awkward. A bit he did that was amazing, and I’d love to know if other people have seen it, is someone came in very late while he was in the middle of the herbal tea bag routine and he joked he had no way to explain what he was doing. Then he recapped the entire show. He would go back to the bit, but every once in a while, he’d jump back and insert a few more jokes that the late comers had missed. It was so funny and so well done, I fully expected the joke to repeat the next night.
The first night, Noel talk about how he used to be able to eat nineteen burgers and still be thinner than Bowie but now his metabolism is all slowed down. He did a sad representation of his metabolism leaning against a wall and pissing itself that wasn’t in the second night. He did a lot of over forty jokes (both nights) that I enjoyed because I had just turned 39, so I could pretend that made me quite youthful! Actually, I related so hard to every joke because it is hard to go out on a rainy Thursday and I do worry about going too hard on a Friday night and “ruining the rest of the weekend”. Both nights he found someone over forty in the front row to “touch in a way no two over-forties should touch”, aka fist bump.
The first night, Noel asked for our equivalent of B&Q and someone yelled Lowes. The next night, someone yelled Home Depot, which he heard as “Home People”. After having it yelled a few more times, he pointed out they pronounce depot differently on that side of the pond and asked if we called Johnny Depp Johnny Deep. He made references to Johnny Deep all through the show and then tweeted he loved us like Johnny Deep. It was a lovely in-joke that just looks like another typo.
I am curious how this played out! The dark side of the moon says he sanded the face off a budgie and Noel said, “You don’t have budgies here. I know that. Now. Tomorrow it will be badger.” The next night, it was badger, but it sounded really fucked up! Did they fix it or just go back to budgie?
I did not expect Rich to still play Antonio Banderas, but he did! The first night, Rich kept saying “Fuck off” to anyone who wasn’t in Zorro, which I thought was hilarious, but it was toned down the next night. The first night, Rich was telling the whole audience to fuck off, so Noel was laughing a bit as he ran his hand over Rich’s stomach (he was wearing the low cut, ruffly Zorro shirt) and said he was sexy. Rich kept demanding to know why Noel was laughing while calling him sexy. (The next night, I noticed Noel didn’t laugh while admiring Rich’s outfit.)
The first night, Rich’s “The Expendables” sequels jokes fell a bit flat and he commented on the lack of laughs and Noel said, “Yeah, well we won’t do it tomorrow.” The next night, he’d changed the CGI character (from this imagined Expendables 8) from a horse named Montague to a Whisper Wolf, and Whisper Wolf went over really well. I don’t even know if the joke worked better or if Noel was just so into the idea that it became funny. I’m curious if Whisper Wolf will become standard.
Rich also does a lot of jokes about Antonio being the voice of the Nasonex Bee, which I assume was only an American ad campaign. It certainly works on the level of, “Why the fuck was Antonio Banderas doing adds for nasal congestion?”
I wondered how Noel would handle the David Bowie animation, and he starts the bit normally but then stops to explain that they had to debate how to handle it. The first night, Noel said he was devastated by Bowie’s death and had been ripping him off for a decade. The conclusion was that it could be a tribute to David Bowie, because “the animation took six months so fuck it.” However, the reverse minotaur who had the head of Nick Cave in the DVD (not sure who it was in England, but noticed yet a different face in the show’s program) now has the head of Gordon Ramsey, England’s gift to the U.S.
Joey Ramone brings attention to the fact he is also dead, but Noel assures him that since he died ages ago, no one gives a fuck. At one point, Noel brings up that David is a fashion innovator, unlike Joey who has worn the same look for ten years. Joey counteracted that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones… Obviously, a different joke for those of us stalking his every move and who know he does try different styles when he is between projects, but inevitably goes back to the branded look when it’s time to work.
He did make a reference to the red hair on the second night. I already told the story, but there was a woman with fiery red hair in the front row and he said, “I had hair like that a few days ago!” It was very cute and enthusiastic. He quickly clarified that the color looked great on her and that, “Mine was fucked. I looked like Donald Trump.”
The first night, while Noel insists he is not a “shapist”, one of the shape friends he mentioned was Simon Farnaby. It was the only call-out I caught other than several Russell Brand references.
