The Onion AV Club: New Year's Eve 2009 In Austin, TX

Metallagher
Also Playing: JT Habersaat and Empty Bottles and Stabba and Manzig

If the idea of a Metallica cover band fronted by a Gallagher impersonator sounds like a one-joke premise, it absolutely is. Most importantly, however, is that it’s a hilarious joke—and that’s one more than the actual Gallagher, who famously uses his Sledge-O-Matic to smash melons to distract from his dated pop-culture references and embarrassingly juvenile “observational” humor. Ironically, Metallagher doesn’t need any distractions: Its thundering renditions of pre-Black Album Metallica songs are surprisingly spot-on, with faux-Gallagher doing a passable James Hetfield when he’s not offering his deliberately weak punch lines. Together they make for one of the most bafflingly entertaining times you’re likely to have in all of 2010, so go ahead and peak early with this New Year’s Eve show that also features Altercation Comedy honcho JT Habersaat and cover bands Empty Bottles (Murder City Devils), Stabba (ABBA), and Manzig (duh).

Source:
http://www.avclub.com/austin/events/metallagher-jt-habersaat-empty-bottles-stabba-and,148601/

12/11/09 News Update For Metallagher Fans

Review of The Gallagher & Metallagher Show

From The City Pages:
Gallagher and Metallagher make for an unholy union at Station 4
By Tigger Lunney in Concert Review
Fri., Dec. 11 2009 @ 10:36AM

Photos by Steve Cohen
When the show was announced, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for profound disaster: Prop-comedy hippie/conservative comedy "legend" Gallagher, on tour in Saint Paul, would be performing with local metal/comedy act Metallagher. Rumors swirled: would they perform together? (No.) Would the notoriously critical comedian and ruthlessly satirical band clash on stage? (No.) Would there be beer bongs? (No.) Who actually goes to a Gallagher show anymore? (A lot of people, apparently.)

Inside Station 4, the front of the show room had been blocked off for those who paid $20 for good seats, with a barricade keeping the standing crowd out. It was by the barricade that I first saw the man himself: no suspenders, no hat, no striped sweater, just a guy with graying long hair working the room in a pre-show meet and greet he'd done a thousand times before. After a few dozen photos he strode directly on stage, no costume change, and immediately launched into a set that somehow managed to be offensive, bitter, rambling, anachronistic, and self-parodying all at once.

Gays. Lesbians. Arabs. "China-people." Gang members. Celebrity "whores." Just a few targets of Gallagher's uniquely self-centered conservative view of social order. The crowd, an uncomfortable mix of dedicated fans, irony-seekers, punks, and metalheads, had an equally mixed reaction. There were plenty of people in hysterics and even a few cheering and clapping like they were at a Michelle Bachmann rally. Elsewhere, some folks weren't so impressed: boos, groans, and, at one point, a patron said, frustrated, "It's not fair that this guy outlived George Carlin."



Ultimately, though, the act was about smashing food, almost 90 minutes building up to that grand finale, all with a hint of tired cynicism. The denouement, however, best served those in the pricey seats; the rest of the room was so crowded that it was hard to see what Gallagher was doing, and it ended almost as quickly as it started.


After a pace-killing break to move chairs and clean up, Metallagher took the stage, singer/"impersonator" Brent Hedtke in more-Gallagher-than-Gallagher regalia, down to the hat and sweater. The rest of the band brought the Metallica side of the equation in full force, ripping through a number of beloved, mostly old-school songs, while Hedtke mostly skipped the customary between-song jokes (perhaps because of the notoriously anti-opening act Gallagher) and stuck with showering the audience with smashed watermelons, mystery fluid from a giant squirtgun, and a freshly delivered pizza (smashed by the delivery driver himself).



Still, the fun came with an awareness of what we'd just witnessed. "You guys like Gallagher?" Hedtke asked. "I liked the racist parts," someone yelled back. On a few occasions Hedtke seemed tempted to break into an actual Gallagher joke and then thought better of it, as if the absurd, cynical experience of the actual Gallagher had left no room for anything else.

"I'm using Gallagher's stage hammer tonight," Hedtke announced, "and I don't know how I feel about it."


Source:
http://blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/2009/12/gallagher_and_m.php?page=1



More pics from the show!

City Pages A-List Show

Gallagher

Bryan Miller

Yes, that Gallagher, he of '80s comedy fame whose TV specials were ubiquitous in the bad old days of Reagan. The one-named comedian is best known for his Sledge-O-Matic, a giant wooden mallet he uses to pound various food items, mostly fruit, into smithereens. But while the dinner-destroying gimmick has come to define him, casting Gallagher as a novelty act (which, okay, he kind of is), his mostly innocuous material was laced with populist anger at yuppies and rampant Republicanism. Following the man himself is the heavy-metal concept band Metallagher, which is exactly what it sounds like: a group of dudes doing Metallica covers while the lead singer dons a Gallagher getup and smashes yet more fruit. The band's co-founders cooked up the quirky idea while detoxing in a drunk tank. Lead singer Brent Hedke says he hopes the real Gallagher appreciates the joke. "In his defense...at this point I'm more or less doing an impression of someone doing an impression of him and apparently that person is a fat, drunk lunatic. Hopefully he gets that we're not shitting on him or doing it out of malice. It's just a funny idea that I like to think I would be cool with were I the target of it. Basically what I'm saying is that he's probably going to try and murder me."* Tickets are $10, or $20 to sit close enough to absorb melon shrapnel. 21+.



Source:
http://www.citypages.com/events/gallagher-1156623/

*This quote was taken from a City Pages interview.
Read the full interview here.