Harry Shearer Michael McKean & Christopher Guest on "The Majesty of Rock"
Yesterday I rode up to Dallas with my co-worker Jeff for the once-in-a-lifetime chance to see Spinal Tap! Okay, it was really Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer performing Spinal Tap and Folksmen hits as themselves with acoustic arrangements. These three guys are comedy-music legends so I’d sit through them playing nursery rhymes, Nu-Metal or Sonic Youth covers while fighting the Taliban just have the opportunity.
I need this put into a shadowbox with my collection.
Thankfully I didn’t have to. Due to the generosity of Jeff, we (Jeff, me and two other co-workers) got to attend the concert as guests with backstage passes. What a thrill. I haven’t had one of those bitchin’ stickers to wear in decades. Probably not since my internship at WQFM.
So we had primo seats in the Nokia Theater which allowed us to watch the whole stage but I could easily see the details of their faces. They opened with an a capella tune from something I didn’t recognize immediately (my guess it was from A Mighty Wind), then broke into Spinal Tap’s “Hell Hole.” Harry, Michael and Christopher alternated between Tap and the Folksmen plus they threw in a couple tunes from Harry’s solo material (I definitely need to get his Elvis-style parody of “All Backed up,” a crude story for another day). Between every couple of songs, the trio told stories about their alter egos Derek, David, Nigel, Mark, Alan and Jerry, showed fan videos set to their music and some other funny skits. Everybody loved their dramatic reading of NBC’s notes on what to cut out from This is Spinal Tap to make it appropriate for network television, despite it being possibly aired at 1130 PM (Eastern/Pacific) on a Saturday evening. Later they had the house lights turned up to have a brief Q&A session with the audience. I didn’t hear anything new other than the actors confirming that they did try to have Paul Stanley in the movie and how funny Fred Willard is; they quoted Martin Mull’s warning (I paraphrase it though) about you never know when Fred will turn on his blinkers. Annette O’Toole joined them for a pair of songs, namely “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow.” The new arrangements on the Spinal Tap classics were awesome: namely redoing “Big Bottom” as a Beatnik Poetry-like song, accompanied by a Rubensesque dancer.
They autographed my copy of Break Like The Wind as the characters!
After the show we were allowed to go back stage where there was a special waiting room. Harry Shearer was the first to drop by. Sadly, Harry didn’t stay too long and requested no handshakes due to the current swine flu scare. Christopher, Michael and Annette appeared a bit later. There were other people Christopher wanted to visit first which was cool because it sounded like him knew them on a personal level. Jeff got to catch up with Annette and Michael for a few moments too; they were very sociable.
Christopher Guest who oddly didn't recall recording one of my favorite CDs of 1992.
I did get a couple minutes with Christopher yet I didn’t press beyond an autograph and photo; he seemed kind of tired. It was a bit of a bummer not to get much personal face time with either Harry or Christopher. However, these gentlemen are comedy-music legends so they deserve a generous amount of slack from any hasty judgments about their personalities; you’ll never hear me say anything negative about them. Besides, they have a big year ahead: a new album in June. I got closer than many people could ever imagine so I am still grateful to meet them while I could.
Michael McKean & Annette O'Toole; in case you didn't know, they're married.
It was a different story with Michael. He had an immediate answer to my question about Lenny & The Squigtones getting re-released (it’s tied up with Evan Bogart, the son of the famous guy behind Casablanca Records) and a correction; Peter Criss of Kiss was not on the album, contrary to the source I read. I did make him smile by knowing he attended the university now known as Carnegie-Mellon. Michael clarified that every school he went to became more famous or prestigious after he left: NYU is now Tisch (a performing arts high school) and Carnegie Tech became CMU.
If they are coming to your area. I seriously recommend you go. Seeing Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest perform is an evening well spent with a major Pop culture touchstone: SNL alumni, The Simpsons, Laverne & Shirley/Happy Days, other entertaining improvised comic films, etc. I missed their last tour as Spinal Tap in 1992 and kicked myself for years. I got a reprieve this weekend, and then some. Now to set up a countdown widget for the CD package.