Nirvanna the Band’s wild Toronto antics
Comedy series is committed to eternalizing city landmarks like Honest Ed’s, streetcars
Of all the legendary concert venues in Toronto, Nirvanna the Bandfrontmen Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol are interested in playing a show at only one: the Rivoli, a Queen St. W. club known these days for its standup comedy scene and cavernous pool hall.
In fact, playing a show at the Rivoli is entirely the premise of Nirvanna the Band the Show, Johnson and McCarrol’s hilarious new “semiscripted” television series that’s to debut weekly on Viceland on Feb. 2 and on City in March.
“It’s unanswerable why these guys want to play at the Rivoli,” says reallife Johnson, the director of the show, who plays a hyperactive version of himself in Nirvanna. “Nobody could give you an answer. It’s not like they need to play the Silver Dollar and it’s not like they need to play Massey Hall. Either of those would have seemed stupid, but the Rivoli, for whatever reason . . . ”
Johnson grins as he explains the genesis for Nirvanna the Band the Show, which began as a web series in 2007 (albeit with one fewer “n” in “Nirvanna”), ran until 2009 and, in the fall of 2015, was picked up by Vice through the support of executive producer Spike Jonze. McCarrol, a legitimate professional musician by day, remembers it equally well.
“They call themselves something really obvious, like ‘Nirvanna,’ ” recalls McCarrol, whose straight-man chops and piano talent make the perfect foil for playing Jay, his TV self, opposite Matt’s mania. “And just so there’s no confusion, they actually call themselves ‘ Nirvanna the Band.’ ”
For any established band, playing a show at the Rivoli sounds as easy as emailing their booking staff. (Or, you know, walking in.)
For Nirvanna’s Matt and Jay, however — who still haven’t figured out what their musical act will look like onstage — the Rivoli is an impenetrable fortress, well-guarded by stub- born bouncers and skeptical servers.
More pertinently, the venue is assuredly not in on the joke.
And so the joke improves. Instead of writing and rehearsing music, Matt and Jay choose to invent ways to convince the Rivoli they are deserving of a gig, rather than actually perfecting one.
“The Nirvanna the Band Christmas float!” Jay says in Episode 3 (“The Bean”), holding up a copy of the Toronto Star’s feature on the Santa Claus Parade.
“The parade route goes right by the Rivoli! The Rivoli will be watching us!” Matt replies, turning to their drawing board and brainstorming ideas for their latest scheme: stealing a pickup truck, decorating it with an assortment of ornaments and driving it to the actual parade to try to sneak their “float” in.
Such is the structure of Nirvanna the Band the Show, a high-concept, high-energy romp on Queen St. W., featuring two characters who are trapped in the 1990s and yet have never heard of the biggest band of that decade. Each episode features one crazy idea after another, always in an attempt at impressing the Rivoli, often winking at popular TV shows or movies in the process. (The pilot episode, “The Banner,” loosely resembles Jurassic Park; a later episode, “The Blindside,” spoofs Marvel’s Daredevil series.) Nirvanna the Band the Show,
Perhaps most amazing about Johnson and McCarrol’s 2017 update to their web series is their commitment to Toronto and eternalizing city landmarks like Honest Ed’s, the Toronto Reference Library and the 501 Queen streetcar — from which they were kicked off for filming, an occupational hazard of Johnson’s guerrilla-style shooting that he’s honed through two feature mockumentaries, The Dirties and Operation Avalanche.
“We’re on the streets of Toronto and we’re interacting with real people in a way that every single show made in this city isn’t,” Johnson says. “It’s the Toronto that university students care about. It’s the Toronto that, when you come to this city as a young person to live for the first time, you just go: ‘Wow.’ ”
Nirvanna the Band the Show’s wild antics will elicit similar reactions, whether you laugh or cringe at its political incorrectness. It’s supremely funny; a wonderfully fresh Canadian TV show that makes no apologies for the scenes it causes on location.
“We’re (making the show) very flagrantly flaunting the things that you’re not allowed to do on TV,” Johnson says. “I hope that Toronto gets behind it, because we are so desperately trying to make Toronto look good. Desperately.”
And when that happens, maybe the Rivoli will finally take notice.