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.
The first set of Dave’s trans jokes included him basically saying that while he doesn’t understand trans people, he ultimately accepts them for who they are. In that era I defended the jokes because I felt it was valid to joke about stuff as long as you ultimately aren’t trying to hurt, belittle, or delegitimize ordinary people. The follow-up jokes weren’t nearly as understanding and I no longer felt like Dave cared about much beyond being a dick. He seemed to double down on the punching down without bothering to build them back up again.
Anyway, there is a fundamental difference with Trump, in that he’s downright a fascist, so joking about his death isn’t exactly punching down. It’s more like wishful thinking.