Flight of the Conchords’ US reunion brings needed joy: ‘Grateful you accepted people from outside your country’

The New Zealand duo’s first performances in eight years showcase their signature wit and understated charm When Robots, Flight of the Conchords’ song about an android uprising told from the robots’ perspective, came out in 2008, it seemed like pure comedy. Now the story feels all too real, and the lyrics have been updated accordingly. “Humans invented artificial intelligence, and then they had us doing really stupid shit with it,” Jemaine Clement, in the role of a frustrated robot, explained over a beat at Los Angeles’s Greek Theater on Saturday night. “They gave us all the knowledge, deep learning, gave us the power to solve complex, scientific mathematical equations,” his bandmate Brett McKenzie added. “Then just asked us questions like, ‘How do you cook an egg?’” The opening song set the tone for the first of a pair of shows this weekend as part of the Netflix Is a Joke festival, the climax of a short run of concerts in Wellington and California that mark the New Zealand duo’s first performances in eight years. The night was peppered with reflections on the past and acknowledgments that the world has only gotten more terrifying since then, but the conce