Jack McGee
Wilson Dixon has the seemingly unenviable position of the 9:45 slot on a Thursday night. Extra concerning, his demo is older than most of our usual Te Whanganui-a-tara crowds - it's a rare experience to look around the room in Tapere Nui and not recognise any of the usual faces. Instead, these are all people with day jobs, families. Dixon is a TV approved presence, he’s been building his audience for over a decade, and it shows. There’s not a drop of angst or resentment in the room for the late start time, instead there’s a healthy sprinkle of hooting and hollering. I’m coming in blind, and my interest is piqued. Who is the cowboy who’s show launched a thousand babysitters?
’m going to be boring and a bit of a square here, and explain the bit. Wilson Dixon, the country star from Cripple Creek Colorado, is a character created by Tamaki Makaurau comedian and actor Jesse Griffin. This, delightfully, requires a Google. Griffin’s accent and mannerisms as Dixon are so on-point, that you’d be forgiven for assuming that he was being performed by someone born stateside. I love the commitment to the bit here, and it makes for a wonderfully immersive experience where it’s easy to get swept away in the nonsense.
The cleverest thing about the Dixon conceit, is that it allows Griffin to make fun of both the US and Aotearoa. He can deliver observational humour about NZ (“Palmerston North? That city’s not really pulling its weight.”) as an outsider, while mocking the States (“Heard you guys had an election. Gonna accept it?”). Overall, Love Don’t Live Here Anymore is an exercise in American Stereotypes with Dixon layering in characters like Uncle Cletus, or a conspiracy-obsessed brother named Dennis, as the subjects of stories and songs sung by his McConaughey-voiced alter-ego.
I’ll admit this is the wall I hit with Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, which is undoubtedly a well crafted show by an experienced professional. Unlike a lot of work I’ve seen this festival, Don’t Live Here Anymore feels like the finished version of itself. My struggle with it is its subject matter, which often feels uninspired. Much like the rest of the world I am not beyond laughing at the home of the brave, but it all feels a little done to death at this point, not to mention the added sadness that comes with talking about the conservative brain-rot leeching its way through the 50 states. Dixon trades in slightly tired anecdotes of cowboy misadventure and “my-goddamn-ex-wife” resentment. Within all of this subject matter, he finds some great gags and moments of brilliance but I feel like I’m paddling upstream to get there. The show never gets better for me than when it’s looking inwards at Aotearoa, where this inside-outsider-dynamic gets to shine brightest.
So far, I’ve been talking around Dixon’s music. All beautifully introduced alongside the names of the fictional albums they’re ripped from (My favourite, his debut - Wilson Dixon’s Greatest Hits), his songs are elegant, if a little samey. While they bypass the need for repetitive choruses, instead serving as a joke delivery vehicle, they tend to follow a similar musical structure, where Dixon basically strings together a bunch of two-liners. Set up, payoff, set-up, payoff, guitar strumming in the background. There’s no individual song to pull-apart and scrutinise, as they’re all borderline immaculate - the issue is how they blur into each other over the course of the evening.
From a craft perspective, Love Don’t Live Here Anymore is a highlight of the fest, and if you can get past the slightly stale subject matter there’s a great show there. I’m left wanting more from it however, there’s something a little frustrating about seeing someone this spectacular playing in shallow waters.
The cleverest thing about the Dixon conceit, is that it allows Griffin to make fun of both the US and Aotearoa. He can deliver observational humour about NZ (“Palmerston North? That city’s not really pulling its weight.”) as an outsider, while mocking the States (“Heard you guys had an election. Gonna accept it?”). Overall, Love Don’t Live Here Anymore is an exercise in American Stereotypes with Dixon layering in characters like Uncle Cletus, or a conspiracy-obsessed brother named Dennis, as the subjects of stories and songs sung by his McConaughey-voiced alter-ego.
I’ll admit this is the wall I hit with Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, which is undoubtedly a well crafted show by an experienced professional. Unlike a lot of work I’ve seen this festival, Don’t Live Here Anymore feels like the finished version of itself. My struggle with it is its subject matter, which often feels uninspired. Much like the rest of the world I am not beyond laughing at the home of the brave, but it all feels a little done to death at this point, not to mention the added sadness that comes with talking about the conservative brain-rot leeching its way through the 50 states. Dixon trades in slightly tired anecdotes of cowboy misadventure and “my-goddamn-ex-wife” resentment. Within all of this subject matter, he finds some great gags and moments of brilliance but I feel like I’m paddling upstream to get there. The show never gets better for me than when it’s looking inwards at Aotearoa, where this inside-outsider-dynamic gets to shine brightest.
So far, I’ve been talking around Dixon’s music. All beautifully introduced alongside the names of the fictional albums they’re ripped from (My favourite, his debut - Wilson Dixon’s Greatest Hits), his songs are elegant, if a little samey. While they bypass the need for repetitive choruses, instead serving as a joke delivery vehicle, they tend to follow a similar musical structure, where Dixon basically strings together a bunch of two-liners. Set up, payoff, set-up, payoff, guitar strumming in the background. There’s no individual song to pull-apart and scrutinise, as they’re all borderline immaculate - the issue is how they blur into each other over the course of the evening.
From a craft perspective, Love Don’t Live Here Anymore is a highlight of the fest, and if you can get past the slightly stale subject matter there’s a great show there. I’m left wanting more from it however, there’s something a little frustrating about seeing someone this spectacular playing in shallow waters.