Spinal Tap concert review

Review by The Movie Snob

The three stars of This Is Spinal Tap (Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer) are touring with a show called "Unwigged and Unplugged," and I saw their performance in Dallas this evening. I thoroughly enjoyed it. They played for almost two hours, and they covered many of the most memorable songs from Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind, interspersed with some comedic repartee and some reminiscences about the movies. They even took some questions from the audience. (They were all softball questions from gushing fans, as I recall. If I had gotten the mic and screwed up the courage, I would've asked Guest what happened to make his last movie, For Your Consideration, such a misfire.) The guys play and sing well enough for me, and of course the material is hilarious. Of course, the songs from Spinal Tap sounded a lot different in these acoustic renditions, but the crowd still ate up "Stonehenge," "Give Me Some Money," "The Majesty of Rock," "Listen to the Flower People," "Big Bottoms," etc. The songs from A Mighty Wind sounded pretty much the same as in the movie, with McKean's wife Annette O'Toole joining the band for "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" and "The Good Book Song." They did some other songs I'd never heard before, which were all enjoyable enough except for one unfortunately scatological one about Elvis Presley. And they did a very funny, very sped-up version of "Start Me Up" by The Rolling Stones. I give this show an A.