Dave Hill: Big in Japan

If Dave Hill’s audience were to invent a drinking game in which they took a shot each time he says “rockin’ the fuck out”, everyone would be hospitalised within the first five minutes of the show. “It’s like a medical condition,” he complains. “I just can’t stop rockin’.”

But despite his enthusiasm, Dave’s band Valley Lodge struggle to get gigs in the US. A group of increasingly domesticated men who cancel shows when they can’t find a babysitter, they are unlikely candidates for rock’n’roll stardom. Their fortunes changed, however, when a Japanese agent offered to represent them, and they set off on tour, ready to “destroy Japan with our hot-rock jam”. 

Hill’s exaggerated storytelling and his apparently earnest belief in the greatness of his band could have easily become annoying. But his account of the tour is funny precisely because it is so overstated, and he skillfully keeps the audience on his side.

Japan seems to have fallen in love with Hill, and the feeling was clearly mutual. He is obsessed with the country's culture, with its vending machines covered in pictures of Tommy Lee Jones, with its “higher usage of exclamation marks per capita”, and above all with its space-age toilets. 

Hill’s story rarely loses pace, interspersed with songs and images and videos from the tour. But he interrupts himself before playing his final song. “I should just warn you,” he says, holding up a warning finger, “that this song is fucking incredible.”