Lonely Island deliver a mixed bag at The Met | Concert review

The Lonely Island expanded their domination of the music-comedy genre at the Met on Wednesday, one of eight stops on the group’s first ever multicity concert tour. The show comes a decade after they single-handedly connected Saturday Night Live to a generation of new viewers through their digital shorts and the release of their first album, Incredibad.

Funny, but significantly less flashy, comedians Kate Berlant and John Early opened. Berlant and Early rose to comedic renown on the backs of their outlandish and self-aware YouTube-based parodies, a continuation of the Lonely Island’s work in their reimagination of internet comedy. A truly dressed-down performance of tucked in polos and jeans, Berlant and Early reeled the audience in and out of a Wizard of Oz Lollipop Guild-inspired shtick with their playfully acerbic tit-for-tat and a wildly fun dance mash-up.

Berlant’s short stand-alone set didn’t collapse under the weight of her jokes about media personas and Uber. But Early’s more personal and politically pointed set — a mix of Donald Trump psychoanalysis, relationship paranoia, and the jarring juxtaposition of millennials’ simultaneously social-justice-driven and blasé attitudes — was a smoother and more cohesive approach to their endearingly glib humor.

Headliners Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone crashed the stage with a satisfyingly on-brand introduction: an aggressively simple bass-reverberating rendition of “We’re on Stage” — a recurring performance shtick is repeating the obvious over a beat — followed by the figurative record scratch of a five-step instructional PowerPoint for navigating a Lonely Island concert. Clearly designed for its quick but deeply ironic and self-deprecating audience — some of whom showed up dressed in their own turquoise turtlenecks, gold chains, and sunglasses — the comedic trio’s one-hour set leaned into what they were good at, for better and for worse.

Matching blue satin jackets, white blazers, and black turtlenecks abounded as Samberg, Schaffer, and Taccone delivered their trademark mix of cocksure-coyness, often to the backdrop of their music videos and famed digital shorts. Smoke sporadically billowed from the stacked stage lights as they performed their biggest hits, some of which are now more than a decade old. “The Creep,” “Like a Boss,” “Motherlover,” and “Boombox” were executed with all the frenetic audio and visual gusto of their video and album versions, resulting in a live embodiment of the group’s best work and celebrity cameos.

But there were moments where embracing this approach ultimately worked against them. Songs like “I’m On A Boat” and “I Just Had Sex” threw the crowd into a hand-waving frenzy, a level of energy that was largely unmatched throughout the rest of the show. Lonely Island has always been more of a full-bodied experience than any simple concert performance, and the packed audience’s standing trance — phones out and eyes glued to the stage as the trio glided through costume changes under frenetic light shows — signaled some failure to capture that intoxicating viscerality.

During what should have been a loud, messy cultish celebration of three epochal artists, only a handful of songs managed to spark any noticeable rowdiness. Instead, their material crafted especially for the show, including a running gag about the Ross Dress for Less at 8th and Market and an unforgettable appearance by Lonely Island character Shy Ronnie, proved why they’ve become masters of the digital humor space. Without any surprise celebrity appearances to trot out ⁠— an element of their act that has unquestionably elevated them above their fellow comedy-musicians ⁠— the show at times equated to a $40 watch-party. And that we could have just done at home.