Tim Minchin and his Orchestra (MEN, 17/12/10)

Last night we had our last trip out to an event for the year (next week's holiday in Copenhagen not included) with Tim Minchin at the MEN. We stumbled across the long-haired Australian comic's stand up show on E4 last year and were creased up laughing the whole way through, so I picked up his 3 albums and eagerly booked for the live show. Tim certainly did not disappoint, which is lucky as I think this was the show I'd most looked forward to all year. 

The set list ran as follows (at least this is the tracklisting of the live at the 02 CD), those marked with an * are Tim Minchin 'classics':

1. I'm in a Cage
2. Rock and Roll Nerd*
3. Cont
4. If I Didn't Have You*
5. Thank You God
6. You Grew On Me*
7. The Fence
8. Prejudice*
9. Lullaby
10. The Pope Song (+ Disco)
11. Cheese
12. Beauty
13. Dark Side*
14. Not Perfect*
15. White Wine in the Sun*

Tim has a great voice and he's a master on the piano. His songs are subversive, side-splitting and make a heck of a lot of sense. Tackling racism, bigotry, religion and relationships, Tim's songs often start out sincere enough and then reality and logic creep in as his dextrous lyrics finish off tenets of Christianity, proper child-rearing techniques and prejudice in general. The odd song like Beauty and White Wine in the Sun are less about the funny and are more heartfelt, and provide a real showcase for Tim's emotive voice. 

Songs such as Dark Side and the extremely sweary Pope Song (which sounded like the South Park movie's Uncle Fukka) really showed how much his orchestra added to the aural mix. They turned the songs into real spectacles. Between songs, Tim was very amusing, and proved adept at improvisation too, but it's in the songs that his genius really emerges and shines. I can't wait to rip his live CD to my MP3 player and enjoy these songs, old and new, all over again.