I felt a bit odd about this gig – FOTC are undoubtedly a supremely talented musical comedy duo, but given that I was already familiar with such classic compositions as 'Business Time', 'Think About It (Think Think About It)' and 'The Most Beautiful Girl In The World', I wondered whether I'd really get much from the performance.
As it happens, there is enough new material in the show to compensate for my familiarity with Jemaine and Bret. They open the show performing an electro-pop number while wearing over-sized robot heads, and also score big early on with some funny banter with the audience (a negative reaction to one improvised gag leads Jemaine to quip that we aren’t as good as last night’s audience, which results in him dubbing tonight "cunt Thursday").
They are accompanied for the most of the show by "the Symphony Orchestra of New Zealand", which turns out to consist entirely of a softly spoken, deadpan bloke called Nigel. The tunes are lapped up by the sell-out audience (the Conchords could just have easily played two nights in the O2), the majority of whom are diehard devotees if the numerous singalongs throughout the show are anything to go by (the duo – and touchingly, Nigel – also have knickers thrown at them by a couple of girls in the front row).
Perhaps the highlight of the evening is 'Bowie', a tribute to the titular singer, which finds Jemaine and Bret stripping off their stage clothes to reveal figure-hugging, Ziggy Stardust-style bodysuits beneath.
To be honest, towards the end of the two-hour running time, the crowd do get a little restless and the band seem a little bored. After a super-funky 'Business Time', they liven up proceedings by taking requests, which results in an excellent rendition of the warped nursery rhyme 'Albi The Racist Dragon'.
The tune deftly reveals the secret of the boys' success – absolute mastery of numerous genres, allied to a flair for wordplay and witty satirical observation. A sceptic I may have been, but in the end I did very much enjoy the show – not bad for New Zealand’s "fourth most popular novelty folk duo".