On April 27, 2019 there was a 35th Anniversary screening of "This Is Spinal Tap" at the Beacon Theatre in NYC as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. The movie was billed as including a post screening discussion with Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest (Nigel Tufnel), Michael McKean (David St. Hubbins) and Harry Shearer (Derek Smalls) plus a musical performance. Having never seen Spinal Tap live, I had to take advantage of this possible last chance.
A few minutes after 8pm, Rob Reiner was introduced and came out to welcome the crowd as well as McKean and Guest who were sitting in the audience. He spoke for a couple of minutes letting the crowd know his favorite line from the film was "There's a fine line between stupid and clever" before introducing the flick.
The audience cheered during the concert scenes as if they were there in the crowd, but the loudest response of the night was when Nigel let us know his amp goes up to eleven!
When the movie ended, Rob Reiner came back out and introduced the three main cast members. They each took a seat for a 20 minute talk which was half discussion and half audience Q&A.
I wasn't sure how cool security would be with filming and I wanted to make sure to get a video of at least one song (which ended up not being an issue - I filmed the whole concert portion - video link is below), so I decided to just audio record this segment keeping my phone out of site.
I missed about the first 2 minutes where the guys start by saying how young they look on
screen which leads to how others in the movie have aged and specifically Paul
Schaffer which leads to a story about the character he was based on.
Here's a few time stamps if you care to listen to the audio at the link below:
- 00:00 starts in the middle of the story about Lou "Kick My Ass" Dennis
- 00:30 talking about early screening notes and making of the film
- 06:00 Real rock stars who auditioned (John Densmore of the Doors, Paul Stanley of Kiss, etc)
- Is it common knowledge that Paul Stanley auditioned for a role in Spinal Tap? I've never heard this before.
- Audience questions start at the seven and a half minute mark:
- 07:30 "Was it based on Iron Maiden?" No, but they bring up the influences of Uriah Heep, Van Halen, Saxon and Black Sabbath
- 11:00 "Why was the cucumber wrapped in tin foil?"
- 12:30 "Where did they learn their British Accents?"
- 13:30 "What is the deal with the herpes sores subplot that was cut from the film?" with mention of Cherie Currie of the Runaways who played lead singer of The Dose in the cut segment.
- 15:00 "What are you favorite cut scenes from the film?"
- 17:00 Christopher Guest asks for one final question which turns to mayhem and they say thank you and go get their instruments. That set is described below and yes, that is audio AND video
Here's the Discussion/Q&A audio:
The musical portion opened up with a "Celtic Blues" which led right into "Hell Hole". Sure it would have been more awesome if it was electric, but I'll take unplugged Tap over no Tap any day.
"(Listen To The) Flower People" complete with excellent shushing was next. This was followed with "Rainy Day Sun" introduced as the B-side to that excellent A-side.
The Nigel Tufnel penned "Clam Caravan" was next as it was explained the original title was "Calm Caravan" but there was a typo on the album and the song contains no clam references.
The first song Nigel and David ever wrote together, "All The Way Home," had the audience clapping along.
Before following up with "Big Bottom" the band explained how in the past they would invite all touring bassists in the area to join them on stage and they were most impressed with Robert Trujillo of Metallica and his bass playing stance which Harry Shearer demonstrated. But for tonight they would just let Shearer's bass do the talking instrumental wise with a finger snapping jazzy sing along of the classic. NOTE: My camera stopped during this song and about 30 seconds of it is missing in the middle.
A stage hand brought out an extra microphone stand as the boys told the story of the last time they played the Beacon Theatre as Spinal Tap where they decided as a joke to perform as a folk band as the opening act for the Tap metal to follow, it didn't go over well with much of that audience.
They then introduced special guest Elvis Costello who shared that he made his Carnegie Hall debut along with Spinal Tap back in 2000. The quartet performed "Gimme Some Money" together.
The night ended with a performance of "Sex Farm." Quite the blast and here's the video so you can all check it out:
Click any photos to enlarge them to full screen. Also follow on twitter @MostPeopleBlank Then, of course, as always - Rock on and Enjoy - Paul
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