Set volume dials to eleven - legendary rockers Spinal Tap are reforming to help save the planet. It has been 23 years since the mock heavy metal group first uttered the words We are Spinal Tap from the UK - you must be the USA. Now the band, whose entire existence has comprised little more than one long comeback tour, will comeback one final time.
The rockers have been persuaded to reform by climate change campaigner Al Gore, who wants them to perform as part of the worldwide Live Earth concert in July. The group, comprising of guitarist Nigel Tufnel (played by Christopher Guest), singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), rose to cult stardom following the 1984 mockumentary This is Spinal Tap.
The film, which catalogued an aging British band s desperate comeback tour of America, provided a generation of students with catch phrases such as none more black and smell the glove. Scenes from the film - including one in which Tufnel patiently explains to an interviewer that the band s amplifiers can be turned up to eleven for that extra push over the cliff - are regarded by many comedians as among the funniest ever written. Although the film fared badly in cinemas - many audience members thought it was a badly-made genuine documentary - it became a cult hit after its release on video.
The film also spawned a conventional career of sorts for the band, with occasional concert performances and an album.
Nothing, however, has been heard of the three-piece since their 1992 record Break Like the Wind. As part of their Live Earth contribution, Spinal Tap have reportedly recorded a 15 minute consciousness raising film looking at climate change, which features them driving around in their 4x4s and leaving all the lights on in their mansions.
The short film, directed by This is Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner, will show the world what the rockers have been up to over the past 15 years. Tufnel has been raising miniature horses to race but cannot find jockeys small enough to ride them. St.
Hubbins is a hip-hop producer who also owns a colonic clinic. Smalls is in rehab for internet addiction. The band have also recorded a new song, Warmer than Hell, to contribute to the Live Earth fund.
The official line is that this will be the final, final curtain call for Tap. However, St. Hibbins has been asked once before if the band was finished, and he made perfectly clear that the best policy is to never say never.
He said: Well, I don t really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It s like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what s stopping it, and what s behind what s stopping it?
So, what s the end, you know, is my question to you.
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