Benefit ‘brings the thunder’

Near the beginning of Monday’s tsunami relief benefit concert at the Wiltern LG, the show’s headliners, Tenacious D, were telling the capacity crowd of 2,000-plus about the awesomeness of the performers to come. This caused Kyle Gass, the duo’s rotund, shaven-headed half, to wonder aloud about the wisdom of trying to follow such acts as Beck, Will Ferrell and Eddie Vedder.

His partner, Jack Black, fixed him with a contemptuous glare. “What does that mean?” he said. “Are you afraid we’re not gonna bring the thunder?”

That’s the kind of grandiose verbiage that’s helped Gass and Black turn Tenacious D into a thriving concern. Their live shows, HBO series and major-label album have cultivated an audience drawn to their Spinal Tap-like skewering of rock cliches.

Their governing attitude -- mocking, ironic and glib -- made for an odd contrast with the role of philanthropists they had to assume Monday. But the evening generally steered clear of heart-tugging appeals for the victims of the disaster, and Black does have a core of sweetness that can cut the sarcasm, as he’s shown in such films as “School of Rock.”

That might have softened him a bit as he interrogated a Red Cross representative, who hung in gamely as Black grilled her about such matters as the percentage of funds that gets to those in need. (The concert raised an estimated $200,000, from ticket proceeds and corporate and personal donations, for Music for Relief, organizers reported Tuesday.)

The overall tone of the nearly three-hour concert was low-key and easygoing, with the featured solo musicians -- Beck, Pearl Jam’s Vedder, the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and Queens of the Stone Age leader Josh Homme -- each playing an acoustic set of four or so songs.

There was a bit of intermingling (which Black was happy to make fun of too). Grohl played guitar behind Homme on one of his songs, and Gass joined Vedder on the Beatles’ “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.”

The music’s narrow dynamic range and largely solemn mood might have been better suited for a seated concert than one where most of the audience stood on an open floor, but there were occasional jolts of energy.

In the only pointed political comment, Vedder lighted into the U.S. government for not contributing billions of dollars to the cause. And surprise guest Chris Rock strafed the room with some salacious remarks about Ray Charles’ sex life and his own unique way of observing Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Ferrell, the show’s billed comedian, opened the evening by welcoming the audience and affirming that there would be no lip-syncing, then singing a Coldplay song that just might have been lip-synced, given that he was eating a sandwich during much of it.

He then lay low until Beck’s set, which he disrupted by emerging in a rose-hued unitard to perform a free-form dance during “Lost Cause.” Beck kept banishing him, but Ferrell sneaked back long enough to defile the singer’s pump organ. Purely pantomime, one hopes.

If you’re going to mock the rock you’d better walk the walk. Tenacious D understands that principle, and in their closing set they made sure that every over-the-top musical gesture was delivered with bracing precision. Their fusillade of acoustic guitar strumming framed vocals from Black that went from banshee’s shriek to demon’s growl at a breakneck pace.

With their delusions of grandeur and ridiculous self-confidence, they’re spoofing the attitude as well as the excesses of classic rock and metal, but they’re also celebrating the air-guitar aspirations of every starry-eyed teenager. It didn’t take much for them to cross from their own comedic material to energized medleys from “Tommy” and “Abbey Road.”

The show ended with all the participants forming a full band, with Homme playing bass and Grohl back in his Nirvana position of drummer, rocking through a couple of L.A. classics, the Chambers Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today” and the Byrds’ “So You Want to be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.” At a moment like that, it seemed like a fine idea.