Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The Mighty Boosh in NYC

I was alerted by my baby sister that The Mighty Boosh were throwing a "secret" show in New York City July 21. I flipped my wig (the colonial wig I wear to keep my scalp warm indoors) and scoured the details: it was FREE and open to "all ages". Who knows when they were coming back, and it was the only show they had in the city. I decided right there and then that I was going.

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The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy television show created by Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding and others (collectively know as The Mighty Boosh). The Mighty Boosh is a comic fantasy containing humour and pop-culture references. Episodes often feature elaborate musical numbers in different genres, such as electro, heavy metal, funk, and rap. The show is known for creating its own original style of crimping, short a cappella songs which are present throughout all three series. Julian Barratt writes the music within the show, and performs it with Noel Fielding. Fielding also designs many of the show's graphics and artwork. The TV series has many animated sequences, puppets and special effects. Barratt has said that he approached Fielding with the idea of doing a show like The Goodies, as if it were a complete "world" rather than simply a sketch show. Barratt and Fielding play many of the recurring and one-off characters themselves, with other characters being played by other Boosh members Rich Fulcher, Dave Brown and Michael Fielding.
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My sister and I are like 15 years or so old apart and to my surprise we have some common traits in our sense of humor. We found The Mighty Boosh by mistake about three years ago (or was it two? I can't remember last week, I'm bad with time frames, sorry). I set up my TiVo to record Couplings on BBC America one Friday night around 2am. The next day we sat down to watch it but found The Boosh instead. I was like "What the f--- is this?" TiVo lied to me, BBC went and changed programs on me. I don't think I was going to watch it, but since my sister was sitting on the floor and there was nothing else to watch I let it play. The episode was the 1st one of season 1: Killeroo. Hilarious. The characters were so quirky and original that made me think "I never seen this before". We were hooked to say the least. We recorded every episode they aired that season and watched them the next day (all the eight episodes of the 1st season). When it was over I made a Season Pass for them (where everytime a shows air it will record automatically), but they never aired anymore. I found information about them on the net with a few episodes of the newest seasons, but my internet connection prohibited me to download any (aka it was too slow). When I found a way to get superfastandquick internet I grabbed everything I found about the boosh. Finished all three seasons last year as well as their Live DVD. What can I say? I'm a fan.
The NYC show was held at the Bowery Ballroom and the doors were to open at 9pm, so I figured if I got there by 6pm I'll be in a nice place in line. My sister tagged alone even after I told her that if she was turned at the door for her lack of I.D. I wasn't going to join her. We got there at 6:30pm and the line was already crazy long. It went around the corner and half the other block. Many looked like punk aficionados (wild colored haired and piercings all over), the typical Boosh fan I guess. Not that many fans of African origins in the crowd (read: black), I counted like 5 or 9, us included. It reminded me of a screening to the SPACED DVD Launch I went to last summer. Too many commented that they didn't expect that many people to show up. "I didn't know they had so many fans". It was drizzling non-stop, but this didn't waver the resolve of anyone there. I kept wishing it poured so those without umbrellas ran for cover, but I didn't get my wish.
The fans were encouraged to come dressed up for a chance to win DVDs: I saw a girl dressed as Howard Moon, one girl was The Hitcher, I saw The Moon. I saw one in a full Bollo costume. It was kind of fun on the line. The conversations in front and behind me ranged from the inane to the full on boring. My sister and me just made fun of them in spanish and then resorted to watch Futurama on my ARCHOS (the first robot mafia episode). We got wristbands, so we were guaranteed a spot, right? But it took another 90 minutes before we even got to the velvet ropes.
Inside, the place was nice enough. There were about a hundred people already on the floor when we got there, so moving to the front proved too much work, so we just stayed on the same place (closer to the back than the front, but still pretty far from the back). VIPs had the option of sitting on the second floor - lucky SOBs. The show started about 10:30pm and the crowd went wild. The moon announced the start of the show and a clip highlighting all three seasons confirmed the awesomeness of this show.
We were treated to: The Pie Play, Bob Fossil's Dance Academy, Woodland creatures, Naboo getting killed, The Hitcher's rendition of Eels, Bolo rapping, an Ukranian taxi driver doing stand up. The show seemed to be over when the, The Raping Bunny made its entrance and chased Vince around the crowd. Naboo the Enigma came out and gave us a session of DJing. Great Fun. Some people left when the music was playing. About an hour after of dancing the troupe came back out and performed Nanageddon on full Nana costumes. That topped the show, after performing Vince invited some fans to the stage to dance with him, it became pandemonium up there.
It was great. It was worth standing in line for hours under the rain, to stand for more hours while inside. The Boosh rocked it! I took some pictures, but they're probably going to be rubbish. Enjoy!


Munne2

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