After the interval (buy your merch before the show or at the interval because shit sold like hot cakes in Boston and ran out, and there was a massive line after the show for the scraps left over. My husband heard someone buy one of everything and it came to $85. It is really reasonable for tour merch. My husband and daughter bought me a mug to surprise me because it was my birthday and because my husband was surprised he still had money in his wallet after I hit the merch table earlier.) Raymond Boombox comes out to interrogate the crowd because Noel has been kidnapped. Both nights, this section was incredible. Noel is so good at improving with the audience. My favorite was a woman I am guessing was a few years older than me (somewhere in her forties). She is hard to describe, but when she said her job was Project Manager as a toy company, it totally made sense. Like she looked like a sensible middle aged woman but with these white frame glasses and this funky print dress that I will now describe as ‘executive whimsy’. When Noel asked about her job, he looked at the camera and said (very sincerely), “I’m a little jealous.” They had a cute little back and forth, and before he left he asked who she was with and told her husband, “You’re punching above your weight, mate.” Whoever she is, I hope that every time her husband acts up she says, “Noel Fielding said you weren’t good enough for me…” I’m already mentioned the girls with boosh tattoos. He tried to arrange a threesome with a shy hipster couple. While interviewing a lighting designer, he pointed out the man’s wife was literally in his shadow while they spoke and how that reflected on the man’s lighting design skills. His wife was a clothing designer so Noel decided it could not be them that kidnapped Noel, and if it was them, he’d change the paper work. Both nights there were goth girls who looked like the type who might kidnap Noel. Both nights there were men who had clearly come in disguise with their big bushy beards. The second night, he teased a guy in a suit, telling him he was allowed to wear his own clothes when he got home from work. Since I was still wearing my work clothes, I felt a kinship. He probably had to haul ass from work to make the show on time as well! The second night, a young girl in a bodysuit hugged him tightly while Noel wondered how he would get out of the situation without a “pedophile investigation”. He asked a woman about her job and immediately left when she said therapist because “she doesn’t have time for all the crazy thoughts in my head.” There was a girl with some frizzy, curly hair and a thick, straight fringe and Boombox asked if she’d committed any crimes, “Other than that fringe.” He said he was joking and, “I’ve had worse. I mean Noel has had worse. I’ve got a perm.” I don’t remember if it was the first or second night, but Noel did intentionally show a little ass crack to the camera (in addition to the bit of ass crack that is always showing when he’s Boombox). A nice bonus. I tend to not love audience interaction at comedy shows because people can be unbearable, but Noel really works the crowd well and knows how to pick his people.
Fantasy Man’s new side kick is Bernie, the Harlequin. When Fantasy Man says, “You are a real Harlequin, aren’t you?”, Bernie says, “I dress up like one as music festivals”. The first night, Bernie didn’t work very well, but Rich was finding his groove the second night. I’d love to see a later show just to see that character more solidified. He’s still a drug addled lunatic with dubious psychic powers like Big Chief. Of course, he’s a bit more difficult to manage and will surely only get more difficult as the tour progresses.
Rich plays Gordon the triangle with an English accent and said, “I’m a cockney,” the first night. Both nights, Gordon’s false hand fell off and Noel put it on Messi’s head, so I guess that is a planned mistake, but I definitely bought it the first night.
The first night, as I said, the Bernie character just barely worked. The second night, Fantasy Man says something about Bernie being a psychopath and Rich did a slightly altered response from the first night, but the essence of the joke was that Bernie prefers the term sociopath. Fantasy Man then said, “Remember how I said you said something funny last night, but I couldn’t remember what it was? That was it!”
When Gordon mocks Noel for wearing a fat suit when he doesn’t need one, Noel comes out in his padding to tell him off and complains that we’ve now seen him looking like a “nutmeg ninja turtle.” Gordon also calls Noel a “sweaty Liza Minelli”.
The first night, Noel/Fantasy Man yelled at Rich/Bernie to speed it up with the selection of the “steve” for the final animation, and I noticed the next night it went a lot faster…
I thought both nights had great crowds with minimal assholery. The second night was sold out and more intense, and there was a Scottish guy right behind me that got obnoxious as the evening went on. He started out cool, just really enthusiastic about how “fooking British” Noel was and that it worked in America. I have to say, the dude sounded just like Noel reading the Joey Ramone story. Either Noel’s accent isn’t bad, or this guy has been in America too long.
Speaking of accents, I want to hear how he is handling the accent in NYC! In Boston, the first night he said he’d been spending time in London and that was why his accent had gotten “weird”. The next night, he added several countries to explain why his accent might sound off. He also teased a New Yorker for having a weird accent, since she didn’t sound like him.
Sorry this got so long, considering most of my description of the show was “see DVD”, but I had a great time and I would love to hear about other people’s experiences! I didn’t have a chance to stalk because it was a haul to get to Boston during rush hour so being early or staying late wasn’t an option. For anyone wondering, my daughter was too buzzed to nap before Noel, so she laughed like a maniac for a few minutes and fell asleep. She woke up occasionally and watched bits through blurry eyes and then would pass back out. She wears her tee-shirt, she’s read the program, the moon button is on her school jacket, and she remains Noel’s biggest fan with an 8:30 bedtime. She took her little Howard and Vince dollies and they were much admired by the people around us. If I had been in a position to take off work and properly stalk Noel, I would have loved to show him the dolls in person so he could behold their beauty. Some day!