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.
I lost some respect for jables here, the way he’s seemingly throwing Kage under the bus… But at the same time I can recognise that JB has always tried to keep up a positive persona. Not apolitical but he’s never been the type to promote violence directed at specific people. Kyle did him kinda dirty by doing something to potentially harm that (assuming he was truthful when he said he was blindsided by it, and not just saying that after it blew up in the news).
Not saying Kyle is wrong and Jack is right here, though. I’ve always felt a little bad for Kyle that Jack put tenacious D and therefore Kyle on the sidelines when his Hollywood career took off. Kyle was rightfully quite jaded about that and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s led him to doing this without considering the possible consequences for Jack.
The whole thing sucks for both of them, I guess.
I’ve lost some respect for shutting it down as hard as he did. I could see postponing some shows, dropping out of the Rock the Vote things they scheduled in October. Maybe more if they’re getting threats and have safety concerns now.
But going as far as to say that all future creative plans are on hold I think was too far especially. Though I can see if he truly was blindsided, that it could hurt.