Axis of Awesome: Fringe 2012
Live Review
Pleasance Courtyard

Having decamped to the Grand, the Pleasance’s largest space, after four years steadily building up venue sizes at the Gilded Balloon, Australian comedy rockers Axis of Awesome haven’t scaled up their ambition to match.

Reconciling the expectations of a band’s loyal fanbase with that of a comedy act’s constant need to surprise, especially one founded on the basis of tongue-in-cheek swagger and spectacle, is proving increasingly difficult for the trio.

Despite a propensity for keyboardist Benny Davis to be mocked for his short stature; beefy, bearded vocalist Jordan Raskopoulos to have his masculinity undermined and guitarist Lee Naimo to be revealed as culturally out of touch, their between-song badinage tends to rely on inconsequential chatter eliciting an embarrassing or inexplicable admission from one of them, the others silently swivelling heads to stare in judgment or incomprehension.

Fielding some ongoing criticism, they safely channel it into insults directed at their dancing, prompting an entertaining, recurring enquiry of how exactly one moves to dubstep.

The charge levelled at most musical acts – that they’re simply taking an existing song and giving it new lyrics – is harder to ignore, though here they prove their own worst enemy. Highlighting the strategy before a ‘Beauty and the Beastie Boys’ medley undermines a very effective mash-up. And it’s not like they over-deploy the tactic.

There’s little  here that’s distinct here from their existing back catalogue save for a pseudo-socially conscious track pleading for the pizzas of the world to be divided more efficiently (reminiscent of Tim Minchin’s Canvas Bags).

An opening, Rage Against The Machine-style blast at cultural bandwagon jumpers, boring all and sundry with their belated interest in Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, decades after true fans read the original books, could have been an arch commentary on fanboy snobbery. Instead it simply escalates into a tirade against Hollywood, the subtext subsumed by power chords.

A satirical swipe at businessmen travelling first class won’t have them quaking on Wall Street, the band’s ineffectualness at sticking it to The Man not making it any wittier. Similarly, a supposedly moralistic play performed by members of the audience as a puma and rabbit, is as wearyingly predictable as their artless anthem to a teenage boy’s favourite distraction.

There are some enjoyable set-pieces, with the joke of Raskopoulos’ advocacy of the proud peacock carefully nurtured over an hour. And they certainly know how to write a melody. Then there’s their best known track, the ever-reliable Four Chords Song, splicing together more than 40 chart hits and foregrounding the formulaic underpinning of popular culture.

When they inevitably bow to audience expectation and make it their closing number yet again, innovation and originality have already left the building.