Spinal Tap Reunited and Performed with Beck for Charity This Week

It’s time to smell the glove once again. Spinal Tap is back.  

Or it was for one night, anyway. David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel were reunited on the Largo stage earlier this week, performing a killer acoustic version of ‘Gimme Some Money.”

Beck and Loudon Wainright III joined in, all part of Judd Apatow’s effort to raise money for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. The set also included versions of ‘(Listen to the) Flower People’ and ‘All the Way Home.’

“We have come here from the 1960s,” said McKean. “Or as we call them, the 19-f***ing-60s.” That’s literally true of McKean, Guest, and Wainwright. Guest informed the crowd that he and McKean have been playing together since 1967; McKean and Wainwright met at Carnegie in 1965. Beck, not born until 1970, presumably was not part of the scene. 

Free trivia nugget: Wainright even has Spinal Tap history, cameoing as the group’s wigged-out keyboard player in the short film that introduced them in 1979.

We’ll assume this is all a warm-up for the This is Spinal Tap follow-up currently in production, with the plan to release a sequel on the 40th anniversary of the original. “Hardly a day goes by without someone saying, why don’t you do another one?” says director Rob (Marty Di Bergi) Reiner. “For so many years, we said, ‘nah.’ It wasn’t until we came up with the right idea how to do this. You don’t want to just do it to do it. You want to honor the first one and push it a little further with the story.”

The plot will involve manager Ian Faith’s widow finding a contract that proves Spinal Tap owes her one more concert. Trouble is (spoiler alert), there’s bad blood among the band members. Of course, we all know it will take more than a few cold sores to ultimately come between them. 

As generations of current bands grew up worshiping Spinal Tap, Di Bergi … er, Reiner promises plenty of musician cameos in the new doc. Will Beck show up? Too soon to tell--but let’s just hope they don’t put him on the drums.  

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Top image: Judd Apatow Instagram