“Very under-appreciated”: The great shows that disappointed Jack Black
Straddling the lines between comedy and music, Tenacious D were never the sort of band that would naturally ascend to the top of a showbill by playing dingy gigs to a sparsely packed audience.
Because their silver screen star rose far quicker than their musical one, it was hard for them to truthfully build some credit in the bank with the music audience. Those truly in the know when it came to the D and basked in the unbridled fun of their comedic lyrics, but to those uninitiated, largely used to seeing Jack Black donning the clothes of his latest cinema turn, it sparked a confused curiosity.
The early days of the band trying to gig as a genuine musical outfit thrust Black and his bandmate Kyle Gass back down to earth, with one particular support slot serving as a sobering reminder of that.
In 1998, four years after their formation, Eddie Vedder saw the duo perform on HBO and was immediately impressed by their showmanship that combined comedy and music. He invited them to open up for them at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, where Black and Gass’s somewhat wobbly position in the music industry was exposed to them.
Black explained, “We were really stoked because it was a huge venue and we were playing and then, when the show started, it wasn’t as cool as we had hoped because, like, it was so early, it was only like a quarter full, and the lights were still on. It looked like we were just roadies that commandeered the microphones. It’s like, ‘No, we’re supposed to be here’.”
Given the fact that Vedder himself recruited the band to be a part of the show, he felt somewhat responsible for their heckling and so decided to act upon it himself. Leveraging the unique power of his stardom in the context of his own fanbase, he decided to step in, in a bid to give Black and Gass a helping hand with the audience.
Black continued, “The second night, Eddie wanted to help us out a little bit, so he wanted to introduce us, but he didn’t want to mess up because he’s a showman at the end of the day. He didn’t want to show his face before Pearl Jam started, so he came out and introduced us, but he was wearing a mask. It was kind of like ‘Yeah, well, Eddie, that’s great, but without you, you’re not introducing us, but thank you anyway’,” adding, “We had a couple great shows that went very under-appreciated, I’m gonna say.”
You could argue it was the most important experience in Tenacious D’s burgeoning music career. Despite boasting an already glittering cinema résumé, it reminded Black, in particular, that music was an entirely different beast, and the band would have to earn their crust the proper way.
Eight years later, though, they combined their art to perfection and released Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, a film that would thrust the band to fame and remove them from the crippling pain of being heckled as a support act.
