Fringe: Axis Of Awesome **** Still on top of their game


Axis Of Awesome
Won’t Ever Not Stop Giving Up
Gilded Balloon Teviot (Venue 14)


Rating: ****
It’s ten years since Axis of Awesome first hit the Fringe - and they’re still at the top of their game.
The festival was a major launch pad for the Australian trio, and now, millions and millions of Youtube hits later, they are back … with a difference.
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Hide AdSince their last visit, singer Jordan has revealed she is now a transgender woman, and they deal with ‘the elephant in the room’ quite brilliantly at the start of this show - and, in doing so, set the bar pretty high for the rest of the night.


The show is a mix of old and new material.
Long-standing Axis fans - Axissians? Axisons? - will recognise them immediately, and still enjoy hearing them one more time from a band that is slick, sharp and completely at home on stage.
They pack a lot into an hour of comedy and music.
Benny has a Will Smith obsession going on, breaking into raps every now and then which he says he has co-written for the great man’s movies, while Lee’s Johnny Cash routine is simply off the wall.
Add in a bonkers song about KFC - it’ll make you laugh rather than make you hungry for some finger-lickin’ chicken - and one about an octopus, and then bring it altogether with a smashing update on ‘Four Chords’ in which they nail 36 hit songs with the same chord structure and they wrap it up on the highest possible note; the perfect bookend to a slick, sharp opening number.
Long standing fans will love it, and newbies will soon get into the swing of the Axis style.