The latest show on Tenacious D’s Australian tour has been postponed after senator Ralph Babet demanded the pair be deported following an apparent joke about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
American comedy rock duo Jack Black and Kyle Gass were due to perform in Newcastle on Tuesday evening, but the show – part of the band’s Spicy Meatball Tour – was cancelled without notice on Tuesday afternoon.
Concert promoter Frontier Touring said on social media that it regretted “to advise that Tenacious D’s concert tonight at Newcastle Entertainment Centre has been postponed”.
Video from the event showed (Kyle) Gass being presented with a birthday cake and told to “make a wish” as he blew out the candles. Gass then appeared to say “don’t miss Trump next time” – just hours after the shooting at Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania that left the former president injured.
Jack is absolutely doing PR damage control. Even if he agrees and thinks it’s funny, that comment isn’t awesome for either of their image.
Even if you hate Trump and would have been fine with him getting assassinated, you can’t just go around saying shit like that. The right is (very rightly) on blast for constantly saying shit like this, and it works both ways.
I just hope they figure something out and get back on track with the tour/band.
That’s so upsetting, mostly because fuck anyone that takes that joke as a legitimate call to violence from some of the nicest guys to have ever toured.
I think you absolutely CAN make those jokes, and you should. Nothing is ‘sacred’ as a space for jokes, and surely not the literal satanic piss stain. The ‘right’ gets put on blast for making legitimate calls to violence, and making jokes. You have to do both.
This pearl clutching over “wish he died” jokes is so stupidly puritanical. The world WOULD be a better place if he hadn’t pulled through, the same that it would have been if Bush had been taken out before the 27 middle east invasions. Same if you’d dropped Duterte off a building, Putin out of a window, Mussolini (his granddaughter, the people already got to the man himself) off a cliff. Authoritarians and warmongers and xenophobics have no place in the realm of polite, they gave up their seat, and so they can sit on the stage and be mocked for the spectacle they are.
Yup, I expect they’ll lay low for a while (Jack’s got plenty of other stuff to focus on, and I’m sure he doesn’t want any of his other work impacted by blowback).