The Greatest Band on Earth, the mighty Tenacious D brought their 2022 tour to the TD Pavilion at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia recently. A steady rain couldn’t stop fans from filling the venue to capacity. The show was livestreamed on nugs.net to raise funds for Rock The Vote. Glad I was able to photograph this performance.
Anyway, be sure to check the Official Tenacious D Website for music, videos, news, and tickets for all upcoming tour dates. Continue reading below for my full review. All images copyright and courtesy of Claude Sawyer.
Tenacious D is the brainchild of comedians Kyle Gass and Jack Black. KG and JB took the stage at 9:15pm and hit the ground running. Bathed in green light, Black held a glowing orb aloft as he ran through the opening number “JB JR Rap.” “Woman Time” and “Save the World” quickly followed, with the band powering through without breaks between the songs. Originally an acoustic duo, the two were joined by a stellar live band anchored by the rhythm section of Scott Seiver on drums and Scott Spiker on bass. Lead guitarist John Konesky rounds out the band.
Black handles most of the lead vocals for the band, but Gass took lead on a great cover of the Thin Lizzy classic “Jailbreak.” They then dipped back into their discography with “Rize of the Fenix” and “Deth Star” from 2012’s Rize of the Fenix album. JB pulled out his toy saxophone for “Sax-a-Boom.” Not to be outdone, KG brought out his much bigger “Max-a-Boom” to complete the duet. The members of the band were clearly having a great time on stage, feeding off of the energy from the Philly crowd.
The crowd erupted when the intro to “Kickapoo” rang out. This began a four song run of songs from the 2006’s “Pick of Destiny.” A huge backdrop appeared behind the band with the aforementioned Pick of Destiny emblazoned on it. They followed with “The Metal.” A man dressed in a seven foot tall robot costume bounded across the stage as
they acted out the song. “Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)” had KG and JB doing battle with the devil, voiced by guitarist Konesky. When the “battle” was over and the devil vanquished, Gass walked off stage, “quitting” the band. Black took center stage to perform “Dude (I Totally Miss You) before Gass rejoined the band on stage.
They closed out their main set with the trifecta of “Friendship,” “Tribute” and “Double Team.” A two song encore followed with “Throw Down” which they dedicated to Rock the Vote. The final song was one of the funniest, filthiest singalongs that I have ever been part of. Thousands of voices joined along to “Fuck Her Gently.” To hear that
many voices singing every raunchy, hilarious lyric was a special moment.
As mentioned earlier the show was livestreamed on nugs.net with all proceeds going to Rock the Vote. The show is still available for streaming at https://tenaciousd.com/news/one-time-only-world-wide-live-stream-to-benefit-rock-the-vote. Below are more pics from the show.
