Otto & Astrid’s Joint Solo Project

If punk was not a reputably recognised rock and roll sub-genre, and Otto and Astrid were not already declared ‘Die Rotten Punkte’ (The Red Dots), l would label them as ‘Les Enfant Terribles. They are here for the Melbourne Comedy Festival with their fabulous wacky new rock show.

The two infamous siblings spent years bickering about which songs should appear on their much anticipated fifth album and so it goes in the show business world. Unable to come to an amicable agreement, they decided to tour separately with their own musicians. Unfortunately, nobody wanted to play with them, so they got stuck being each other’s backing band in a joint solo project.

A faux rock comedy is what to expect, Australian born and Berlin bred, or so we are led to believe, in the tradition of the eighties musical comedy Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984) and the allusive duo The White Stripes, Otto and Astrid are a local comedy crowd favourite.

The audience roars with excitement when the lights go down and the laser lights hit the stage for Otto, who picks up one of his miniature guitars; white faced wearing red lipstick, he sings his heart out with soul wrenching agony, and later thanks his idol Ed Sheeran for the inspiration. The audience giggle and some laugh, Astrid rocks up causing a racket in the middle of Otto’s next song. She is the rambunctious punk princess while Otto is the sensitive new age rock prince. Both persistently cause musical havoc and hilarious conundrum in the duo comic tradition of Laurel and Hardy for the entire duration of the show.

Astrid is a great drummer; she rules the stage banging away with style and finesse on her miniature drum kit wearing her frilly red faux fur bomber jacket. She woos us in with her new song “I Wanna Be Your Kitten, Baby”, she has a vivacious, saucy, and sweet voice for her classic mock-up of Iggy and The Stooges, “I Wanna be Your Dog”, she is a pop star in her own right and so is Otto. Otto has the audience in fits of laughter when he breaks out into a Depeche Mode inspired eighties mood music number with “Sandwich in Heaven”.

These guys are a match made in heaven or maybe hell. Their show formula works, often hilarious and always entertaining to an audience who loves them dearly. A great show!

Flora Georgiou

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Photographer: Aaron Walker Photography