Wild Colonial Psychos Live at the Troccadero

Anyone wishing to learn some swears, look no further. This live performance by two of Australia’s most notorious celebrities will have you swearing like a sailor in no time.

Shot over the course of one evening’s performance at the Troccadero, and duly edited to remove those tedious lulls and nuances accorded with such a live gig, we have a 76-minute showcase of stories and humourous anecdotes related by these two unabashed Aussie entrepreneurs.

Opening with the Duelling Banjos theme from Deliverance (is this to set the theme?) we are then introduced to Mark ‘Jacko’ Jackson as he sprays us with his rhetoric of unfunny jokes and anecdotes taken from his footballing and Hollywood careers. There’s no doubt Jacko has had an interesting career and a varied array of experience, but as a public comedian/speaker he is fairly unfunny and clichéd – I managed to catch at least one urban myth included and modified for his own purposes.

Later on, when he speaks direct to the camera away from the crowd, he becomes a fairly regular type of guy and is even likeable (to an extent), but onstage he is loaded with swears and not enough content to his wildly erratic set. For some reason he skims through his whole career and misses some golden opportunities to digress into what sounds like a chunky storyline in favour of moving on. I don’t think this occurred due to editing, but I may be wrong on that.

Following Jacko’s lacklustre opening however, we have the enigmatic Australian anti-hero of Mark Brandon Read, affectionately known as ‘Chopper’. I must admit to never having heard a comedic set anything like this in all my life. Interspersed with stories of his criminal career and novel atrocities, Read is still rather mesmerising, regardless of some of the brutal content of his monologue. While I sincerely felt queasy regarding some of this, I was still fascinated by this career choice of Chopper’s and the ease with which his story is told. He is neither repentant nor gloating, and in this his diatribe is all the more objective in the telling and perhaps the more truthful. He sounds genuine anyway and also goes into length about the filmmaking process and clears up some misnomers from the film Chopper, in which he was played by Eric Bana.

"Just because you do a good thing, doesn’t mean it’s for the right reason..."

Overall the performance is interesting, but as a warm up act Jacko needs to go over his material a little and deliver it better. If he tweaked some stuff and cut some stuff, he’d have a better act to begin with. Between the two there are some sexist and homophobic comments that might put some off, but the honesty in the majority of the set seems to put it into context.

Shot on video, the quality is naturally that of video. The lighting isn’t great – moments of more than enough and more than that abound. There are some moments of grain, but thankfully these don’t appear regularly and moreso in the poorly lit backstage cutaways. The sets are edited with outtakes, crowd soundbites, interviews and such to keep the overall DVD moving along, and this works well for it. There is a definite call for moments we may need to compose our thoughts and these cutaways work well for that. Otherwise this looks pretty much like a live performance shot inside a bigger club. Which is exactly what it is.

This is delivered in Dolby Digital stereo and it does its job fairly well. Dialogue is mostly well understood although naturally, there are moments of using real names in which we get the good old beeeep over the top. This was a surprise at first, but it becomes a lot more prevalent as Chopper goes into depth on certain stories. There is background crowd noise, though in Chopper’s set this seems a bit more muted than in the slowly increasing hum during Jacko’s.

Let’s just say here that the audio is suitable for the piece and does its job satisfactorily.

What looks like many is actually not much. Seven entries here that have been cropped from the show or other places during recording for this DVD. The first is a brief soundbite interview during breakfast that highlights the dangers Jacko and Chopper have faced in doing the tour. This runs for 1:51 and is certainly interesting...

Next up is a rather funny story by Chopper about the unions. This runs for 3:41 and is entitled No Ticket, No Start. Another quick vignette from Jacko and Chopper entitled The Football Godfather documents how they met many years ago and is again short at 2:03.

Femmes Fatales is another outtake from backstage and about the only opportunity to get some chicks into the film. A couple of scantily clad promo girls backstage getting ready for the show, this is pretty worthless at 2:29. Next comes a short 16 second commercial for King’s Auto Trim in Townsville that I assume went to air up there. Bit silly.

The second to last piece is the highlight of the extras in a fascinating story told by Chopper of ancient Italy and the Spanish Inquisition entitled Hookey the Cripple. Apparently only told for the DVD, this isn’t a tale Chopper drags out very often and he tells it well and with building tension. This goes for the right length at 9:52 and, as noted, is the highlight.

Finally, the balaclava-clad security staff on the tour of Mr Knock and Mr Hyde discuss their effectiveness on the tour in a ‘humorous’ featurette. I wish they hadn’t bothered. It’s poorly scripted (if at all) and pretty unfunny stretching into the far distance at 15:22. There is one good shot of the view out the hotel window though.

So, little more than padding for a shorter feature here, but I suppose a worthwhile series for fans of Read or Jackson.

The type of humour utilised by both performers here isn’t exactly to my tastes, but I imagine there are a reasonable proportion of fans who will find entertainment here. Fans of Chopper’s books will hear a few repeats here, but hearing him speak of his adventures is worth that I think. He is certainly charismatic in his dictum and he is the glue holding this live DVD together.

Jackson isn’t the best way to open this DVD, as his rhetoric is a little annoying and too urgently told. This aggressive impact is quite the opposite to comparatively soft-spoken Read and effectively divides the performance down the middle.

Still, for fans of either guy you’ll find much to enjoy here as they impart their collective wisdom upon us. OI!