Axis of Awesome concert in Munich

Do you remember this post?  It was just a YouTube video of a comedy rock band called the Axis of Awesome, with their viral song "Four Chords".  It's funny, well performed, and catchy.

So when Frau A saw that they were touring Europe and playing in Munich, she got us tickets!

The show was held at a great little venue called the Freiheizhalle, located under the Donnerbergerbruecke bridge.  This place is perfect for small concerts or large gatherings. It's a renovated brick industrial building with a ballroom holding between 250 (seated) and 400 (standing) guests.  They've even kept the old work crane there to help maintain the industrial charm.

In the cozy foyer, they serve German beer (you can take it into the show) and they were serving flammkuchen that looked really great. Unfortunately, we'd just eaten and didn't try it. Next time...

For those of you who don't know The Axis of Awesome, it's comprised of three Austrialians.

On the keyboard is Benny, aka "Chicken Little".  The others mock him for his brains and his height, though admit that he is the classy one of the group, since he has classical music training and speaks a foreign language.

  

If Benny is the brains of the group, Jordan is the face and the energy. He is in fact the lead singer, and NOT Jack Black (he'd like you to remember that fact).

     

And then we have Lee, who plays guitar and "way way back up vocals." His role is kind of that of the court jester. Instead of a jester's hat, he has a fake spiky hair hat.

    

It was a pretty casual concert, and the band came out to the lobby afterwards to sign autographs, meet people, and take pictures.

It was a really fun concert and I highly recommend seeing them if you have a chance. The show ran a little over an hour and I found myself thinking "it's over? I'm sad!" Though I guess that's the best way to end a show, with the audience wanting more.

Here are a few video clips from the show. You can find videos from other shows on youtube and officially produced music videos on their site.

One of the songs that garnered the greatest laughs was "The Language of Love," which Benny sings in the language of love....which we were surprised to learn was German, not French.  We've just posted an excerpt, but if you're amused by singing in German, there's a good full-length video from a show in Sweden last year.  We had the usual shocked, looking around to see your neighbors' reaction, feeling that usually hits foreigners when hearing certain words in Germany such as "gestapo" and "lebensraum." But everyone had a great laugh at the humor, especially since "lebensraum" was a common mistranslation for "living room" and the song seemed to get an even better reaction in Munich than in other shows outside Germany.

Their biggest hit of the night was their encore, Rammstein's Du Hast. It was just a cover, not a comedy sketch, but it was so much fun. Better than the song is the guy a couple rows in front of us who puls out some serious 80s headbanging moves at the 1:35 mark. He's definitely done this a few times before...

"How to Write a Love Song" is a great song mocking all of the boy band love songs and videos which also seem to have a very generic pattern. Really clever, and unfortunately catchy in the same way those 90s cheesy boy band songs were...

And Lee's favorite, The KFC Song, blending hip hop elements with a love of The Colonel's 11 secret herbs and spices.

We'll definitely see them again - a really fun night!