by Klaus Kinski

Unwigged & Unplugged & Elvis Costello @ the Beacon - 5/26/09 (andyg_flickr)

Last night (5/26) I caught the first of two performances of UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED: An Evening with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer at the gorgeously restored Beacon Theater. As much as I love (and cannot imagine a life without) the music-centric films This Is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, and Waiting For Guffman, the thought of an acoustic, out of character, 'greatest hits' set initially struck me as crass commercialism at its worst. And, hell, maybe it was crass commercialism at it's worst; but holy moly if those dudes didn't slap the smug, cross-armed look off my face within the first five chords.

Their re-orchestrations of Tap classics to fit a folk mold were awe-inspiring works of genius. Highlights from the set included Hell Hole, Saucy Jack, The Bulging River, Stonehenge, Start Me Up, A Mighty Wind, Eat At Joes, and Sex Farm. But the major holy shitballs moment of the evening was when the trio backed up ELVIS COSTELLO for an extremely ballsy rendition of Gimme Some Money. The event wasn't without its minor clams though. I felt that the show was about 30 minutes too long and that the stage banter was at times too long winded, self-indulgent, dated, and often unfunny (ie, poking fun at the lack of music played on MTV). That said, these guys can really play and sing and for the most part they had me busting a gut and admiring their very real skills as musicians. Add to that the brief video interludes featuring vintage, rare Tap footage and a couple of fan-made music videos, and I had myself one helluva time.

While looking around for a setlist of the show, I came across this livejournal entry that talks about a different Unwigged show, but nonetheless pretty closely describes the basic format and pacing of the Beacon show I saw. Catch them at the same venue, again tonight (5/27). Some videos from last night below...

Continue reading "Christopher Guest, Michael McKean & Harry Shearer (& Elvis Costello) were Unwigged & Unplugged @ Beacon Theater"

Tickets are on sale (@10am) for the recently added Unwigged & Unplugged (Spinal Tap) show at The Beacon Theatre.

Tickets for Metallica's MSG show go on "Internet Presale" at 10am [ password(s) = TRUNK and/or hemetal ]. Regular sale starts Saturday.

Spoof band Spinal Tap have announced a "world tour" consisting of a single June date at London's Wembley Arena.

The tour marks the 25th anniversary of mockumentary film, This is Spinal Tap, which launched the band's career.

The band will be backed by 1960s folk trio The Folksmen, the focus of another spoof film, 2003's A Mighty Wind.

Spinal Tap's lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel commented: "If we're going to do a World tour on only one night, at least it's this world."

Bassist Derek Smalls added: "one night is not enough, and it's way too much". [BB C]

Christopher Guest, Michael McKean & Harry Shearer, the men wearing the wigs in Spinal Tap, aren't going on a world tour, but they are going on a much larger tour which includes 2 NYC shows at Beacon Theater. One (5/26) has been on sale for over a month. One (5/27), though initially announced by the band, was just announced by the venue.

Tickets for the March May 27th show at Beacon Theater go on pre-sale this morning at 10 am. [ Password = UNWIGGED ]. Regular sale starts 24 hours later.

Video from Spinal Tap's 2007 Live Earth appearance, below...

Continue reading "2nd Unwigged show PRESALE & a Spinal Tap "World Tour""

Tickets are on sale (@ 10 AM) for the May 26th Unwigged & Unplugged (acoustic, costumeless Spinal Tap) show at the Beacon Theater. A second show is not on sale at all yet.

Tickets are on Friends and Family presale (@ 10 AM) for the May 16th Leonard Cohen show at Radio City Music Hall. I think the password is JARKKO. There is also a 2nd presale at the same link that starts 24 hour later. The password for one of them might also be thisisnottherealone, but then again that last one spells out "This is not the real one", so it might mean what it says. If you know it, feel free to post in the comments. A second show is not on sale at all yet.

Tickets are still on sale for the show The Decemberists are playing at Radio City. Tickets go on sale (@ 10 AM) for the show The Decemberists are playing with Andrew Bird at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD.

I keep forgetting to put into writing that The Twilight Sad are touring with, and opening all three Brooklyn shows for, Mogwai. Tickets are on sale.

I've never heard a bad review of a Lez Zeppelin show. That's probably related to the reason the Led Zeppelin cover band is headlining a venue as big as Webster Hall on on May 14th. Tickets are on sale.

Christopher Guest had a one-season stint, 1984-85, as a cast member on NBC's Saturday Night Live. Recurring characters on SNL played by Guest include: Frankie, of Willie and Frankie (two co-workers who recount in detail physically painful situations in which they've found themselves); Herb Minkman, a shady novelty toymaker with a brother named Al (played by Billy Crystal); Rajeev Vindaloo, an eccentric foreign man in the same vein as Andy Kaufman's Latka character from Taxi; and Senor Cosa, a Spanish ventriloquist often seen on the recurring spoof of The Joe Franklin Show. He also experimented behind the camera with pre-filmed sketches, notably directing a documentary-style short starring Harry Shearer and Martin Short as synchronized swimmers. In another short film from SNL, Guest and Crystal appear as retired Negro-League baseball players, "The Rooster and the King."

He has also appeared as Count Rugen in The Princess Bride, Charley Ford in The Long Riders, Lord Cromer in Mrs Henderson Presents and Dr. Stone in A Few Good Men. He had a cameo role as Dylan, a smarmy pedestrian, in the 1986 remake of The Little Shop of Horrors. As a co-writer and director, Guest made the Hollywood satire The Big Picture.

Guest's biggest role of the first two decades of his career, however, is likely that of Nigel Tufnel in the 1984 "rockumentary" film This Is Spinal Tap. Amplifier manufacturers actually began to produce amps with knobs going up to 11 (rather than the traditional scale of 10), as a result of a popular scene where a benighted Tufnel proudly shows off such an amp, believing it to be louder. "This one goes to 11!" has become something of a mantra among musicians ever since. Guest made his first appearance as Tufnel on the 1978 sketch comedy program The TV Show, and appears as Tufnel most recently in a television ad for Volkswagen. [Wikipedia]

Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer will be performing songs from Spinal Tap, Break Like The Wind, and A Mighty Wind on the UNWIGGED & UNPLUGGED TOUR this spring.

Tickets for the first of two NYC shows at the Beacon Theater go on "Internet presale" today, Thursday, at 10 AM. PASSWORD = UNWIGGED

The trio made two separate videos promoting the tour. Check them out below...

Continue reading "Spinal Tap (Unwigged & Unplugged) - Beacon Theater PRESALE & tour-related videos"