IS Carnegie Hall ready for Spinal Tap?
Spinal Tap, the English hard-mock band with a mega cult following, will realize every musician’s dream when they play Carnegie Hall on June 4 as part of the Ninth Annual Toyota Comedy Festival.
“It’s a dream come true for us, probably no one else,” says David St. Hubbins, the band’s lead singer.
“For the most part it will be a good-natured trip down memory lane, maybe due to the fact we can’t seem to write anything new,” St. Hubbins adds.
The show is part of the band’s “Back from the Dead” tour, their first New York concert gig since their “Break Like the Wind” tour in 1992. Hubbins plans on blasting fans at Carnegie Hall with their big hits, such as “Big Bottom,” “Tonight We’re Going to Rock You Tonight” and “Stonehenge.”
As the band members tell it, Spinal Tap formed in the mid ’60s, rising from the ashes of such groups as the Originals, the New Originals and the Thamesmen.
In reality, the group was born in 1984 with the release of the film “This Is Spinal Tap,” a pre-“Behind the Music”-style mockumentary which invented the wacky band and its four members.
Playing Carnegie Hall will be the stars of the film: Michael McKean as St. Hubbins, Christopher Guest as Nigel Tufnel on lead guitar and Harry Shearer as Derek Smalls on bass.
Skippy Scuffleton will join the band as the drummer, which is a perilous endeavor given that band’s countless drummers have all died in freak accidents.
“We’re very frank with them. We ask drummers if they have any immediate family, if they say, ‘yeah me mom’s still with us,’ we can’t take them along,” says St. Hubbins. “Skippy’s seemed to have made his peace with the world. He has no immediate family. He’ll work out fine.”
In the band’s playlist, St. Hubbins says, “I’d like to throw in a Noel Coward piece, because I’ve been studying his technique.”
His technique? “It’s enormous cleverness. Imagine playing that trick on the public.”
As for playing Carnegie Hall, St. Hubbins says, “not being a classical musician of course, it’s not even part of the dream, but there we are and we thank the fine folks at the Toyota Comedy Festival for making this terrible mistake.”
The Toyota Comedy Festival, which runs from June 1 through June 10, will also feature the NY Friars Club Roast of Richard Belzer with roast master Paul Shaffer, The Smothers Brothers in their first New York club date in 36 years, the Loser’s Lounge in its “We’ve Only Just Begun . . . To Lose,” tribute to Paul Williams and a look-alike contest for MAD Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman.
For Spinal Tap tickets call CarnegieCharge at (212)247-7800. For information on the Toyota Comedy Festival call (888) 33-TOYOTA.